In this last week’s readings and videos, we see how Latin Americans have been dealing with the array of issues that face the modern world. Many democracies have taken hold throughout the region and Latin America has generally seen economic growth. However, the most interesting change in the region has been the shifting methods of political participation. Whereas in the past violence and revolution were seen by many Latin American activists as the most effective way to enact change. Dawson argues that change can be enacted from within the existing political systems. Politics in Latin America are still quite volatile, and unrest driven by persistent inequality and dissatisfaction with existing governments is still very much present. A major manifestation of this is the “Left Turn,” which refers to a series of elected, left wing governments that are in power across Latin America. These leaders, such as Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo Morales in Bolivia, can still be considered revolutionary leaders, but their rise to power came from within widely accepted forms of government.

Today, many of the problems that effect Latin America and global issues that are also experienced in North America and across the world. An obvious sign of this is global environmental issues. Exploitation of natural resources remain the backbone of the economy in many states, and today many economies are experiencing an export boom similar to that experienced in the early twentieth century. As many domestic and international companies extract resources from the land, many Latin Americans today are dealing with a series of problems associated with deteriorating quality of land. In the face of this, many marginalized people have found ways to work within the system to have their voices heard. As Dawson noted, many of the leaders who allowed for mining to go unchecked found it difficult to maintain power as marginalized people withdrew support.

Interestingly, this is not necessarily a new idea. Dating back to the Colonial era, Latin America has always been a site of resource extracting that has had drastic effects for local populations. This is very much an endemic issue to the region. The interesting part of this is the changing methods of political participation that we can see. This is most evident among indigenous communities, who for centuries have been excluded from political processes, but today have found a way to work themselves into new democracies.

This week’s materials highlighted the impact that large groups of people with a collective voice have had on the political process of different states in Latin America. In Argentina, after years of military dictatorship marked by the use of state terrorism to silence dissent, a small group of mothers took it upon themselves to speak out. 14 women who had their children disappeared during the dirty war met weekly in the Plaza de Mayo, the symbolic center of the country. This seems like an uneven struggle, with a handful of women challenging the legitimacy of an entire authoritarian state, but it saw the government’s response lead to its own undoing.

In response to the protests, some of the movement’s founders were disappeared like their children had been. When bodies washed up on the coast, including those of two French women, the international community began to pay attention to events unfolding in Argentina. This, along with perseverance of the protesters in the Plaza de Mayo (the most publicized space in Argentina) eventually led to increasing negative publicity on the state and eventually forced a series of investigations into past crimes, and legislative changes within the Argentine government.

The “people” of Argentina is a concept that the Madres personified and gave voice to. They took on motherhood as their defining characteristic, which is a basic human characteristic and is a feeling that everyone in the country can feel, regardless of political leanings. The message was clear—that as Argentine citizens they had the right to not be oppressed, and that as mothers they had the right to know what happened to their children. By taking such a basic human concern and bringing it to the political discussion of the time, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were finally able to introduce a discourse of human rights.

In the unpredictable political climate of Latin America, the government saw it necessary to create a controlled environment in order to maintain power. Its method of keeping order was through the use of violence, yet for years they were able to carry out acts of state terror without any recognition. Because it was also important for the government to keep up a good appearance, the dictatorship mastered the manipulation of the media. Even as the eyes of the world were on Argentina wen they hosted the 1978 World Cup, the state was able to turn the scrutiny to its advantage as Argentina became world champions and the Argentine media generated newfound patriotism that distracted many from the ongoing conflicts in the country. Eventually, the state was forced to change and investigate the dirty wars as “the people” also learned how to use the media to their own peaceful ends.

In this week’s readings and lecture, we see how poor relationships between the state and rural peasants across Latin America manifested themselves in violent conflict and guerilla warfare. These organization rose out of a political climate of inequality, where it seemed to many as though the governments in place only served to maintain these differences through corruption. Many of these left-wing groups, such as Sendero Luminoso in Peru, were seen as threats to the state in rural areas, where government legitimacy had never been completely accepted. In Peru, violence erupted and the country became engulfed in a civil war. Both groups had steady support bases and sources of income (Sendero Luminoso controlled a large portion of the cocaine trade out of Peru), which allowed the war to last decades, becoming a stable part of life in highland Peru.

