Should I use the character's last name instead of his first name?


The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey of Self-discovery

The Motorcycle Diaries, directed by Walter Salles, is a film based in a true-life story of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the famous Argentine leader of the Cuban revolution. It chronicles a journey that occurred before he became the “Che”. During 1950’s, Ernesto Guevara, a medical student, and his biochemist friend Alberto Granado decided to take an adventurous motorcycle trip across South America—from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Throughout the journey, Ernesto and Alberto discovered the reality of a land filled with suffering, oppression, and injustice affecting its people. Understanding these issues are essential to understanding the challenges that every Latino has to experience at some point in his or her life. Wrestling with these issues is what drives Ernesto and Alberto to a journey of self-discovery. What does self-discovery means? The word self-discovery means a new way of looking at life. Alberto and Ernesto experienced the differences between social classes, and exploitation that led them on a journey of self-discovery.

Alberto and Ernesto got a taste of the differences between social classes in their journey across South America. In many Latin American countries, social class differences among their residents are clearly pronounced in many ways. But the main differences between these classes are lifestyle, customs, and working conditions. In The Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto and Alberto discovered that poverty is a day-to-day issue affecting lower class people—indigenous Incas, farmworkers, and mineworkers—all over Latin America. In contrast, Ernesto and Alberto found out that the few upper class—capitalists—have a higher quality of life. It is a clear example between the upper class lifestyle of Chichina's family and the indigenous people in Peru. Moreover, Ernesto and Alberto stayed for three weeks at San Pablo, a leper colony in Peru, where hierarchy is based on health and position. In this leper colony, the river plays an important role separating treated patients—sick people—from doctors and nuns—healthy people. However, their desperate need for survival for themselves and their families leaves lower class people with no other choice but to be exploited.

In addition to the differences between social classes, Ernesto and Alberto faced forms of exploitation affecting people at every place they stop. Ernesto and Alberto encounter desperate indigenous people being displaced from their own land by capitalists. They visited Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile. It was run by a U.S. mining company and viewed by Ernesto as a symbol of exploitation. In addition, Ernesto and Alberto discovered the way companies exploited poor people. In the same way, “The Plum Plum Pickers”, written by Raymond Barrio, emphasizes the way the gringo—the oppressor—is exploiting farm workers. They have no rights. Moreover, farmworkers do not demand justice because they are afraid that they will be fired for exercising their rights. Similarly, Cesar Chavez’s essay, “The Organizer Tale”, addresses the fact of “how people working the roses are sick and tired of being treated and he was willing to ‘go the limit’”(294). However, exploited people are organized so that they can help each other. Moreover, they are able to sacrifice themselves for their families.

Along with their eye-opening experience of exploitation, Ernesto and Alberto experienced a journey of self-discovery. According to Kenneth Turan, L.A times writer, “like riders everywhere, Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado were changed by their bike experience, by the eight months they spent in...South America, but not in the way they expected”. As a result of their journey of self-discovery, Ernesto and Alberto started to change their way of thinking of the world. Their first-hand experiences and their encounter with people, from the upper class to the exploited mineworkers, from indigenous people in Cuzco to leper patients at San Pablo, affected the way Ernesto and Alberto saw themselves. Ernesto said, “We are one single mestizo race from Mexico to the Magallan Straits.” As a result, Ernesto leaves his birthday party and takes a night swim across the river where the doctors stayed to the other side of the river where the leper patients lived.

The relatively close proximity of people from different social classes and the exploitation affecting poor people, led Ernesto and Alberto on a journey of self-discovery. They analyzed suffering and injustice that were unknown for them. But the most important, Ernesto and Alberto discovered a continent’s reality that changed their lives. “I am not me anymore at least I am not the same me I was”, said Ernesto.