Nationalism in Latin American History

Nationalism 1. In the wake of neocolonialism, Latin Americans remade the nativist rhetoric of the past to push a new nationalist cultural and economic agenda. I. Nationalism 1. Latin American nations had been defined by their internal diversity 1. Transculturation 2. Racial mixing 2. Europeans had associated Latin American difference with a negative meaning 3. Nativism challenged this attitude 4. Nativism faded after independence 3. New nationalism was another wave of nativism with strong economic agenda 4. Who were nationalists? 5. Often urban, middle class 6. Mixed-race or recent immigrants . Benefitted less from export boom 5. Nationalism challenged the supposed superiority of European culture 8. Reinterpretation of Latin American difference as positive 9. Use of local cultural forms to define that difference 6. Critique of foreign intervention 10. Military intervention 11. Economic power 7. Ethnic nationalism 12. Differs from U. S. “civic nationalism”
13. Employs signs of ethnic identity 1. Foods 2. Dance 3. Clothing 1. Celebrates racial mixing 1. Adaptation to Latin American environment 2. Sometimes as improvement — best of all races 3. Nicolas Guillen . Premier exponent of Afro-Cuban identity 2. “Ballad of Two Grandfathers” 3. Poems sometimes mimicked Afro-Cuban speech 1. Many writers use indigenous and Afro-Cuban themes 1. Alejo Carpentier (Cuba) 2. Ciro Alegria (Peru) 3. Miguel angel Asturias (Guatemala) I. Nationalists Take Power 1. Mexican Revolution 1. Diaz had ruled for 34 years by 1910 2. Reformers back Francisco Madero 1. Madero sought only more power for elites in Diaz government 2. Madero was jailed and exiled 1. Madero radicalizes, proposes returning indigenous lands 2. Emiliano Zapata 1.
From indigenous community of Anenecuilo 2. Lost land to sugar plantations 3. Allied his movement with Madero 4. His image — sombrero, mustache, horse — become iconic of Revolution 5. One of many local leaders moving against the government 1. Madero goes into exile in 1911 1. Diaz unseated by a general, killed 2. Years of upheaval, multiple armies fighting at once 1. Pancho Villa 1. Northern Mexico 2. Army comprised of cowboys, miners, railroad workers, oil workers 3. Very different from Zapata’s southern indigenous rebellion 1. Constitutionalists 1.

Third movement along with Villa and Zapata 2. Urban, middle class 3. Drafted a new constitution in 1917 4. More typical of Latin American nationalists 5. May be considered the “winners” of the revolution 1. Constitution of 1917 1. Article 27 reclaims oil rights for nation from foreign companies 2. Paved the way for villages to recover common lands (ejidos) 3. Division of large landholdings, distribution to landless peasants 4. Article 123 – labor regulations 5. Limited privileges of foreigners 6. Curbed Catholic church 1. No longer could hold land 2. Limits to number of clergy . Clergy could not wear ecclesiastical clothes in the street 4. Clergy could not teach primary school 1. 7. Defeated Villa and Zapata 2. Fought off Catholic traditionalist “Cristero” rebellion 3. Created single-party political system 1. Remained in power as Revolutionary Party for seventy years 2. Employed Villa, Zapata, Madero as its heroes 1. Revolution was transformative for Mexico 1. Created new loyalties 2. Occupied a central space in the national imagination 3. Two U. S. interventions added nationalist luster 1. New government initiatives 1.
