Endemic Violence

In the last two weeks Public Radio shows "All Things Considered" and "On The Media" have either proclaimed (Ari Shapiro on ATC talking about Honduras) or let their guests get away with (Bob Garfield, On the Media talking about Rio) calling violence in Latin America "endemic."

These old stereotypes of the fiery, violent Latino who is born to kill and has no control of their emotions are as old as the Anglo-Iberian feud itself. "Those places" like Brazil and Central America are tagged as having been bathed in violence passed from parent to child and exist in a time warp of barbarism. When the media speaks of this violence as "endemic" it creates justifications for coups, assassinations, and general disregard of the national sovereignty of the nations of the Americas in order to bring civilization to the barbarians of the south. While one might expect better of outlets like NPR or PRI, they can often be as bad as a Wall Street Journal article from Mary Anastasia O'Grady herself.

C'mon, NPR, you can do better than this.

For further reading (I'm looking at you media types), see Phillip Powell's Tree of Hate or Greg Grandin's Empire's Workshop. Maybe even treat yourself to Duncan Green's Faces of Latin America or the classic Open Veins of Latin America by Galeano.

Dear Gringos: Declutter the Other

I've mentioned before the idea that Latin America can serve as something of a model neighbor for the United States. The region has much to teach the northern neighbors, from community cohesion and family values to an amazing entrepreneurial spirit and ingenious creativity. The folks over at the 2backpackers.com (blog?) might mention another reason to pay attention to Latin America (of course, after you take a look at their quote, I will be problematizing the situation). At any rate, this is what they had to say about returning to the states after their massive Central / South America backpacking trip:

After retrieving only a few of our 10 or so Rubbermaid bins from storage at my brother’s attic, it quickly became apparent that we have too much stuff. This is after selling half our stuff at yard sales and on eBay prior to leaving on our trip. During our travels over the last year we have lived out of large backpacks, nothing more. The experience made us realize we don’t need all this stuff and it’s rather frustrating to own it now. We admit, we wouldn’t have realized how little we really needed if we didn’t spend the last year backpacking.

True enough. And this is their final philosophical reflection:

We aren’t shocked, but we are more aware of the culture in the United States and it’s quite different from those living in Central and South America. We are grateful for the opportunities this country has given us, but we aren’t so proud of the way we live in it. Now is the time to change and live with a little less, actually much less. Less stuff and less stress, we believe.

But let's "unpack" this for a moment (my students hate me when I say that). These folks have been living out of a backpack for months. Is their new conversion to simplicity to be found suddenly in the magic of the lives of Latin Americans? I would pretty much argue that their conversion comes from their own lifestyle, and not from some perception of Latin America as the pristine native-child, a land of noble savages and Chief Seattle's waiting for daily communion with Gaia. Backpack across the Unites States and Canada and you're going to make that conversion to simplicity as well.

Admiring the genius of Latin Americans that do a lot with a little and create miracles under difficult circumstances is an understandable approach. I would urge some caution, however, if the next stop on that train is to say that the wealthy and the leadership in Latin America don't need to undertake any sort of reforms for the general welfare of the population. Sure, you might say, Hugo Chavez can run around wasting the petroleum wealth of his country on strange schemes while the urban poor experience massive housing shortages in Caracas - because those Latin Americans just don't need that much. Hallelujah for Calderon for his money-pit war on narcotics in Mexico, because focusing on the welfare issues of citizens that DON'T directly affect the suburban youth of the United States is a waste of time - those Mexicans can do so much with so little. I once had a conversation with a retired norte americano that had stables as part of his sprawling complex. He sure would like to pay the stable hands more, he said, but to do so would just drive the cost of living up for the workers because then they would expect more out of life. "They are so good at doing without - I'd hate to ruin that for them." That, and his other retired friends would lynch him for driving up the cost of labor. It is an interesting dynamic. It reminds me of Gilbert Osofsky's arguments about the Harlem Renaissance: there was no need to carry out reforms in Harlem or improve the lives of working class African Americans because, after all, they were a "singin' race" - they could just sing and dance their cares away.

