![]() Galeano tells us that it is where memory continues to reside. Interestingly enough, the romantic Romans believed that memory comes from the heart. On the other hand, the English ‘to remember’ derives from the Latin ‘rememorari’, meaning ‘ call to mind‘. If we analyze the roots of recordare in Latin, we can see that it contains the word ‘cor’ which means ‘heart’. From Vulgar Latin recordāre, from Latin recordārī, present active infinitive of recordor. debut almost fifty years ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. Galeano reminds us of the etymology of the verb ‘remembering’ ( recordar in Spanish). Everything: the soil, its fruits, and its mineral-rich depths, the people and their capacity to work and to consume, natural resources and human resources.” Why is remembering so important? Everything from the discovery until our times has always been transmuted into European–or later–United States– capital, and as such has accumulated on distant centers of power. “Latin America is the region of open veins. The land of the “open veins”, as Galeano puts it, can only be saved through memory. A continent that radiates warmth could turn into anything but oblivion. Galeano had for mission to save his cherished continent from the unmerciful claws of oblivion. ![]() “I’m a writer,” he said, “obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia.” ![]()
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