From these readings we can also see the stratification that existed in Peru at the time. In Mario Vargas Llosa’s short piece, he notes how alien and shocking the violence among indigenous people seems to him. He notes how peaceful his life in the city is compared to the ongoing war in the Andes. This is indicative of the problem of inequality, where the urban and rural communities were so separated from one another despite their close proximity. Even as the elites of Lima go about their lives, they were sheltered from the despair experienced in the highlands. On the flip side, rural people, as Cameron notes, were not interested in events in Lima and were only concerned by their locality. This is a phenomenon that Fujimori saw as a willful disregard for the authority of the state. This separation is what gave rise to violent conflict. Sendero Luminoso’s attacks on Lima itself sent a message to close that gap, showing that both groups exist in the same country.

This scenario played out across the region, not just in Peru. Similar resistance movements engaged violently with states in Colombia and Central America. Seen through the lens of the cold war, many governments were supported by the United States because they had no tolerance for these left-wing groups, who were viewed by the Pentagon as potential sources of Soviet influence in the Americas. The US supported the efforts of military governments, such as in Chile and Argentina, as well as Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, which greatly aided right-wing states to impose themselves on their countries. Even in Peru, Alberto Fujimori, who on the one hand is often praised for crippling Sendero Luminoso’s violent, drug-funded hold on the countryside, but in the process turned the country into an authoritarian state with no room for any political dissidence.

This week’s readings and videos were particularly interesting to me. The “American Empire” that was constructed in Latin America was more subtle than those empires that had previously existed in the region, and existed through the use of different means. Nevertheless, it can be considered an empire in the sense that it was an external force that effectively dominated the internal structure of certain smaller states in Latin America. Even if not nominally an empire, at the end of the day American dominance relied (and arguably still relies) on the same export infrastructure that was built up during the colonial era.

However, the most interesting thing about American hegemony during this period was that it was not purely militaristic. The United States also earned popularity among many classes of Latin Americans through the power of its industry. To many, the United States because synonymous with advanced technology and modern technology. American goods and services were introduced into Latin American markets, and many affluent people wished to emulate the American lifestyle, as it was associated with comfort and satisfaction.

One fascinating example of where both of these aspects of American hegemony existed side by side is the construction of the Panama Canal. In the early twentieth century, thousands of workers were brought in under the supervision of the American military, and worked in deadly conditions to create a wonder of engineering in Central America, controlled from Washington DC. This is clearly an example of imperialism. However, in the construction of the canal, a massive sanitation project was undertaken. This was surely done to maximize worker productivity so as to better serve American interests, but undoubtedly it did have some very real positive effects in Panama, and won the United States many friends in the region.

The American empire was established not exclusively through external means. Increasing American influence had a polarizing effect on the domestic politics in these countries. Many people within Latin America welcomed an increased American presence in the region. In the countries that they dominated, the United States furthered its agenda through the use of like-minded, opportunistic domestic politicians such as Jorge Ubico or Rafael Trujillo. Both of these examples are clearly dictators who mistreated vast portions of their citizenry, but we cannot discount the fact that they (and the United States) did have some degree of domestic support.

Ultimately, the American empire is something that Latin Americans were involved in, it’s not something that simply happened to them. It wasn’t purely domination or coercion, but some combination of that and consent. The pre-existing social hierarchy laid out by European colonialism allowed for a mutually beneficial relationship between the Untied States and the top of Latin American society, even as this was simultaneously disastrous for the lower classes.

In this week’s materials, we have seen how the notion of progress and the restructuring of society into an export-oriented economy were alternately beneficial and harmful to different classes within the same society. Although more wealth was brought into the region with the onset of industrialization, the vast majority of it was distributed to those who were already on top of the social hierarchy. This was especially true as rural workers saw their land taken from them and their accustomed livelihoods no longer possible.