In sum, emulating the resourceful creativity to do more with less of the working, middle, and poor classes of Latin America is a good idea, but don't lose track of the point that if a family could stop using their chest of drawers (found in a local dump) as a baby bed, a dinner table, and a work bench that they would do it in a heart beat.

Why Latin America: A Personal Reflection

My students always ask. Every semester. Without fail. They all want to know how I became interested in Mexico and Latin America. So, here is an incredibly self-indulgent response to my students on why I chose to make Latin America part of my life.

My interest in Latin America developed while I was living in the San Gabriel Valley of LA and East LA, fresh out of Montana and a year of college. Sure, some people take time off of school and go to Europe to find themselves. I ended up in LA.

At first my new neighbors represented the exotic other: the plucked and plucky cholas, the vatos with the shaved heads and the dickies, the old men that talked about Chihuahua and tried to teach me norteño swears, and, of course, the food. It was Edward Said writ small, mestizo style. Then I met a guy from El Salvador with screwed up thumbs - from where he had been hung up all night after breaking a curfew. I may have been from Montana, but I had never had my head in the ground. I knew my country sponsored what went on in his, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to throw up or scream. I guess I did nothing, which is what most of us do.

After that, the similarities came fast and furious. Plates of barbacoa and tacos de chivo drew out conversations about the goats I had raised for milk and meat on our small farm in Montana. Small, for Montana, at almost 200 acres; a respectable rancho for some of the folks I met from Oaxaca and Guerrero. Growing up I'd worked packing mules, bucking hay, building fence, janitorial, car part sales ... all the jobs that helped keep me in St. Vincent DePaul's (and at times K-Mart's) finest, and ones that connected me to the rural people I met turned urban service workers. Conversations with Chileans about mining and smelting connected them to the mines and smelters of my own state - the home of the great Anaconda that had strangled both our families and had led us all to new homes. At the end of the day, I found myself having more in common with the migrants from Latin America than I did with the middle-class Anglo families that I rented rooms from.

When I returned to Montana I couldn't shake the memories of the people I'd met. I connected to classes on Latin America, solidarity groups and movements - the usual suspects. Frankly, I've never been sure if all of those activities to try and "save" Latin America ever did much for Latin America, or if it did more for our own consciences. I knew that we were programmed to a particular response to "save" the other when one solidarity group brought campesinos and free trade zone workers - yes, real campesinos - for us to talk to. For good reason it felt like a zoo or a circus, and I certainly had to question all that we were up to. Latin American Ishis on display - trying desperately not to share his fate. I grew up a campesino. My father lost his job to free trade. Did I need to see these brown faces to avoid looking at my own story?

And so before me, I thought, were two paths: one to look at Latin America as the kitschy exotic playground for my escape from anglolandia or, the destitute child of poverty crying for my saving graces. Ever at the periphery - first as escape or second as pleading subaltern - I had come to an inability to see two continents as human.

With time and travel, I learned to drop both of those paths. Mexico, and Latin America in general, have become something of a home. I know I don't "get" everything that goes on, and I know better now that the region needs nothing from me except to be a good neighbor - a thing that we all need from each other. At times that might mean I need to get involved with a cause (neighbors help each other out), and at times it might mean I need to keep my yap shut. But at the end of the day, there are no pretexts or fantasies about our co-existence.

I've found that probably the best thing I could do was to try and help other folks in the United States develop an appreciation of Latin America (an understanding might be too tall of an order for the class room), not as a place that needed saving or as a place to play out escapist fantasy, but as a region of "carne y hueso" with creative and intelligent ways of navigating the vagaries of this world. So, students, the next time you ask me why, I'll invite you to know more, and then you'll understand - but only for yourself.

What I Learned About Porn in Latin America

Apparently a new porn site has gone online in Latin America, as far as I can tell, in Argentina. The key words that lead to the site "Latin Secrets Ar Chica" leads to a post I put up last year about Miss Bolivia dancing a Peruvian dance (the Diablada) and causing all sorts of cultural conflict. At any rate, visits to this site have taken off, sadly, as a result to look for exploited, objectified women.

