Today, we had the chance to explore more of Buenos Aires through a city bus tour. We visited neighborhoods like La Boca, San Telmo and Plaza de Mayo. Each place gave us insight in Argentinian history. La boca was the first stop, it is a small neighborhood with bright colored buildings and smaller streets. It is filled with immigrants from Italy and Spain. It felt very rooted in working-class history, similar to older factor towns. It has a the Boca Juniors Fútbol team stadium and the surrounding area are colored their team colors of blue and yellow. The team got their colors by when looking at the port in Boca, the club saying– “the colors of the first boat we see is the colors we make the team”. That boat was a Swedish boat colored blue and yellow. In San Telmo, we visited the market there which is filled with antique shops and restaurants. In Plaza de Mayo we learned more about Argentina’s political history. This is where protests happened dating back decades, one that we talked about that stood out the most is the marches by the Mothers of the Plaza de mayo. We ended the day with a graffiti tour, it gave us insight of political artwork made by local artists which portrays people’s stories of struggles, hopes and demands.
Looking back at the bus tour, I notice that a lot of the buildings have a big catholic presence with crosses on most buildings. With this strong Catholic influence the majority of the population identifies as roman catholic. This is very different from the US, as not everyone is catholic there. Here it is in relation to everything, population morales, bank and government buildings.
There is a very large sports presence here in Buenos Aires– specifically in Fútbol. The Argentinian national team has a huge impact on the population here, with popular names like Diego Maradona
and Lionel Messi. During the graffiti tour we noticed that there is a vast amount of murals dedicated to the both of them. They are both very impactful figures to the residents here as they call Maradona multiple names praising him, one specifically points out to me as “the hand of god”. During the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal match versus England he scored a controversial goal which later revealed the ball had touched his hand thus, giving him the name hand of god. This compares to the United States of America because we also idolize professional athletes to this level, like Kobe Bryant. He has murals all over the world especially after he died. All three of these players have created lasting impacts on each of their respective communities.
