Out of this week’s readings, I found “Porfirio Díaz: Hero of the Americas” to be rather interesting (albeit in an absurd sense).

The text is an article from 1908 written by an American journalist, James Creelman, about his interview with Porfirio Díaz who was president of Mexico for twenty seven years. I find it rather amusing how much Creelman focuses on the appearance and image of Díaz; he really paints Díaz as a heroic ideal leader though this is not exactly case. Look past the excessive flattery, I noticed that there’s a subtle undertone of Creelman looking down on Mexico/Latin America as a whole. Not really a surprise considering how this was the prevailing attitude the States held towards Latin America at this time.