Everything is an opportunity to learn, though. I've discovered that there is at least some shame left in men in Latin America. Searches overwhelmingly come to my site for that topic M-F, 10am to 6pm... when most men in Latin America are at work. Searches for that term disappear on weekends.

This post, of course, will probably get pounded by the porn hounds. Sigh.

Having a Ball in Latin America

Latin America isn't just the place for Canadian Mennonites, US Mormons, beat poets, and billionaire embezzlers to seek refuge. In the 1920s to the 1940s it was also a place of refuge for many members of the old Negro Leagues.

The passing of Cecil Kaiser on Monday (Feb. 14) reminds readers of his obituary that not only did the Negro Leagues cover the United States and Canada, but many of the players also participated in baseball in Latin America. Says historian Bob Kendrick "Players would go (to Latin America) after the season in the States and be treated like heroes. They would stay in the finest hotels, eat in the finest restaurants and then come back to the States and be treated as second-class citizens." As the Library of Congress points out: "In Cuba, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America, professional baseball was not segregated. Many blacks played baseball there in the winter as well as in Negro Leagues in the United States in the summer."

Matt Restall's recent book, Black Mexico, contains an intriguing chapter by Alva Moore Stevenson on her African American / Mexican family - formed when her grandfather Daniel went to Mexico to work on railroads and married a woman that worked for Villa. They then settled on the border and joined many of the families that were bi-racial (consider El Paso, Texas, and the number of African American soldiers married to Mexican American or Mexican women).

The connection between African Americans and Latin America has barely been explored for the modern era. There is a large and academic focus on African immigrants (slaves and descendants of slaves) in the colonial era, but the studies and their quality seem to trickle off as we move out of Brazil and the Caribbean in the modern era.

Islam En Las Americas

A former grad school acquaintance of mine recently wrapped up a major grant project on Islam in the Americas. She is a specialist in Syria, but hails from Spain, so I have no fears on the language gymnastics needed for the project. She and her crew have put together an excellent web site on the topic. http://www.islamamericas.com/ Islam En Las Americas. I am excited to see it is an active forum in both English and Spanish and that there are items on topics such as Islam in the border regions of Paraguay and Brazil. This is a very exciting project and a good example of the positive work that can come about with some invested money and time.

Northern Arizona is Hiring

So, I see that Northern Arizona University is hiring a new Latin America scholar this year. I suppose the power of the desperation of the job market will overwhelm the ethics of Latin Americanists in their initial call to boycott Arizona. I simply can't imagine in this job climate that the job will go un-applied for. I think that is a shame.

Recent shootings aside, the New York Times just ran an article on shutting down Latino literature courses in Tucson. I think this is one of the horrific controls on speech that has gotten far too little press. As the article in the Times states of Curtis Acosta's class:

Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched.

Arizona, you are right, we do need to build a wall on a border in this country - around Arizona.

Call For Papers: Deadline Approaches

The annual SFA conference of Latin American Studies deadline for paper submissions is fast approaching. We have some great proposals so far, but we would love to have a few more. Click here.

Tea Baggers With Foreign Policy?

I've noticed on several news pieces that the Tea Bag "convention" held this week in Tennessee mentions a session called "Correlations between the current Administration and Marxist Dictators of Latin America." Lacking the pocket change for the $350 or $550 registration to attend the convention I tracked down a little info on the session speaker.

Ana Puig is a Brazilian Immigrant to the US, married to a Cuban exile. She holds a BA in International Business from Baylor. And she thinks Obama, Evo, Lula, and Hugo are part of a unified twenty-first century Marxist cabal. Good times. For more good times, watch the following two videos - handkerchief at the ready to dry away the tears of laughter and of utter sadness. I suggest watching it on a cheap screen if you are a thrower.

Do they make blogs big enough to rebut point by point? Do I want to take that much time away from my kids, wife, and career to do it - and endure the teabag mail? Hmmmm.... nope.

I guess at the end of the day, running the US like Colombia under Sarah Palin would be ideal? Wow.



