Hollywood and Disney in Mid-20th-Century Inter-American Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Purcell ◽  
Camila Gatica
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Latin American Culture ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Coordinator

Hollywood, and Disney in particular, played a key role in inter-American relations during the mid-20th century. Hollywood cinema became an important weapon of cultural diplomacy in the context of the Good Neighbor Policy and later during World War II, and it aligned itself with the main diplomatic guidelines issued by Washington. Cinema was widely disseminated throughout Latin America, which helped to consolidate the US message in the region. Thus the close ties between the Hollywood film industry and the State Department is made clear, which became particularly close with regard to Latin America thanks to the creation of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs during the conflict. In this context, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs played a key role in creating a two-way street between Latin American culture and US audiences, as well as presenting the United States as an ally to trust.

The Good Neighbor Policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Paul Friedman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Roosevelt Administration ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Cold War

In the first three decades of the 20th century, the United States regularly intervened militarily in the circum-Caribbean, sending the Marines to govern directly or rule by proxy in Nicaragua (1912–1933), Haiti (1915–1934), and the Dominican Republic (1916–1924). The end of this era of U.S. occupations, and the relatively harmonious period that followed, is typically credited to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, although his predecessor Herbert Hoover began the process and both drew upon Latin American traditions and yielded to Latin American pressures to change traditional U.S. policy. The new approach to relations with Latin America included not only abjuring the use of military force but respecting the full sovereignty of Latin American states by not interfering or even commenting upon their processes of political succession. The Roosevelt administration signed agreements formalizing this new respect and sought to negotiate mutually beneficial trade agreements with Latin American countries. The benefits of the Good Neighbor Policy became evident when nearly every country in the region aligned itself with the United States in World War II. Measures taken against Axis nationals strained the policy during the war. By 1945, and during the Cold War, the policy unraveled, as the United States resumed both interference (in Argentine politics) and intervention (with a CIA-organized coup in Guatemala in 1954).

Hollywood’s Rogue Neighbor: The Argentine Film Industry during the Good Neighbor Policy, 1939–1945

2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara L. Falicov
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The U.S

‘During World War II, the United States created a political, economic, I land cultural policy aimed at improving hemispheric relations between the U.S. and Latin America. Dubbed the “Good Neighbor Policy,” its objectives were twofold: 1) to insure that nations in Latin America were joined in the Allied war effort and were not associated with the Axis or Communist sympathizers, and 2) to allow the U.S. access to Latin America as a source of raw materials and a market for goods, including films. Because Argentina did not side with the Allies, instead preferring neutrality, it was castigated by an economic boycott. Beginning in 1941, the U.S. sold small rations of raw film stock to Argentina, and over time, refused to sell it all together. The film industry in Argentina, at the time considered the most profitable and advanced in Latin America, began to lose its hold on the Spanish-language market.

Waldo Frank's Crusade for Latin American Literature

1989 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-69
Author(s):  
Irene Rostagno
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War I ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Latin American ◽  
North American ◽  
World War ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Latin American Culture ◽  
American Author ◽  
Good Neighbor

Waldo Frank, who is now forgotten in Latin America, was once the most frequently read and admired North American author there. Though his work is largely neglected in the U.S., he was at one time the leading North American expert on Latin American writing. His name looms large in tracing the careers of Latin American writers in this country before 1940. Long before Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Good Neighbor policy, Frank brought back to his countrymen news of Latin American culture.Frank went to South America when he was almost forty. The youthful dreams of Frank and his fellow pre-World War I writers and artists to make their country a fit place for cultural renaissance that would change society had waned with the onset of the twenties.1 But they had not completely vanished. Disgruntled by the climate of "normalcy" prevailing in America after World War I, he turned to Latin America. He started out in the Southwest. The remnants of Mexican culture he found in Arizona and New Mexico enticed him to venture further into the Hispanic world. In 1921 he traveled extensively in Spain and in 1929 spent six months exploring Latin America.

The Politics of Intervention: The United States and Argentina, 1941–1946

1980 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Large Material ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Military

In Argentina during World War II the US stepped outside the limits of the Good Neighbor policy proclaimed by the Roosevelt administration in 1933 and attempted to overthrow the government of a major Latin American power.1Between 1941 and 1945 Argentina was not only treated differently from the rest of Latin America by the United States, but was also singled out for harsher treatment than other neutrals, despite its large material contribution to the Allied cause. In 1944 Washington was readier to compromise with Franco's Spain, a country whose Axis connections were notorious, than it was to seek a settlement with the government in Buenos Aires.2The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of US interference in Argentine affairs after Pearl Harbor and the reasons for US hostility to the rise of Perón following the military coup of June 1943.

Buenas Vecinas?

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 60-84
Author(s):  
Christine Ehrick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Sharp Turn ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Good Neighbor

During World War II, US–Latin American relations were shaped by the noninterventionist Good Neighbor policy and the projection of soft power via US government-orchestrated public relations and propaganda campaigns. This included extensive film and radio propaganda overseen by the US Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) and disseminated throughout the region. One dimension of that campaign involved radio propaganda aimed specifically at women, who were regaled with stories of heroic Latin American women and carefully curated female perspectives on life in the United States during wartime. In much of this material, the United States was presented as a dominant yet gentlemanly hemispheric partner, offering Latin America protection and material abundance in exchange for loyalty and deference. As the war wound down, such propaganda took a sharp turn toward the Cold War, when Good Neighbor chivalry gave way to more strident rhetoric, prefiguring a return to US interventionist politics of the prewar era.

