Expressions of Trauma in Latin America

I’m going back to Canada after seven months in Latin America (my longest yet). I lived in Costa Rica and I visited Nicaragua and several states of Mexico.

The closest and most intimate contact I’ve had with the places I’ve travelled is in romantic relationships. Here is where I see first-hand the cunning and strength and manipulation and competition it takes to survive on a daily basis. I experience the complexity of their family trauma when they play psychological games. I feel the insecurity of the Latin American psyche when he gives his attention to other women. I experience it inside my own mind and heart, I touch it directly through the way men treat me.

I feel the heartbreak and try to witness it without identifying with it. It feels so overwhelming, it feels greater than the lives of two people. I try to listen to the unspoken words of the collective, voices silenced by fear and shame. Celine Dion sings on my playlist: Don’t give up on your faith, love comes to those who believe it. It’s a different message than the tragic bachata songs I’ve been listening to all year.

I’m starting to understand what it means to be Canadian vs. the rest of the world. All the social problems I’ve seen is enough to make me depressed but when I’m surrounded by darkness I remember that I am the light. But for others, hope and resilience and enthusiasm and faith are harder to reach for because life is harder. That’s a sad fact. We like to glamorize the ‘indomitable spirit of the underdog’ and it’s true as an anomaly but then why is there so much gang violence in places with more poverty? What about the average person with an average amount of willpower?

Poverty is more than having no money. Poverty looks like I had no father because he gave up. Poverty looks like my mother neglects me because she’s too depressed. Poverty looks like I don’t know where I belong so I’m going to join a gang.

It’s the lack of love that’s the greatest poverty. So many people have it the least when they need it the most. It’s not weak to need to be loved, but if you are surrounded by forms of rejection all around you, it can start to feel like a stupid risk.

The street markets are filled with cheap knockoffs of shoes and brand name clothes. Lust, pride, power, drugs— how easy is it to grasp for the cheap and second hand versions of the things that we really need? When the physical manifestation of your values are being exploited daily? Buying a candle for a saint with blue eyes and white skin seems easier to than unconditional self acceptance.

When an entire community has an alcohol problem, it’s no longer seen as a problem but imprinted onto the culture as a form of survival. Simply because they have survived, despite the alcohol, they start to believe that they survived because of the alcohol.

So what happens when an entire community doesn’t have healthy relationships or emotional regulation? When they paint murals in the city against femicide, who responds to the plea? Who is the target audience? I’ve seen latinas online say that the most romantic line of a bachata song was ‘I’ve failed you a million times but I still own you.’

Glamorizing unhealthy things makes it harder to remember what the point of it all is. It keeps life in a certain amount of chaos. I’m frustrated by the perpetual cycle of self-harm and wonder if anything will get better.

I watch young women in Granada compete in a beauty pageant. They wear glittering dresses that are styled with a traditional touch. They answer prepared questions such as, what is Nicaragua’s official food? (Answer: Chicharrón). I know I wouldn’t put myself in a position to be judged like this but I know that this is a well-loved part of the culture. I can feel the joy in the huge crowd around me, both men and women, young and old. I try to enjoy the show and think of all the public speaking experience the girls are getting. Maybe this experience will give them confidence in college or a job interview. It’s fun to dress up and perform.

In Xochimilco, the boats are endearingly named ‘Linda toxica’ or ‘las toxicas’. The boats have elaborate crowns of painted woodwork in shapes of flowers, dolls, and hummingbirds. There is an explosion of details and colours. Everything is decorated with so much love, everything is seen through the eyes of beauty, courage, and passion, even the pain. That’s why I love it so much.

There is an idea of romance in Latin America that is intoxicating, dramatic, and powerful. I would never want to take away its pulsing heart, but find a way within it to move forward from the trappings of trauma.