The various revolutions that have characterized the history of Latin America all seem to come as a response to mounting inequalities and limited work options. As Dawson brought up, it is difficult to say when these revolutions ended, and in many instances political leaders today still claim to be representing a revolution from the early twentieth century. This makes the idea of picking the “winner” of a revolution the wrong way to approach this. Nevertheless, by looking at Latin America today, we can see some of the long-term effects of the revolutionaries.

Today in Latin America, labor conditions have improved greatly as the twentieth century went on, although there is still certainly much work to be done. However, to me it seems that the modes of thinking of the nature of progress are unchanged. Around the world, including in Latin America, societal progress is still largely thought of in absolute economic terms, and a drive to export still dominated the economy.

The series of revolutions has had profound effects on the social structuring of Latin America. The clearest example of this is in the geographical concentration of entire populations. The social pressure from these upheavals, combined with a number of other processes (such as industrial jobs being available only in cities and increased linkages between Latin America and North America—both of which were key points of conflict during the revolutions) has resulted in a predominantly urban society in Latin America.

According to United Nations data from 2014, Latin America is among the most urbanized regions of the world. Today, roughly 80% of the total population is urban, up from only 40% in 1950. After the agrarian revolts in early twentieth-century Mexico, where peasants fought fiercely to take back their farms and return to their ‘traditional’ ways of life, today Mexico is urbanizing rapidly. In Argentina, where the conflict between “urban civilization” and “rural barbarism” has existed for centuries, it seems clear which side has won, as modern Argentina is one of the most heavily urbanized states on the planet, with over 90% of all people living in cities.

This week’s reading and videos were on modernization and its ramifications in 19^th century Latin America, which is a many-sided concept that means wildly different things for the different people involved. Numerous processes converged to reorganize society, but in many ways the basic power hierarchy seemed to adjust but stay in place. A reliance on export-led growth was fundamental to the rise of “modernism” in the region; but rather than something unprecedented, it can also be seen as a continuation of the colonial infrastructure that was put in place to extract wealth from the Americas. Ostensibly, this reinvention of the economy was an attempt for the new nations of Latin America to emerge into the world community, and become an integral part of global networks along with Europe and North America. To many, modernization and the indebtedness that came along with it seemed like trading an extraction-oriented colonial overlord for a profit-oriented domestic elite funded by foreign investors.

The reconfiguration of national economies to maximize production of a single, lucrative product made independent countries overly reliant on the unpredictable foreign demand for that good. This phenomenon is called a “banana republic” precisely because of the hardships that many Central American labor pools went through when they were enticed into only growing bananas, and all in the name of progress. Effectively, however, many marginalized groups saw themselves as part of a machine that was built to generate wealth for those who were already rich.

This week’s materials also touched on how the concept of order, rather than universal freedom, took hold among the elites in Latin America. This mentality that justifies exploitation is still pervasive around the world today. This philosophy is inherently classist, and existed only to fight off social change, even in the face of the unprecedented technological change that was introduced to the region. Instead of letting the masses of Latin America participate in government, it seemed like a better idea for many of the white landowners to maintain society as it was and leave unchanged Latin America’s place in the world.

Even though on the surface level, the economies of Latin America were expanding during this era, we have to change our thinking and consider that perhaps an expanding economy is not a perfect indicator of “progress,” whatever that may be.

I found this week’s readings about how the concepts of race and class interacted very interesting. As Alec Dawson pointed out in the podcast, the entire society was organized around this hierarchy of difference, where a small ruling class categorized and ruled over numerous other diverse groups. It goes without saying that the people who found themselves at the bottom of the constructed social ladder would desire change.

Given this nature of this system, I wonder how it lasted for centuries of colonial rule. Of course, we read about the occasional slave revolt or an idealist who campaigned against the casta system, but nevertheless it seems as though a method of organization that alienated such significant portions of the population would have collapsed much sooner. What was it about this racial governance that allowed it to carry on?

