“The trouble is, you Americans always want to castrate us,” said the Mexican nationalist who wore American shoes. “Take Cuba: its assertion of national sovereignty is like kicking you in the balls; our sovereignty is as important as our virility; …
The present situation in British Guiana must be traced back to the years immediately preceding World War II. Previous to that time, the colonies of the West Indies had lived in a kind of backwash of history. The overdevelopment of …
Bolivia’s history provides a case study, exaggerated almost to caricature, of the reasons for the economic and political backwardness of Latin America. Geographic poverty, the heritage from Spain, a one-crop economy, racial and social tensions, and the absence of a …
There is much talk these days about the Latin American middle class, about students, intellectuals and oligarchs. But, except when there are strikes, little talk about the industrial working class. There are some 15 to 20 million industrial workers in …
Until mid-June of 1961 when Life magazine’s millions of readers saw Gordon Parks’s photographic essay on poverty in Rio’s hillside slums (favelas), the American image of the life of Rio’s poor was based largely on Marcel Camus’ moving film fantasy, …
Most rural Latin Americans have a standard of living no better than that of the Indians who were found on the land by the European colonizers or of the slaves that subsequently were imported into parts of the continent. In …
Hunger, illiteracy, unemployment, an exploding population, race conflict, strife between the oppressive oligarchy and the miserable masses, with no middle class to stabilize a backward economy: are these the familiar problems of all Latin America? Then, a powerful case must …
Latin America had a population of 199 million in 1960, according to a United Nations estimate. Of this total, 108 million or 54 per cent live in rural areas, and of these 2812 million are economically active. All rural dwellers …
Clashes between democracy and dictatorship have punctuated the history of Latin America for 150 years, ever since it won its political independence. Formal democracy, with all its trappings, was adopted by the new republics at the very moment of their …
I hadn’t seen Mario since he fled Cuba. “Hola, Mario,” I said. “It’s been a long time.” “Manuel!” he said, hugging me. “What brings you to New York? I just asked Raul Chibas last week why I hadn’t heard from …
We should like to make a proposal which might not solve the problems of Latin America but might remove an obstacle to good relations within the Western Hemisphere. The problem haunting U. S. policy makers is, to use professional language, …
At first, there seemed to be two Alliances for Progress: One, resounding and rhetorical (see above); the other, more limited and practical, with realistic aims which anyone could decently, if critically, support. Now—October 1962—here seems to be no Alliance for …
We have done all we could to keep alive in our minds the main problems that in the course of centuries have troubled theologians, although today we formulate them in a somewhat different way. Philosophy has never freed itself from …
The problem of disarmament goes to the roots of society. Military force has been the right arm of the nation-state; it is as yet difficult to discern the power bases that will replace it. The social investment that both Russia …
A RADICAL’S AMERICA, by Harvey Swados. Atlantic—Little, Brown, 1962, xvii + 347 pp. In his introduction to this collection of essays, Harvey Swados writes that he has “attempted to maintain a a tension between skepticism and idealism.” The skepticism is, …