FYI - I get no end of mirth from Beastie Boys Sabotage being the suggested video for viewing after seeing Puig.

The Fifth Estate or Trailer Trash Nag?

A somewhat non-Latin America / Border Issues thought ...

As a guy who spent roughly ten years involved with newspaper journalism I never thought twice about the idea of blogs responding to reporters. I was always trained that if a reporter messes up s/he does so in a very public way and the readership will make you pay. I've done writing, photo, page design, and advertising design - all which require careful precision or the client (readers / ad buyers) will take have your head.

Therefore, when I saw MexFiles "Malcolm in the Muddle" post I was positively perturbed by rambling rumblings of a former News Nugget ... um, News Week editor claiming that foreign correspondents aren't experts, they just give a perspective, and any blog criticism of the coverage is no more than a nagging wife begging for attention. I myself had griped about PBS using reporter David Luhnow as an "expert" on Mexico - and in that Malcolm and I can agree: foreign correspondents are not experts. But should they bot be criticized for faulty "commentary?"

Yesterday NBC newscaster Brian Williams reflected on media criticism in the form of John Stewart of the Daily Show. Speaking on NPR, the transcript reads:

Williams tells NPR's Guy Raz that on occasion, when he feels his broadcast tap-dancing toward the precipice — tossing around a story idea for "what I call Margaret Mead journalism — where we 'discover Twitter,' " for instance, or entertaining some other unfortunate editorial possibility — "I will, and have, said that, 'You know, maybe we can just give a heads-up to Jon to set aside some time for that tonight.'

"I should quickly add, we have another set of standards we put our stories through," Williams cautions. "But Jon's always in the back of my mind. ... When you make The Daily Show, it's usually not for a laurel, it's for a dart."

None of this, the NBC anchor says, is to claim that Stewart and his crew have had some wholesale transformative effect on the news media.

But "a lot of the work that Jon and his staff do is serious," Williams says. "They hold people to account, for errors and sloppiness. ... It's usually delivered with a smile — sometimes not. It's not who we do it for, it's not our only check and balance, but it's healthy — and it helps us that he's out there." Read more here.

Ok. I think for academics the blog component creates an interactive space with the world of our specialties beyond the classroom. My primary job is to research and disseminate that research. After that I teach students what historians do and what we investigate. Beyond that the blog offers me a chance to combine teaching and research to a larger audience (depending on if the post mentions sex or erotica). Commenting on what my students or the public hear about Latin America is a natural extension for academics, as well as a long tradition of press criticism in the United States.

As a reward - if you finished this post I'm mentioning a new resource on the links on the side. H-net lists blogs on Latin America by academics of Latin American topics.

The Baby War (or fetus war, or embryo war, or sperm and egg war...)

This week the Catholic Church threatened to excommunicate Spanish politicians for their vote legalizing abortion in Spain up to 14 weeks. At the same time, back in Mexico the Archbishop of Acapulco, Felipe Aguirre Franco, has admitted to entering into agreements with the PRI to go after both abortion and contraception in Mexico.

Let's remember that just a generation ago under Echeverria the Catholic bishops tacitly supported the birth control option for the poor. Heck, the PRI even offered birth control in the CONASUPO subsidized markets for a time. For the nation that gave the world the birth control pill and pretty freely embraced it in the late '70s it is a real whiplash situation to see even the PRI working against contraception and abortion.

However, I was interested to see a study by a Columbia University public health professor (Jennifer Hirsch) in which she demonstrates that rural Mexican women (the group that was the most resistant or misinformed about contraception in the 1970s) is using contraception and finding that it meshes perfectly well for them and their Catholicism. If the PRI and the PAN are gunning to make this a big political issue in 2012 it may be more of a flop than a flyer if Hirsch's study holds true.

At any rate this seems like a full court push against contraception and abortion in Latin America, as one of my colleagues here in Texas got a full sermon on abortion and contraception in Mexico in his East Texas parish on Miguel Pro's feast day a couple weeks ago.

