An analysis of the Colombian movie “Birds of Passage”
Cultural assimilation and transculturation
It has been quite some time since my sociology teacher assigned the entire class to watch the movie 'Birds of Passage'. The topic we were dealing with at that time in our “Race Identity and Cultural Diversity of Colombia” class was the influence of modernity in Colombia's indigenous communities, especially the Wayúu community. At that time, I had been living in Colombia for two months and, although I was aware of some aspects concerning the country's indigenous communities, there were just as many, not to say significantly more, things I did not know. I was aware that, in general, the indigenous communities were going through a process of loss of their traditions, their culture, their language – and that this was mainly caused by the influence of western culture – but how this was happening was unclear to me. Thanks to the movie I was able to understand a lot. I learnt what difficulties indigenous communities face, and how Western culture is affecting their lives. Among the many themes that are addressed in the movie, the ones that struck me the most were undoubtedly cultural assimilation and transculturation. These are terms that were not entirely new to me. Most probably you readers have already heard of them too. However, since my purpose within this article is to analyse these phenomena within this, in my opinion very well-done movie, I would like to give more precise definitions of what they designate.