I hate sentences like this:
I resolved to return to Lealtad in an attempt to understand the despair at Joys, but also in the conviction that the secret lexicon of 50-year dictatorships can be read only in the details of daily life.
What a load of crap. What you mean it that you’re writing a journal and want to make it seem more important. You walk around a couple areas of Atlanta for a few days and look at the details of daily life and you will know next to nothing about the “secret lexicon” of the United States.