At first, I thought I would be a Latin Americanist. I only got interested in Spanish because of Latin American soap operas, and Spain wasn’t even on my radar. I vaguely knew it existed, just as I vaguely knew Latin America did but it never occurred to me I could dedicate my whole life to a small and pretty insignificant country in Europe. If I were to go that way, then why not just choose my own, much bigger and obviously more meaningful (to me) country?
Curiously, the very first essay in Hispanic Studies I ever wrote (in English) was on the Spanish Civil War. The professor passed around a list of topics, and you couldn’t choose what anybody else has chosen. This was back in the times where I’d sit at the back of the class, so when the list if topics reached me, all the exciting Latin American topics had been taken. I tried hard but ended up with a pretty sucky essay because even today the subject seems too enormous.
Clarissa's Blog 
I would have been a Latin Americanist too, but I didn’t like the professors in that field in Grad school so I switched back to Peninsular. I would have been very unhappy in Latin American, because it is so politicized. My idea was that I already knew a lot about Spain so in Grad school I would learn Latin American literature instead.
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It is politicized but in a very rigid way that I don’t like. It’s all Caliban, civilization bad, barbarity good, the excruciatingly boring Nestor Canclini, and no opportunity to get out of the realm of the prescribed correct opinions.
So I think we made the right choice. 🙂
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We would be considered to be far on the right in that field, I fear.
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You are absolutely right. 🙂 Which says a lot about the field.
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