Very early on, when discussing haciendas, they were described as inherently bad–they ran off of forced indigenous labor. However, when we visited the hacienda, they had a slightly different perspective. The guide acknowledged the more grim aspects of their history. However, generally they saw pride in their hacienda; they recognized the negatives, but at the end of the day it is their means of living. The part that intrigued me the most was how he described the government mandated downsizing of haciendas. In my research I found that the land was redistributed to the population. Originally, a small minority (1%) owned the majority of land (97%), while most people (96%) did not have any. The government took 90% of land from all haciendas, which was then redistributed to other citizens. When he described it, the guide made it seem a little more melancholy, which makes sense from his perspective. Their livelihood was taken away from them, and they needed to find new ways to sustain themselves. Generally, his more positive outlook was something I was not expecting, but it was an interesting perspective to observe.