Again, there are numerous historical examples of indigenous or slave revolts throughout Latin America, but they were rarely successful. Were these slaves who revolted accurate representations of the general thought among the entire population of slaves in their particular country, or were they exceptions? In other worlds, did most people of Indigenous or African descent see themselves as equal to whites, or were these ideas about race so pervasive that it effected the thinking of the very members of those groups? There is evidence for this from Josephina Pelliza de Sagasta, who argued that women should just accept their role in society rather than push for systemic change. In this time of transition, where the very notion of belonging to a nation was changing.

In this weeks readings we also saw how after emancipation, the ruling elites found scientific evidence (or rather, what was accepted as scientific evidence at the time) to claim that whiteness was an indicator of general fitness to rule. This shows how deeply embedded the want of racial categorization still was in post-emancipation societies. Even after hard-fought campaigns to eliminate slavery, the ruling class maintained racialized institutions to attempt to keep other groups in line.

It seems to me that history has shown that people in positions of power adapt to a changing political climate. Even as there was increasing desire for change among non-white groups and women, the balance of power merely adjusted but remained functionally intact. Ultimately, it was up to members of a social group to change their thinking about themselves, rather than accept changes handed down from the top of the social hierarchy.

After reading Esteban Echeverría’s “The Slaughterhouse,” it seemed to me that the main purpose of this story was to construct a dichotomy between the organized, urban centers and the pastoral inland provinces. The story seems to simplify the complexities of a young nation down to a struggle to find direction between ‘urban civilization’ and ‘savagery.’ Echeverría clearly broke it down this to present his readers with two visions of the country’s future, with one clearly being superior to the other.

The unfortunate hero of “The Slaughterhouse” is a young man described as a Unitarian, or a person who supports the political concept of a central government run from Buenos Aires. This upstanding man somehow finds himself where he shouldn’t be, surrounded by Federalists, or those who want more autonomy devolved to the hinterland provinces. The setting of the story plays an important role is defining the rural people as barbarous; a grotesque slaughterhouse where the savage people take pleasure in gruesome killings. If this story is meant to be an allegory for the establishment of a new country, then the message may be that Federalism is turning Argentina into a big slaughterhouse.

Although he was passing through a wild, seemingly ungovernable frontier, the Unitarian doubtless comes from an urban center. Cities are meant to impose order on the wilderness, and have long been the seat of authority in Europe. It seems that Echeverría intended for Argentina to be modeled in the same way. Perhaps in the settler cities of Latin America, which Echeverría might have seen as islands of proper European civilization in the savage wilderness of America, the complex notions of a social contract and republicanism have been accepted. It therefore would become their burden to forge a national identity and bring the rural provinces into civilization.

One thing that stuck out to me what the presence of a judge in the slaughterhouse. A judge would ordinarily indicate civil institutions and the rule of law, but in this story, the judge seems to mock the institutions of European civilization. In “The Slaughterhouse,” the judge seems to be a human manifestation of a rejection of a social contract and republicanism.

Echeverría’s portrayal of the Unitarian’s appearance as European points to the idea of following a this path of creating an orderly, European society in the still undomesticated Americas. The Federalist villains are seen as savages precisely because they are not part of this European tradition, but Echeverría’s clearest evidence of this race. This is an extension of established social hierarchies from the colonial era. Furthermore, the frequent biblical allusions (such as the Unitarian’s execution compared to the martyrdom of Christ) draw parallels to a pro-imperial narrative of colonial history where a Christian hero tames a race of savages or dies trying. From this, we can see that the invention of an independent nation-state was a long, turbulent process that took place much later than the actual date of independence.

My main question while reading this story is “Who was Echeverría’s audience?” How many of the rural people who turned to caudillismo—who Unitarians like Echeverría would want to convince of the value of their path—were literate? I imagine that most Echeverría’s readers would have been educated people already living in major cities. In that case, this entire story seems like an exercise in self-justification.