The Motorcycle Diaries

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. After the end of World War II (WWII) in 1945, many regions underwent significant political and economic changes. How did the end of WWII affect the Latin American region? For example, what new political and economic ideas took root on the continent?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question orients students with the historical context of Guevara’s account: Latin America in the early 1950s and how global events influenced its political and economic ideology. After WWII, many countries in the region sought to develop their nations by experimenting with various ideologies related to democratic consolidation, nationalization/privatization of companies, and, in some cases, Marxist Communism. Argentinian Ernesto “Che” Guevara is one of the revolutionaries of the latter ideology who began to formulate his anti-capitalist viewpoints during his journey with friend Alberto Granado. Guevara’s native country of Argentina was largely influenced by pro-German and pro-fascist ideology during Guevara’s coming-of-age, as Argentina had become a haven for many Nazi party sympathizers fleeing from Europe after WWII.

• University of Oregon provides a succinct overview of Latin American history in the 20th century.