Spruille Braden Versus George Messersmith: World War II, the Cold War, and Argentine Policy, 1945-1947

1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger R. Trask
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
World War ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Cold War

Between 1945 and 1947, Argentina posed a complex and exasperating problem for the United States as it endeavored to develop policy to guide its relations with Latin America. Among the questions involved were how to deal with an alleged neofascist dictator in Argentina, how to preserve the aura of the so-called Good Neighbor policy, whether to provide arms and economic aid to Latin America, and whether to enter into a collective security agreement for the western hemisphere.

Latin America and the Socio-Economic Impact of the Cuban Revolution

1962 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro C. M. Teichert
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Socio Economic Impact ◽  
Imminent Threat ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Military ◽  
Latin American Countries

The Cuban revolution has profoundly shaken the economic and political foundation traditional in most of the 20 Latin American republics. The demand by the rest of Latin America for Cuban type reforms has also required a reappraisal of U. S.-Latin American relations, which with the breaking off of diplomatic intercourse between Cuba and the U. S., January 4, 1961, have reached their lowest point since the initiation in the mid 1930's of the Good Neighbor Policy by President Roosevelt. Furthermore, the spread of the Cuban revolution, with its ideals and aspirations for the fulfilment of the age-old political, social, and economic aspirations of the downtrodden masses, is now an imminent threat for the remaining undemocratic Latin American governments. There is no denying the fact that most Latin American countries are still run by an oligarchy of landlords and the military.

From “Color” to “Rainbow”: U.S. Strategic Planning for Latin America, 1919-1945

1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Child
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
World War ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Strategic Plans ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Bilateral Cooperation ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The U.S

A series of recently declassified documents in the National Archives provide striking evidence of the shift of United States military strategic thinking away from the nineteenth and early twentieth century unilateral interventionist approaches to the bilateral approaches taken in World War II under the multilateral framework of the Good Neighbor Policy.It is also significant to note that, despite the multilateral thrust of this Good Neighbor Policy promulgated by President Roosevelt and the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Military Departments— War and Navy—made no provisions for multilateral strategic plans in World War II.But even as U.S. military planners prepared for bilateral cooperation with Latin American allies in the war, they continued to draft and update unilateral plans for intervention and invasion of key Latin American countries if cooperative approaches should fail.

Latin America in World War I

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich E. Schuler
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
World War ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Military Advisors

The English-speaking world awaits its first detailed study examining Latin America during World War I. Many historical events of the era remain little-known, as does much of the region’s military history during this period. While key chronologies, personalities, groups, and historical avenues remain unidentified, researchers must draw knowledge from existing texts. The authors cited in this article for further study cover only a small fraction of the myriad topics presented by the war. World War I set in motion a unique power readjustment in Latin America, the likes of which had not been experienced in the region since the 1820s. Most significantly, the temporary suspension of economic ties with Europe disrupted everyday processes that elites and commoners had previously taken for granted. Changes in economy and finance triggered a struggle between indigenous Americans, peasants, workers, elites, and immigrants, setting the stage for the social and political changes of the 1920s. Amidst the upheaval of World War I, non-elite Latin American groups successfully focused national politics on regional and ethnic issues, while elite Latin Americans weighed the potential advantages of ties with Spanish and Italian authoritarianism. World War I ended European financial dominance over the region, and the destruction of Europe reduced export markets to a point where Latin America’s economic relations with the United States gained new significance. U.S. military advisors took their places alongside European trainers, and many different “U.S.” actors emerged on Latin American soil, acting out rivaling understandings of appropriate U.S. activity in Latin America. The war heralded the end of Belgian influence and of significant French power in the region, British acceptance of U.S. financial preeminence, and questions as to how Prussian military expertise could be leveraged to Latin America’s benefit in the future. The creation of the League of Nations, a development alien to Latin American political culture, caught the region off guard. And yet it laid the foundation for global Latin American diplomacy in the 1930s and after World War II. In the end, the search for a new understanding of a Latin American nation’s place on the changing world stage led to the elevation of the institution of the national army as a social and political arbiter. The myth of the army as embodiment of national essence would last until the 1980s.

Child Migrants in 20th-Century America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Refugee Children ◽  
Ellis Island ◽  
European Child

Child migration has garnered widespread media coverage in the 21st century, becoming a central topic of national political discourse and immigration policymaking. Contemporary surges of child migrants are part of a much longer history of migration to the United States. In the first half of the 20th century, millions of European and Asian child migrants passed through immigration inspection stations in the New York harbor and San Francisco Bay. Even though some accompanied and unaccompanied European child migrants experienced detention at Ellis Island, most were processed and admitted into the United States fairly quickly in the early 20th century. Few of the European child migrants were deported from Ellis Island. Predominantly accompanied Chinese and Japanese child migrants, however, like Latin American and Caribbean migrants in recent years, were more frequently subjected to family separation, abuse, detention, and deportation at Angel Island. Once inside the United States, both European and Asian children struggled to overcome poverty, labor exploitation, educational inequity, the attitudes of hostile officials, and public health problems. After World War II, Korean refugee “orphans” came to the United States under the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 and the Immigration and Nationality Act. European, Cuban, and Indochinese refugee children were admitted into the United States through a series of ad hoc programs and temporary legislation until the 1980 Refugee Act created a permanent mechanism for the admission of refugee and unaccompanied children. Exclusionary immigration laws, the hardening of US international boundaries, and the United States preference for refugees who fled Communist regimes made unlawful entry the only option for thousands of accompanied and unaccompanied Mexican, Central American, and Haitian children in the second half of the 20th century. Black and brown migrant and asylum-seeking children were forced to endure educational deprivation, labor trafficking, mandatory detention, deportation, and deadly abuse by US authorities and employers at US borders and inside the country.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document