Debated Whiteness amid World Events: Mexican and Mexican American Subjectivity and the U.S.' Relationship with the Americas, 1924–1936

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Calderón-Zaks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
The Us ◽  
Domestic Practices ◽  
Japanese Immigration ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The U.S

By the 1920s, anti-Mexican campaigns in the United States had become a major liability for US interests in the Americas, as rival imperial powers attempted to exploit growing anti-American sentiments in Mexico and Latin America against American imperialism. The U.S. State Department sought to curtail animosity in Latin America by contesting discriminatory domestic practices that angered elite Mexicans and Mexican-American leaders who identified as white. After blocking eastern and southern European and Japanese immigration in the 1924 National Origins Act, the eugenics movement turned its attention to excluding Mexicans from entering the US. When legislative attempts at restriction failed because they conflicted with national and international commercial interests, non-legislative avenues were sought, including the Census and the courts. The 1930 Census was the only census that categorized Mexicans as a separate “race.” In the context of a changing racial formation in the United States, this unique category was reversed in 1936 due to Mexican-American leaders leveraging the fragility of the “Good Neighbor Policy” to force the Federal government into action.

Far Beyond the Good Neighbor Policy

Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Francis X. Gannon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Western Democracies

As President Carter prepared for his first official visit to Mexico in February, 1979, to discuss, among other things, U.S. access to its neighbor's new-found oil, the U.S. secretary of energy, James R. Schlesinger, warned that the security of the Western democracies could be completely undermined if instability became endemic in the Persian Gulf and the flow of oil to Europe, Japan, and the United States was sharply curtailed.There was considerable irony in this situation. As columnist James Reston observed in the New York Times, the president was not going to Mexico "to deal with the price of Mexican gas—though that is an immediate and divisive problem—but with the price of neglect.

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.

Latin America and the Inversion of United States Stereotypes in the 1920s and 1930s: The Case of Culture and Nature

1985 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrick B. Pike
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
White Male ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
North Americans ◽  
The North ◽  
Principal Factors ◽  
Good Neighbor

In this essay I describe some often ignored North American modes of perceiving Latin Americans; and I suggest that a change in these modes contributed to the Good Neighbor era (1933-1945). I do not presume to argue that shifting attitudes and perceptions should be seen as the principal factors in shaping the Good Neighbor policy. Anyone concerned with the primary determinants of that policy must turn to security and economic considerations. Still, an intellectual—and, really, a psychological—phenomenon of shifting perceptions and stereotypes among North Americans accounted for some of the enthusiasm with which they greeted what they took to be a new approach to Latin America.In its central thrust this essay suggests that in hemispheric relations, seen from the north-of-the-Rio-Grande perspective, the United States stands generally for culture and Latin America for nature. Symbolizing the capitalist culture of the Yankees, shaped by their struggle to subdue wilderness and nature, has been the white male, often portrayed by Uncle Sam. In contrast, Latin America has been symbolized by Indians, blacks, women, children, and also the idle poor: people assumed to lack the capitalist urge constantly to tame, dominate, and uplift nature.

The US–Mexico War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Valerio-Jiménez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican War ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Northern Territories ◽  
United States Mexico ◽  
The U.S

The United States–Mexico War was the first war in which the United States engaged in a conflict with a foreign nation for the purpose of conquest. It was also the first conflict in which trained soldiers (from West Point) played a large role. The war’s end transformed the United States into a continental nation as it acquired a vast portion of Mexico’s northern territories. In addition to shaping U.S.–Mexico relations into the present, the conflict also led to the forcible incorporation of Mexicans (who became Mexican Americans) as the nation’s first Latinos. Yet, the war has been identified as the nation’s “forgotten war” because few Americans know the causes and consequences of this conflict. Within fifteen years of the war’s end, the conflict faded from popular memory, but it did not disappear, due to the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War. By contrast, the U.S.–Mexico War is prominently remembered in Mexico as having caused the loss of half of the nation’s territory, and as an event that continues to shape Mexico’s relationship with the United States. Official memories (or national histories) of war affect international relations, and also shape how each nation’s population views citizens of other countries. Not surprisingly, there is a stark difference in the ways that American citizens and Mexican citizens remember and forget the war (e.g., Americans refer to the “Mexican American War” or the “U.S.–Mexican War,” for example, while Mexicans identify the conflict as the “War of North American Intervention”).