Religion in Latin America

As a member of the Religion in World History group headed by David Lidenfeld that works to promote the discussion of religion in world history, I compiled a list of ten books on Latin American religion that world historians might find useful.

Why ten? I admit to using the “cutesy list” approach, and it seemed to fit the nature of the H-World list that I had sent it to.

I picked most of these works for two reasons: Either they serve as overviews for those looking for an introduction (such as the Creole Religions book) or they serve as specific cases in Latin America that I’ve noticed make good connections to similar processes elsewhere in the world (such as Diacon’s book on Brazil). Also, while Gustavo Gutierrez's book is the founding Bible of liberation theology for scholars, I chose the Boff brothers for readability.

If nothing, perhaps there will be some comments on the books selected that will prompt some to think of Latin American history as a place to look for comparative cases for their own interests.

• Creole Religions of the Caribbean by Margarite Fernandez Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert. New York University Press, 2007.
• Conversion of a Continent: Contemporary Religious Change in Latin America, edited by Timothy Steigenga and Edward Cleary. Rutgers University Press, 2008.
• The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World by John Leddy Phelan. University of California Press, 1970.
• Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprisings of 1835 in Bahia by Joao Jose Reis. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
• Millenarian Vision, Capitalist Reality: Brazil’s Contestado Rebellion, 1912-1916 by Todd Diacon. Duke University Press, 1991.
• The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia by Elizabeth Brusco. University of Texas at Austin Press, 1995.
• Peru’s Indian People and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest by Steve J. Stern (SECOND EDITION). University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
• God and Production in a Guatemala Town by Sheldon Annis. University of Texas at Austin Press, 1987.
• The Church in Colonial Latin America, edited by John F. Schwaller. Scholarly Resources (now Rowman and Littlefield) Books, 2000.
• Introducing Liberation Theology by Leonardo and Cleodovis Boff. Orbis Books, 1987.

Argentine Juan Soldado? Folk Saint Gauchito Gil and Argentine Memory

After my posts on mennonites, the post I did on Jesus Malverde and Santa Muerte really rake in the hits. Apparently the reading public (meaning the few dozen readers out there that happen to google "Jesus Malverde" and make it to this site) must really dig religious guys that run drugs, saints that kill your enemies, and saints that get you into the US.

ANYWAY... I recently stumbled on to Argentine folk saint Gauchito Gil, a man separated from his lover when wrongly accused of a crime then, caught up in years of warfare, and finally tortured to death by the police. Read the story at the Argentine Folklore page. See pictures of his adoration at the Latinphoto.org page.

I was immediately struck by the similarities with Juan Soldado who, as historian Paul Vanderwood puts it, was a "confessed rapist murderer" in 1938. Faced with a mob of Tijuana citizens, the military opted to act out the sentence of Juan - death - in a public execution where the soldier was prodded to run (ley fuga) and was then gunned down. His grave, despite public shame, quickly became a site of worship and adoration as surely, the people now thought, he was wrongly accused and executed. By the All Saints Day of the same year his grave was a destination for adoration. He has since become the center of adoration for migrants and drug runners.

I can understand Juan Morales aka Juan Soldado becoming a center on which to focus the resentment of public insecurity as well as injustice during the reign of the PRI. And in Argentina, Gauchito Gil makes sense as well. I would really like to know if the popularity of GIL increased during the military regimes in Argentina. One doesn't think torture and Argentina without thinking of the 70s...and I would be curious if there was any correlation in the growth of worship of El Gauchito during the period.

Religion, Exoticism, Race, and Intellectuals

I attended a panel at a conference that made me feel as though we were talking about sex ed in front a pack or junior high students. One of the panelists was relating the beliefs of a particular religious group as practiced in the United States and then how it was received in Mexico. The group's beliefs are fairly outside the mainstream of U.S. religious thought, and every time one of those beliefs was mentioned the audience participants laughed. The panelist, sensing blood in the water, turned on the extra snark for entertainment value. However, when the Mexican believers put their spin on those beliefs, the room was silent - apparently those same beliefs were no longer funny.

