I was very interested in the aspect of fear that seemed to drive most of the events that the readings discuss. It seemed that throughout the Americas, every group of people was scared of another group. That fear sometimes led those groups to lash out at another, creating a self-sustaining cycle of fear as violence was answered with more violence. In Mexico, people of the lower classes feared the loss of land and liberty, so they continually overthrew leaders who didn’t return their property to them. Meanwhile, the upper classes feared the “uncivilized” lower classes, particularly after the occupation of Mexico City by Zapato’s and Villa’s armies, so much that they chose to support the Constitutionalist enemies of the peasant revolutionaries. When the Constitutionalists took over and started silencing political dissidents, lower classes again began to fear the government, and more fighting broke out.

Similarly, that fear between groups caused mass violence in Argentina. The working class feared for their ways of life after stagnating wages started to impoverish them, and some began turning to socialist ideas. The upper classes, who would lose much if communism or socialism was instituted, and who were distrustful of foreign workers, feared for their way of life if the working class gained power. This mutual fear eventually caused the mass killings during the semana tragica.

There also seemed to be the ever-present, overarching fear of the USA throughout all of Latin America, which makes sense given that American imperialism was starting around that time. While the US primarily focused on islands such as Hawaii and the Philippines, Latin America’s proximity to the US and its abundant natural resources were more than enough reason to cause concern. In 1893, the government of Hawaii was overthrown, and the country later annexed by the US, entirely for business purposes; American planters wanted more control over the land. America also had business interests in many Latin American countries, which might further explain why the lower classes were so concerned over their rights to land. In addition to wanting their own land to be more independent from cruel landlords, they may have also feared allowing the US to get any more land in their countries. I wonder if the widespread fear and panic caused by WWI might have also contributed to the general fear throughout Latin America in the early 1900s.