For this week’s blog post, I want to discuss Marti’s narrative. In Puerto Rico, Marti is revered as one of the most influential intellectuals of the Caribbean in the last two centuries. Thus, I desired to historically investigate his contribution. Namely, this post will attempt to explain and contextualize Marti’s “Nuestra America.”
The article was written in 1891 in New York. It’s written as a direct response to the first Pan-American Conference that took place in 1890. The conference tried to establish a diplomatic relationship between North and Latin America. Thus, the utmost objective of the meeting was the establishment of Pan-Americanism as a new way of interaction between the two hemispheres. But, José Martí did not agree with this conceptualization of uniting these two hemispheres. He tried to oppose this concept by emphasizing the differences between the United States and “Our America.“
To understand Martí‘s essay, it’s also crucial to analyze what was happening in Cuba. Under Spanish occupation, Cuba was struggling hard to become independent from Europe, while also fighting the potential threat of its neighbor North America. After the U.S. had successfully taken over California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah as well as parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas from its neighbor Mexico, it seemed to be more and more interested in Cuba as another addition to its territory. In addition to this threat from Cuba‘s North American neighbor, it was still trying to liberate itself from its colonizer in Europe. After the Grito de Yara in 1868, the first declaration of independence, Cuba was at war with Spain for ten years, which very much helped it to form a distinctive Cuban identity, but also had profound impacts on its economy. In the Paz de Zanjón (Peace of Zanjón) Spain tried to make some minor concessions that were rejected by the rebels. José Martí then founded the Revolutionary Party of Cuba in 1892 and mobilized Cuba to rise again against Spain in 1895.
This is the situation in which José Martí wrote his famous essay “Nuestra América.“ He tries to create a Latin American identity and to liberate Latin America from the oppression of the powerful neighbor North America and the former colonizer Europe. The article is addressed to his own people, especially Cuban intellectuals living in exile, as a call for unity and shared identity, but also to Europe and the United States for them to understand the differences between North America and Latin America.
For this week’s blog post, I want to discuss Marti’s narrative. In Puerto Rico, Marti is revered as one of the most influential intellectuals of the Caribbean in the last two centuries. Thus, I desired to historically investigate his contribution. Name…
I think the patterns explored this week were really interesting. To know that Bolívar’s letter was that influential, that it is still a major point of reference in the 21st century is incredible. A lot of the themes expressed in the letter were also mirrored in Martí and Chávez’ later contributions. I’d like to take […]
Out of the three narratives we read for this week, I found Chavez’ most compelling. Through the use of statistics and comparisons he is able to take a global and powerful stance on the damages of neoliberalism. In particular, I found it interesting how…
Out of the three narratives we read for this week, I found Chavez’ most compelling. Through the use of statistics and comparisons he is able to take a global and powerful stance on the damages of neoliberalism. In particular, I found it interesting how he was able to include other countries in his narrative of North versus South, mentioning Africa as another example of where neoliberalism failed left the country struggling. To me I think the Cold War is really an integral part of the story of Northern Paternalism and control. Chavez mentions 1945-1975 as a time where there was more growth than in modern day. This time period aligns with the democratic spring where following world war II, Latin American countries were developing their economies and their own governments before U.S. intervention. The story of neoliberalism begins with the control imposed by foreign governments afraid of the potential power that newly democratic Latin countries held.
Independence of Latin America is an event I usually generalized based on the facts and information my school and family transmitted and taught me about El Salvador. As far as I can remember, my school teachers didn’t talk anything about the independence processes of other Latin American countries. While reading the 1st chapter of AlexanderContinue reading “Week 4 | “Silences in Shadows”: Stories of Idependence”
Video by Moses Caliboso, Elan Cross, Ximena Díaz López, and Jared Pozzobon
What I found to be particularly interesting after reading the writings of Dawson, Bolívar, Martí and Chávez, was the recurring themes that each of the writers were expressing in their works. Even though Chávez was from a much more modern perspective than the others, he nonetheless references the thoughts of Bolívar on Latin America’s destiny […]
The story of independence in Latin America is quite interesting since it is quite unique compared to other social movements in the history. The independence in Latin America started in 1821 by Bolivar who belonged to the “second tier” group during that era. Although he was “white” he did not have the advantages that a […]
So if I am being completely honest, after going through this week’s reading selections, I’m more confused about Latin America than ever…so much so, that I wanted to wait until today’s discussion on the topic, “Independence Narratives, Past and Present” to try and make sense of it all before containing my confusion within my weekly […]