Jainist Digambaras? Not funny. Glossolalia in the US south? A laugh a minute. Kaparot? Oooooh...bet that last one would play to mixed reviews, though I think Woody Allen once did something with it - who doesn't love a good chicken ritual?

I'm beginning to think that Brad Gregory has hit it on the head when he quips in his Salvation at Stake that many scholars simply won't put away their personal baggage when it comes to religion - hence the level of sardonic comments at beliefs practiced by "white" Americans or Europeans which are supposed to be subject to the boundaries of enlightenment thinking.

This is where a certain amount of racial exoticism comes in. Groups considered outside of "western" enlightenment traditions (rightfully or wrongfully), particularly those that have been subject to colonization projects (yes, I see the irony) are not subject to the snearing head shaking. Their practices are traditional, acceptab, and, yes, romantically exotic. Exceptions? Yep...and I think those are telling. Consider the religious practices outside of the the European dominated traditions: The Hijab and Burka, female genital mutilation, or stoning for adultery. Like our puritain ancestors of old, we have our own little captive narratives in which women are held bound by dastardly practice and where intellectuals and enlightenment thinking is to serve as the rescue party of colonists from Deerfield (sorry for the broad range of historical references today).

I'm not saying that you have to agree with all these practices, but if a US American thinks we all came to earth from the planet Globbitybong and were born from tamarind pods, don't laugh your head silly at it then nod your head gravely when a tribesman from Borneo does the same. Genuine reaction with disregard to processes of exoticism, please.

And finally, as a person that focuses on religion in his studies, this practice most disturbs me because it betrays a scholars inability to look at a religious practice in the terms the practitioner perceives it OR to even take religion serious enough to be conisdered as a key factor in a cultural, political, social, or, yes, economic process. As Alfred Schmidt states in his comments on Fragments of a Golden Age, if scholars refuse to take religion seriously as scholars, then they won't even bother to examine it. A problem, I would argue, that becomes all the more apparent when the subject under study is closer in proximity of ethnicity or social background.

Film, Cash, and Latin America - last call

I've put this up once before, but I see I'm getting some hits on this. So I will put it up again.

Call for Papers

The Latin American Studies Program at Stephen F. Austin State University, in conjunction with Clio’s Eye, a film and audio visual magazine for the historian produced by the Department of History at Stephen F. Austin State University, seek submissions of essays and reviews on films from or about Latin America or the portrayal of Latin America in film. The call for papers comes in conjunction with the April 2-4, 2009 conference of Latin American Studies scheduled to be held at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. http://www2.sfasu.edu/latinam/Home_.html

Submissions are accepted in English, Spanish, French, or Portuguese.

Graduate and undergraduate submissions are eligible for consideration for the Mary Devine prize of $250.

Contributors may submit essays about or reviews of films that introduce, review, evaluate, and promote discussion of film and literary works concerned with historical topics or themes to the public.

Authors who wish to submit materials may submit manuscripts to Dr. E. Deanne Malpass, Department of History, via email at malpasseliza@sfasu.edu or via CD to P.O. Box 13013, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, 75962.

Please see http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/ (follow the Clio’s News link) for manuscript guidelines. Essay manuscripts should be no longer than approximately ten standard typed pages.

Deadline for submission: February 15, 2009.

Publication: April, 2009.

Davos....Everybody is Watching

The World Economic Forum (the same gathering that brought us the image of Carlos Salinas in a night shirt begging Jaime Serra Puche to contact Carla Hills and get NAFTA rolling) is underway in Switzerland. I see that YouTube has developed a sight with the WEF for people to vote on issues facing the world.

My initial reaction after seeing "Pablo," a goatee-sporting 20 something with messy euro-hair reporting on human rights in Gaza was a sense of excitement. We can see the technology of the world bringing us together on issues that matter, and not just using it to see pictures of the Nude Gay Mexican on the Mexfiles blog (thanks, Richard). ;-) Then the part of me that tells students to evaluate sources all day kicked in.



