Exam 36: Liberation and Equality

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As European nations lost the ability to support and manage their colonial empires,the people who lived in these places sought their own independence,desiring agency over the future of their countries.During this fight for independence,colonial people had to redefine themselves,leading to meaning in their own ethnic identity.As with most cultural changes,the role of ethnicity played a big part in twentieth-century global arts.
Latin American states experienced glaring inequalities as colonies of European countries:the vast majority of Latin Americans,including great masses of peasants of Native American descent,lived in relative poverty,while small,wealthy,landowning elites held power.Latin American countries endured repeated social upheaval in their attempts to cope with persistent problems of inequality,exploitation,and underdevelopment.Latin America's artists rallied to support movements for liberation.During the 1960s,the outpouring of exceptionally fine Latin American prose and poetry constituted a literary boom.
In America,the African-American experience reflected the desire to overcome the long shadow of slavery and its implicit racial violence.During the 1920s,as America's economy boomed,African-Americans had access to new opportunities in education and employment,especially in the larger cities.In New York City,the quest for racial equality and a search for self-identity among African-Americans inspired an upsurge of creative expression in the arts.Centered in Harlem-a part of Manhattan occupied largely by African-Americans-poets,painters,musicians,and dancers forged the movement that came to be called the Harlem Renaissance.The Harlem Renaissance made the self-conscious "rebirth" of the African heritage the principal part of an intellectual and cultural quest for racial identity and equality.Later in the century,the civil rights movement produced art that spoke more to a revolutionary spirit in the black community.For James Baldwin,writing was a subversive act:one writes he insisted,"in order to change the world,knowing perfectly well that you probably can't,but also knowing that....The world changes according to the way people see it,and if you alter,even by a millimeter,the way a person looks or people look at reality,then you can change it."