Road initiative decreases isolation of rural areas 2. Land redistribution 3. Public education initiative 4. Jose Vasconcelos 1. Minister of Education 2. Celebrated the “Cosmic Race,” meaning mestizos 1. Artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo illustrate revolutionary nationalism 1. Diego Rivera 1. Muralist 2. Depicted Mexico’s indigenous past 3. Painted Ministry of Public Education 1. (i) Images of open-air schools 2. (ii) Indigenous peasants dividing land 1. Mexico’s national palace 1. (i) Scenes of Tenochtitlan 2. (ii) Depicts Spanish conquest as a hypocritical bloodbath 1. . Frida Kahlo 1. Small self-portraits 2. Painted while bedridden 1. (i) Polio survivor 2. (ii) Crippled by a traffic accident 3. (iii) Multiple surgeries 1. Depicted herself with cultural symbols of Mexico 1. (i) Traditional hairstyles 2. (ii) Folk dresses 3. (iii) Pre-Colombian jewelry 1. Nationalism was en vogue in the 1920s–30s 1. Folk music (corridos) 2. Dance (jarabes) 3. Traditional dishes (moles and tamales) 4. Old-style theater (carpas) 5. Mexican films 1. Nationalist movement had Marxist overtones 1. Kahlo and Rivera joined Communist party 2. Soviet exile Trotsky lived in Mexico 1.
Uruguay 1. Background 1. Export boom rivaled that of Argentina 2. Ruled through managed elections 1. Jose Batlle y Ordonez 1. Country’s great nationalist reformer 2. First term (1903–07) vanquished political rivals 3. Broad support among immigrant working and middle class of Montevideo 1. Batllismo 1. Civic and economic nationalism 2. State action against “foreign economic imperialism” 1. Tariffs to protect local business 2. Government monopoly on public utilities 1. (i) Formerly British-owned railroad 2. (ii) Port of Montevideo 1. Government ownership of tourist hotels 2.
Government owned meat-packing plants 3. State-owned banks 1. 3. Hemisphere’s first welfare state 1. Minimum wage 2. Labor regulations 3. Paid vacations 4. Accident insurance 5. Public education expanded 6. University opened to women 1. 4. Batllismo relied on prosperity to sustain reforms 2. Left rural Uruguay largely untouched 3. Aggressively anti-clerical 4. Tried to abolish presidency in favor of a council 5. Considered a “civil caudillo” 1. Argentina — Hipolito Yrigoyen 1. “Revolution of the ballot box” (1916) 1. Radical Civic Union 2. Middle-class reform party with working class support 3.
First truly mass-based political party in Latin America 4. Rewarded supporters with public jobs 5. Reforms less audacious than in Uruguay 1. Used nationalist rhetoric 2. Did not significantly affect presence of foreign capital 1. 6. Created government agency to oversee oil production 1. Man of the people 1. Hated, and hated by, urban elite 2. Framed politics in moral terms 3. Lived in a simple house 1. Rejected European and U. S. initiatives 2. Repressed labor action 1. “Tragic week” of 1919 2. Patagonian sheep herders’ strike of 1921 1. Returned to power in 1928 1.
Victor Manuel Haya de la Torre (Peru) 2. Exiled from Peru for protesting a U. S. -backed dictatorship 3. Lived in Mexico, influenced by Mexican Revolution 4. Formed Popular American Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) 1. International party 2. Defense against economic imperialism 1. Preferred the term “Indo-America” to Latin America 2. Indigenismo – nationalist emphasis on indigenous roots 1. Jose Carlos Mariategui imagined indigenous socialism 2. Inca models combined with Marxist theory 3. Peruvian society ethnically split, so indigenismo was not successful 1.
APRA 1. Did not succeed as international party 2. Indigenismo scared Peru’s Conservatives 3. Mass rallies against oligarchy, imperialism 4. Party revolted after losing a managed election 5. Rebellion crushed, party banned 1. Ciro Alegria 1. High-ranking APRA militant 2. Fled Peru 3. Wrote indigenismo fiction 4. Authored “Wide and Alien is the World” 5. Best-known Latin American indigenismo writer 1. Nationalists were influential even when kept from power 1. Colombia 1. Nationalists tried to outflank conservative client networks 1. Unionized urban workers 2.
Rural oligarchies were too strong 1. 2. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan 1. Fiery popular leader 2. Rose to fame protesting massacre of banana workers at U. S. -owned plantation 1. Venezuela 1. Oil money kept leaders entrentched 2. Popular outreach carried out by communist or socialist activists 1. Chile 1. Thirteen-day “Socialist Republic” 2. Nationalists on the right prevented consolidation of a government 1. Cuba 1. Broad nationalist coalition ousted neocolonial dictator 2. Included university students and non-commissioned army officers 3. Fulgencio Batista 1.