The internet, which has been an engine of guerilla resistance to dominant culture for so many people - from things as heavy as the anarchist bible to the light and pithy like Ask a Chola - is a great chain of "people power" around the globe. The World Economic Forum, a gathering that all should consider with some suspicion (hi, we're rich guys that meet now and again to carve up the world) is putting on a face of concern. I wonder if this grave economic crisis has them thinking that we could be seeing some grave political crises ahead. Putting a kinder and gentler face on the world economic forum, it seems, as the Times of London calls it, a "beanfeast of pomp and platitude." Now, mind you, I'm not lining up for a world revolution. I would, however, like to see real change in many of the areas that the meeting of Davos is supposed to be debating, but it seems to me that this celebrity show is more a smoke and mirrors trick to keep us looking away while the real economics is decided by others. Granted, real economists SHOULD make those decisions, but I like the idea that they might really be looking for solutions that jive with economic health. I think it can work together - are they really game for it?

And hey, despite the euro-hair comment I already know that Pablo is from Colombia.

Why We're in the Game, No?

I've wrapped up the semester, and I found myself in an interesting few conversations with the grad students this time around. Being Texas and having older grad students (MA program), I'm looking at mostly George W. Bush clones - until they read about Latin America from the historians. Economic, cultural, social, narrative - there was just no place for these folks to hide from the realities of the relationship between the US and Latin America and the play of class and race in Latin America that really had them questioning their positions on US policy as well as immigration. Dare I say it, but "mission accomplished." Not like I'm trying to create little Al Gore's here (heaven help us), but I like the idea of thinking and wrestling with ideas and problems from an informed position.

The strangest exchange came with a very vocal evangelical (who repeatedly self identified his faith for the class) who I assigned Leonardo and Clodovis Boff "Introducing Liberation Theology." His position all semester had been that blaming the United States for the sloth of Latin Americans (as he put it) made no sense. Well, he balled his eyes out at the intro to the book, and cried again as he told the rest of the grad students about the book. He caught me after class and went on and on for nearly an hour about how Americans consumed too much and that sin really can be structural. And while he had some good academic questions about the approach, personally he was moved by the Boffs.

Well, come the following week on US/Latin American Relations, he was back at Latin America, hammer and tongs, for what he called their clearly racists and envious greed at the Protestant success of the United States. Between comments on Hispanic culture and slurs at the Catholic church, it was as if the Black Legend had embodied itself in the student. We had one reader explaining Phillip Wayne Powell's Tree of Hate that week as well. When he jumped in and clearly explained the source of all of the biases that had been present in the student's comments the student looked a bit sheepish. That was followed by Emperor's In the Jungle and Empire's Workshop. Needless to say, good times had by all. (And yes, there were other books covered, so keep the "hey, you forgot book so and so" comments to yourself.)

Film, Cash, and Latin America

We have a department audio-visual web site that looks at movies. For April, we have a Latin America conference on campus and we are taking submissions of papers on films from Latin America. Pick a film and do a historical point of view on it and turn it in. Below is the call for papers. Spread the word if you know people who are interested.

Call for Papers

The Latin American Studies Program at Stephen F. Austin State University, in conjunction with Clio’s Eye, a film and audio visual magazine for the historian produced by the Department of History at Stephen F. Austin State University, seek submissions of essays and reviews on films from or about Latin America or the portrayal of Latin America in film. The call for papers comes in conjunction with the April 2-4, 2009 conference of Latin American Studies scheduled to be held at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. http://www2.sfasu.edu/latinam/Home_.html

Submissions are accepted in English, Spanish, French, or Portuguese.

Graduate and undergraduate submissions are eligible for consideration for the Mary Devine prize of $250.

Contributors may submit essays about or reviews of films that introduce, review, evaluate, and promote discussion of film and literary works concerned with historical topics or themes to the public.

Authors who wish to submit materials may submit manuscripts to Dr. E. Deanne Malpass, Department of History, via email at malpasseliza@sfasu.edu or via CD to P.O. Box 13013, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, 75962.

Please see http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/ (follow the Clio’s News link) for manuscript guidelines. Essay manuscripts should be no longer than approximately ten standard typed pages.

Deadline for submission: February 15, 2009.

Publication: April, 2009.