The Tattooed Soldier

The Cold War was fought between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, both struggling to assume a hegemonic role in the world while simultaneously attempting to undermine the power of the other. This war was fought by proxy in a variety of developing nations, including Vietnam and Guatemala, and was attributed to the differing ideologies of communism and socialism, and capitalism and democracy. Gods Go Begging (1999), by Alfredo Vea, examines the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, while Francisco Tobar uses The Tattooed Soldier (1995) to explore the Guatemalan Civil War and the role the United States played in the governmental coup that precluded the war. Both authors show through specific descriptions and narrative lines that while the

When the public begins to believe and accept that the poor are less than human, horrible atrocities can be committed against them without anyone taking notice; this allows the government complete control over their livelihoods and enables them to silence anyone who might cause a disruption. In the poverty-stricken areas of Los Angeles and La Joya, the people take on an almost untouchable quality. The homeless of Los Angeles are forced from their encampments and displaced; they are treated like pests that need to be removed. The Mayor takes on the Los Angeles government in various lawsuits, but because he is poor and cannot afford a lawyer to match the city’s high profile defense attorneys, he has no real chance of ever triumphing. As the Mayor also notes, the $297 he receives is only enough to maintain his poverty, not to help bring him out of it. The government, scared of political movements beginning with the poor, seeks to keep them disenfranchised and politically inactive so they cannot pose a threat to the capitalistic system. Meanwhile, the people in La Joya live in squalor and are poisoned by their own government’s dumping of garbage up-river from them. Their babies constantly die and no one, save for their parents, care, however, Elena, within a few hours of reading and poking around discovers the cause of the babies’ deaths. Her attempts to alert the government to the poisoning receives no thanks, but are rather seen as a threat to the government. Elena’s attempts at political activism are silenced before she can really make any difference, meaning that the people of the La Joya slums will continue losing babies and getting ill. They cannot fight for their own rights because they are uneducated and those who try to help them are murdered. This callousness toward the