So far this has been my favorite chapter of all the syllabus. I believe it is because it talks not ony about things I learned during my high school history, but also because it introduces us the reasons why Latin America is so influenced today by the US culture and economically dependent of it. While I was reading, specially the document written by Dorftman, I started thinking how even me as a Latin american did not notice this stereotypes and portraits of the Latin american people in Disney cartoons, which ironically were something I grew up with and would identify as part of my childhood. These only emphasizes more the fact that Latin american culture is so influenced by this north american culture which is seen as foreign, expensive and therefore superior.
The history of the Panama canal is a very explicit example of the political and economical power of the US in the region. We can argue that in this case the US intervention helped the country of Panama to gain their independence from Colombia, however we can not hide that this was done in order to fulfill their own interest of being able to construct an inter-oceanic canal, that would bring about a lot f economic profit and would not even leave a revenues for the Panamanians at least for the first decade of it being productive.
As said in the readings, it is incredible to see how many military interventions were there in the past in Latin american territories by the US, even to see how this interventions were supported by some of the governments in Latin america that were looking to get some; economical benefits from this example the overthrown of Arbenz, in Guatemala. They sould by many years the idea to the Latin Americans that communism is totally terrible and that good commerce with the US is the only road to economic and technological development for all this region.
On the other hand for me as a Nicaraguan was outstanding to red the “Political Manifesto” made by Sadino, that as we know today is known in the whole region as a symbol of that resistance to US domination. Although he was assassinated by the Somoza military, his legacy is still alive today even more than ever, he also follows in his ideals Bolivar’s dream to see a Latin America united.