Led military element of revolution 2. Bowed to U. S. influence 3. Nationalism as window-dressing I. ISI and Activist Governments of the 1930s 1. Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) 1. International trade collapses during 1930s Depression 2. Latin American manufacturers fill void left by collapsed trade 3. Began during trade disruption during World War I 1. Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City develop industry 2. Latin American industry remains mostly undeveloped 1. Industrialization becomes central to nationalism 1. Economic activism 1.
Setting wages and prices 2. Regulating production levels 3. Protective labor laws 4. Manipulated exchange rates 1. 2. State ownership of banks, utilities, key industries 1. Largest markets benefitted from ISI 1. Mexico 2. Southern Cone nations 1. Smaller markets did not see much industrialization 1. Poor, rural populations 2. Less market for domestically-produced products 1. Light industry responded better to ISI than heavy industry 1. Heavy industry required importing equipment 2. Required steel 3. Only Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile had steel industries 1. Brazil 1.
Industry surpassed agriculture as percentage of GDP within two decades 2. Getulio Vargas 1. Compared to U. S. president FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) 1. Made famous use of radio 2. Vastly expanded government 1. Oligarchic republic begins to collapse in 1920s 2. Young army officers – tenentes –stage symbolic uprisings 3. Coffee industry in crisis from overproduction 1. “Coffee Valorization Program” cannot offset drops in prices 2. Depression in 1929 causes prices to plummet again 1. Revolution of 1930 1. Vargas was governor of Rio Grande do Sul, non-coffee state 2.
Candidate from coffee-producing Sao Paulo won a managed election 3. Opposition forces gather to dispute result 4. Vargas takes presidency with support of the army 5. Revolution of 1930 brought together diverse political movements 1. Frustrated liberals 2. Tenentes — nationalists who despised Liberals 1. Young Tenentes absorb radical ideologies 1. Many tenentes joined communist party 2. Communist party at the center of Alliance for National Liberation (ALN) 3. Others join Integralists, inspired by European fascism 1. Vargas presidency 1.
Ruled more-or-less constitutionally for seven years 2. Played different political factions against each other 3. Took dictatorial power in 1937 4. Announced Estado Novo (New State) 1. Highly authoritarian 2. Dissolved legislative bodies 3. Banned political parties 4. Media censored 5. “Interventors” appointed to direct state governments 6. Police operated with brutal impunity 1. 5. Nationalism helped maintain his popularity 1. Flood of new government agencies 2. National Steel Company 3. National Motor Factory 4. Prohibited foreign ownership of newspapers 5.
Assimilation pressure on immigrant communities 1. Promotion of Afro-Brazilian heritage 1. Gilberto Freyre 1. Anthropologist 2. Authored The Masters and the Slaves 3. Argued that African heritage created Brazil’s national identity 1. 2. Samba became Brazil’s national dance 2. Carmen Miranda 1. Known for her fruit-hats 2. Movie star first in Brazil, then in United States 3. In Brazil, movies occupied a nationalist niche — national dance, national music 4. In the United States, became a caricature of Latin America 5. Born in Portugal, raised in Brazil . Dance, costumes, and songs embodied Brazil 1. Sao Paulo Modern Art Week, 1922 1. Heitor Villa-Lobos 1. Integrated Brazilian folk melodies into classical compositions 2. Under Vargas, worked on national program for musical enrichment 3. Remains Latin America’s most famous classical composer 1. 2. Oswald de Andrade 1. “Cannabalist manifesto” 1928 2. Suggested that Brazilians metaphorically cannibalize European art 1. (i) Consume and digest it 2. (ii) Combine it with indigenous and African art to create Brazilian forms 1. 3.