Latino Catholics in the Southwest

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Timothy Matovina
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
Church And Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

This chapter summarizes new trends in scholarship on the U.S. Southwest by expanding and refining the three-era schema of Southwest history illustrated in the book of Francis Baylies, who accompanied the victorious U.S. forces on their march through Mexico following the Mexican–American war. The book reflected U.S. views on the history of the region and the U.S. takeover of the former Mexican territories. The chapter divides Latino Catholicism in the Southwest into a thematic schema: colonial foundations, enduring communities of faith in the wake of the war between Mexico and the United States, the rejuvenation and diversification of Latino Catholic communities with the arrival of numerous immigrants from Mexico and throughout Latin America, and the struggle for rights in church and society that accelerated during the second half of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals BETWEEN THE GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY AND THE LATIN AMERICAN “BOOM”:

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-127
Author(s):  
Victoria Livingstone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Latin American Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Brazilian Literature ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The U.S

This article studies the translation of Brazilian literature in the United States between 1930 and the end of the 1960s. It analyzes political, historical and economic factors that influenced the publishing market for translations in the U.S., focusing on the editorial project of Alfred A. Knopf, the most influential publisher for Latin American literature in the U.S. during this period, and Harriet de Onís, who translated approximately 40 works from Spanish and Portuguese into English. In addition to translating authors such as João Guimarães Rosa and Jorge Amado, de Onís worked as a reader for Knopf, recommending texts for translation. The translator’s choices reflected the demands of the market and contributed to forming the canon of Brazilian literature translated in the United States.

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.

Palestine Unbound

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 130-134
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Task Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
The Us ◽  
Intention To Move ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
The U.S

This section, updated regularly on the blog Palestine Square, covers popular conversations related to the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict during the quarter 16 November 2017 to 15 February 2018: #JerusalemIstheCapitalofPalestine went viral after U.S. president Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced his intention to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. The arrest of Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi for slapping an Israeli soldier also prompted a viral campaign under the hashtag #FreeAhed. A smaller campaign protested the exclusion of Palestinian human rights from the agenda of the annual Creating Change conference organized by the US-based National LGBTQ Task Force in Washington. And, UNRWA publicized its emergency funding appeal, following the decision of the United States to slash funding to the organization, with the hashtag #DignityIsPriceless.

Good Neighbor in the American Historical Imagination: Mexican American Intellectual Thought in the Fight for Civil Rights, 1930s–1940s

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Mendoza
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Mexican Americans ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
American Intellectual ◽  
Good Neighbor

Abstract This article argues that historical narrative has held a significant role in Mexican American identity formation and civil rights activism by examining the way Mexican Americans in the 1930s and 1940s used history to claim full citizenship status in Texas. In particular, it centers on how George I. Sánchez (1906–1972), a scholar of Latin American education, revised historical narrative by weaving history and foreign policy together through a pragmatic lens. To educators and federal officials, Sánchez used this revisionist history to advocate for Mexican Americans, insisting that the Good Neighbor policy presented the United States with the chance to translate into reality the democratic ideals long professed in the American historical imagination. The example of Sánchez also prompts us to reexamine the historiography in our present day: How do we define the tradition and trajectory of Mexican American intellectual thought in U.S. history? This article posits that when Sánchez and other Mexican Americans thought about their community’s collective identity and civil rights issues through history, they were contributing to a longer conversation driven by questions about identity formation and equality that first emerged at the end of the U.S. War with Mexico in 1848. These questions remain salient in the present, indicating the need for a historiographic examination that will change how we imagine the tradition of intellectual thought in the United States.

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