Understanding Latin America
I hesitate before jumping to conclusions over a secondary source. But it seems that Lowell Gudmundson’s grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has led to a too-easy extrapolation (spring Quarterly). I’m referring to the application of his experiences, principally in Guatemala and Nicaragua, to a far broader territory.
One can no more generalize about Latin America than one can about Europe or Asia. Each country has a specific template, hammered over time by a unique set of forces. These, in Latin America, include geography; climate; indigenous cultures and their region-specific history; the types and origins of Iberians that conquered; the miscegenation that followed; the country-specific needs and works of an earlier Roman Catholic church; the slave trade from West Africa, brought in to help out or replace the subjugated natives; more miscegenation; centuries of political fireworks; and waves of immigrants, especially from the mid-nineteenth century on, mostly from Western Europe.
I defy Lowell Gudmundson to find Latin Americans who are unaware of the full spectrum of racial components in their country. It is a subject that is covered with no taboos in grade-school curriculums that are non-politicized, for the most part. In the meantime, I question enlightening “the natives” by applying the racial baggage of a very separate reality, meaning that of North America (Mexico excluded). I question using North America as a tether to justify racial psychology further south. And I question transferring “otherized” theories to regions where racial profiling has been neither as divisive nor as caustic as it has been in the history of the United States.
Cross-pollinating certain ideas can provoke interesting exchanges, when they aren’t intended to polarize. But are the effects an accurate depiction of reality, when grant dollars and publishing possibilities are primary motivators?
Sydney Hedderich ’74
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lowell Gudmundson replies:
The views expressed above are shared by many students who take Afro-Latin America Since 1800. They continue to be held by many upon completing the course, with passionate and eloquent debates such as those suggested by Ms. Hederrich, enriching our semester together. However, the idea that these issues amount to a misguided pursuit of North American or US racial concerns in Latin America is an unfortunate misperception. Several generations of Latin American scholars and Afro-Latin American communities have built the foundations for the course, its issues, and an abundant literature. They are best reflected, perhaps, by the Colombian journal América Negra, now in its second decade of publication. For the English-language reader, the broadest introduction might be found in George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000 (Oxford University Press, 2004); while our own goals for Central America are set out in greater detail on the project Web site, at:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/latam/africania.html.
