Chapter 29: Using Authentic Cultural Texts to Address Environmental Justice in the Novice and Intermediate Spanish Classroom

Water is the most essential human need. Traditionally governments have delivered water as a public service, but in the last two decades, several countries have been forced to hand over control of their water systems to multinational corporations. In 1997, the World Bank gave Bolivia a loan to expand the water system in several cities, including Cochabamba, the third largest city in the country, in exchange for privatization of their water systems. In 1999, the government in Cochabamba forewent any public consideration in allowing Bechtel, a transnational company, to manage the water services. This raised water rates significantly, leading to popular unrest among farmers, factory workers, rural and urban water committees, students and middle-class professionals, all of whom opposed Bechtel and the Bolivian government. Those unsettling months were referred to as the Guerra del agua, or the Water War. The population rebelled in April 2000 and after several serious injuries and one death, the contract with Bechtel ended and the water was returned to the people. The complexity of the social dynamics of Bolivia’s Water Wars as related to the environment and resources provided a rich, real-life context for an exploration of environmental vocabulary and other structures in a unit taught at the university level.