Latin American history

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/7/2022
  

  New Colombian Leadership Means it's Time for the US to End the Disastrous Drug War

  by Christy Thornton

  The US has taken steps to pull back from the domestic war on drugs. But the violent, repressive and expensive campaign to fund militarized drug interdiction in Latin America has carried on uninterrupted, fueling political violence abroad and fentanyl overdoses at home. 

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• 7/8/2022
  

  The Rising "Pink Tide" in Latin America Shows the Need for US Policy to Adapt

  by Aileen T. Teague

  Colombia has historically been a conservative firewall in Latin America, anchoring American policy on the hemispheric drug war and development policy. The election of that nation's first leftist leader, along with the rise of Chinese influence, signals the need for American policy to change. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/7/2022
  

  Century-Old Racist Tropes Guide US Policy on Venezuela

  by Tim Gill

  In justifying a neocolonial exercise of power over Latin America, U.S. policymakers have depended on many of the same racist ideas as their 19th-century forebears.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/17/2021
  

  "Time We Can't Get Back": Chilean Adoptees Uncover Their Past

  Chile's right-wing dictatorship took hundreds – possibly thousands – of infants from their families and concealed the facts of their birth from them. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/19/2021
  

  Voters Choose Young Leftist Gabriel Boric in Chile by Wide Margin

  "At 35, Mr. Boric will be the nation’s youngest leader and by far its most liberal since President Salvador Allende, who died by suicide during the 1973 military coup that ushered in a brutal 17-year dictatorship."

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• SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations
  10/3/2021
  

  A Timeline of US-Colombia Relations Shows Influence of Cold War, War on Drugs

  Over the two centuries since Colombia’s independence, the relationship between Washington and Bogota has evolved into a close economic and security partnership. But it has at times been strained by U.S. intervention, Cold War geopolitics, and the war on drugs.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg
  10/3/2021
  

  Ada Ferrer on the Missed Opportunity to Influence Cuba's Future for the Better

  Ada Ferrer, author of the new "Cuba: An American History" discusses the entanglement of the two nation's histories and how the Biden administration might approach Cuba at a moment of transition. 

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• 8/8/2021
  

  The US Should be Wary of Interfering in Cuba

  by Joseph J. Gonzalez

  Young Cuban protesters may be forming a revolutionary generation. They may succeed in advancing democracy if the US can resist the historical temptation to interfere.

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  7/18/2021
  

  Migration Is Not the Crisis

  by Aviva Chomsky

  Migration from Central America is rooted in American support for exploitative oligarchies and export-oriented industry under the guises of anticommunism and economic development. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/8/2021
  

  The Root Cause of Central American Migration? The United States

  by Aviva Chomsky

  Joe Biden's pledge to pay attention to the conditions in Central America that are driving migration is a good start, but policy needs to be based in a recognition that those conditions have been created by the economic and military influence of the United States. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/14/2021
  

  Lost Cause: 50 Years of the Drug War in Latin America

  Latin America has been fundamentally transformed by Richard Nixon's launch of the War on Drugs in 1971. The Post presents a series of articles by Latin American journalists describing the consequences. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  6/8/2021
  

  The U.S. War On Drugs Helped Unleash The Violence In Colombia Today

  by Kyle Longley

  Counternarcotics operations have been a pretext for funding a buildup of the Colombian security forces, allowing a US-friendly rightist government to avoid dealing with the economic and social causes of unrest. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  5/31/2021
  

  Time to Challenge Argentina’s White European Self-Image, Black History Experts Say

  A new generation of historians is challenging Argentina's self-understanding as a nation of Europeans and arguing that that mythology helps conceal anti-Black racism in the past and today.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/12/2021
  

  The U.S. Role in the El Mozote Massacre Echoes in Today’s Immigration

  by Nelson Rauda and John Washington

  Renewed efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of the 1981 El Mozote massacre of Salvadoran civilians during the civil war will further demonstrate American involvement in the perpetuation of inequality and violence in Central America and, the authors argue, the hypocrisy of US immigration policy. 

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  5/12/2021
  

  Cliché and Caricature: Why January 6 Was Not Like a Banana Republic

  by Dario A. Euraque

  Describing the January 6 assault on the Capitol and Congress as fit for "banana republics" ignores the way that American businesses and politicians supported the same kind of antidemocratic violence in Latin America. 

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  4/1/2021
  

  Biden’s Plan for Central America Is a Smokescreen

  by Aviva Chomsky

  The Biden plan for Central America revives the Cold War formula of business-friendly economic development and militarized security in the name of stopping migration toward the US. This, the author argues, amounts to doubling down on failed policies that have driven migration for decades.

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• SOURCE: Skipped History
  3/24/2021
  

  The 1954 US-Backed Coup in Guatemala

  by Ben Tumin

  Ben Tumin's "Skipped History" video series returns with a discussion of the 1954 Guatemala Coup, drawing on the work of Greg Grandin, Stephen Kinzer and Steven Schleshinger, and Vincent Bevins.

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• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  3/23/2021
  

  Argentina’s Military Coup of 1976: What the U.S. Knew

  Newly declassified documents demonstrate that the US government, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, were aware of the developing coup and evaluated policy as a balancing of the prospective military dictatorship's friendliness to the US against its likely willingness to commit human rights violations. 

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• SOURCE: Heather Cox Richardson
  3/13/2021
  

  Letters From an American, March 13, 2021

  by Heather Cox Richardson

  What are the historical underpinnings of the immigration system, and what do politicians really mean by invoking a "border crisis"? 

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• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  3/11/2021
  

  Women’s Experiences Matter? Natalie Kimball’s An Open Secret: The History of Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion in Modern Bolivia

  "Women’s experiences matter – this simple truth is at the core of Natalie Kimball’s brilliant new exploration into the tragic history of unwanted pregnancy and abortion in highland Bolivia over the past sixty years."