Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire
We discussed in the past few week’s discussion that the United States was starting to become a threat to the majority of the nations in Latin America. Latin American nations became wary of American military interventions in their country. Such examples were Puerto Rico, Guantanamo Bay, and Panama. Although the United States did not rule these territories with respect to imperialism, the presence of American military has given enough threat to the Latin American nations.
Ironically, at the same time, the United States has influenced the whole continent culturally, such as cola, movie stars, baseball, and jazz. The United States was already a wealthy and world-leading nation, who provided or over-influenced the ones without their privilege (comestibles, modern conveniences, music, films and television). I believe that the citizens of the Latin America were ambivalent about the United States.
Latin America remained to be rich in resources since the colonial times, which pulled the interest of the American businessman. Bananas, sugar, and coffee were grown outside of the United States, where it eventually became a popular household food. While in Latin America, infrastructures were not as developed as in the United States. “Bananas came north, and construction materials and merchandise traveled south.” I believe that this trade mutually benefited both sides.
I have two types of question regarding the cultural influence of the United States, as I was curious since the beginning of class.
For those who are familiar with music…
Bossa nova (Brazilian style, samba and jazz fusion) is one of my favourite music genres that I listen in to. Jazz was founded in the United States and the popularity grew since the late 19th century, and then the world (in this case Brazil) admired it. Samba originated in the former African slave communities and the mix created this new genre. Was this new music genre created purely because the American music culture was so powerful or could it be one way to ‘culturally’ rebel and differentiate their music culture apart from the United States?
For those who are familiar with sports…
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua and many others are known to be the powerhouse of baseball, but this sport was created by the United States. Those powerhouse nations saw the United States as their enemies. So, why did such countries play a sports enemy have created? Is it to feel the accomplishment if they ever get to defeat the United States in this sport? Was this one type of way to culturally rebel against the United States?