Jorge Amado 1. Best-known Brazilian novelist 2. Novels set in strongly Afro-Brazilian Bahia 1. Placing Vargas on the left-right spectrum 1. Organized labor unions 2. Protected workers 1. 48-hour work week 2. Safety standards 3. Retirement and pension plans 4. Maternity benefits 1. 3. Paternalistic — no worker control 1. Striking prohibited 2. Grievances addressed to the state 1. Lazaro Cardenas in Mexico 1. Humble beginnings, unlike Vargas or FDR 2. Fought in the Revolution 3. Became governor of Michoacan, his home state 4. Ran for president unopposed as Revolutionary party’s candidate 1.
Campaigned across the country 2. Made a point to visit small villages 1. Distributed nearly 45 million acres of land, as much as previous twenty-four years put together 2. Supported labor, defended right to strike 1. Led to major international confrontation in 1938 2. Striking workers were employed by U. S. and British companies 3. Companies and strikers submitted to Mexican government for arbitration 1. Arbitrators awarded workers increased pay and social services 2. Foreign firms refused to comply 3. Mexican supreme court upheld decision 4.
Companies continued to stonewall 1. 4. Cardenas expropriated the oil companies under Article 27 1. Mexicans voluntarily contributed to help government compensate the companies 2. Seen as a “declaration of economic independence” 3. Gave rise to national oil company, PEMEX 1. 5. Britain cut off diplomatic relations 1. FDR’s “Good Neighbor Policy” 1. Need for Latin American allies in unstable 1930s 2. 1933, Pan-American Conference 1. United States forswears intervention in Latin America 2. Cuba and Panama would no longer be protectorates 1.
Rise of “Good Neighbor” movies 1. Carmen Miranda 2. Disney’s “Three Caballeros” 1. World War II 1. All countries of Latin America joined the United States as allies in World War II 1. Central American and Caribbean countries among first to join 1. Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic 1. (i) Petty dictator supported by United States 2. (ii) “He’s our bastard” 1. 2. Chile and Argentina were aloof, with large population of immigrants from Italy, Germany 2. Brazil was greatest ally 1. “Bulge of Brazil” was of great strategic importance 2.
Vargas allowed construction of U. S. bases and airstrips 3. Brazilian infantry fought in Italy 1. 4. Mexican fighter pilots flew in Pacific 1. War spurred ISI 1. U. S. demand for agricultural exports increased 2. United States and Europe still unable to produce industrial goods 3. Demand up and competition low for Latin American industry 4. Brazil, for example, enjoyed a huge trade surplus 1. Nationalism in 1945 1. Cultural shift had taken place 1. Rivera’s murals in Mexico’s government buildings 2. Acclaim for Afro-Brazilian samba dancers . Carlos Gardel 1. Famed tango singer 2. Popular throughout Latin America 3. Career cut short by plane crash 1. 4. Gabriel Mistral 1. Chilean poet 2. First Latin American to win a Nobel Prize 1. Many things remained unchanged 1. Central America virtually untouched by benefits of nationalism 1. Internal markets too small to support industrialization 2. Land-owning oligarchies had not ceded control 1. 2. Guatemala 1. German coffee growers had no interest in developing the country 2. Jorge Ubico 1. (i) Classic neocolonial dictator 2. ii) Main concern was promoting “civilization” and cultivating coffee 3. (iii) Wanted to be closest U. S. ally 1. United Fruit Company becomes single dominant economic enterprise 1. 3. El Salvador represented “worst-case scenario” 1. Dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez 1. Brutally defended coffee production 2. (ii) 1932 becomes known as the year of “the Slaughter” 3. (iii) Most of the more than 10,000 victims were indigenous 1. Indigenous Salvadorans slowly gave up signs of their identity 1. 4.
United States stopped nationalism in Central America and Caribbean 1. Batista in Cuba 2. Several rulers owed their power to U. S. intervention 1. (i) Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua 2. (ii) Trujillo of Dominican Republic 1. (1) Motto: “God and Trujillo” 2. (2) Major nationalist effort was massacre of Haitian immigrants 1. 5. Rhetoric often outran reality in nationalist countries 1. Racism lingered 2. Urbanization created shantytowns 3. Rural areas of most countries saw no improvements 4. Countries remained technologically behind Europe and United StatesChapter