Latin America: Nationalism and Nativism

• 1910 marked the start of the Mexican Revolution.
• The stock market crash of 1929 undermined the neocolonial order.
• The 1930s saw the rise of Import Substitution Industrialization.
• From 1937 to 1945, Brazil experienced the Estado Novo period.
• In 1945, Gabriela Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Nationalism

• Nationalism redefined the meaning of Latin American racial and cultural differences.
• It promoted a clear and positive sense of national identity through a united nation.
• Latin American transculturalization led to diverse speech, customs, and attitudes.

Nativism

• Nativism declined with the departure of the Spanish and Portuguese.
• It was later revived with foreign intervention.

New Nationalism

• The early 1900s saw a wave of new nationalism, characterized by a strong economic agenda.

The "New Nationalists"

• The "New Nationalists" were urban middle-class immigrants of mixed backgrounds.
• They had great pride in their countries.
• They rejected European customs and culture in favor of a uniquely Latin American culture, including Rumba and Tango.
• Industrial development in infrastructure, like railroads, ports, and roads, was their priority, uniting Latin American countries.
• They were critical of imperialism.
• They opposed foreign intervention, both military and monetary.
• Their shared hatred of imperialism united all Latin American countries.
• They united people despite class differences, where liberalism could not.
• They celebrated racial mixing, although attitudes toward it differed by country. For instance, Brazil in 1903 considered mixed race to be inferior.

Latin American Literature

• It marked a shift from Eurocentric aesthetics to a new cultural genre.
• In the 1930s, race mixing became viewed more positively.
• Nicholas Guillen, a Cuban poet, wrote "The Ballad of the Two Grandfathers" (1935) about racially different grandfathers.
• Nationalist authors denied the idea of European racial superiority.
• Afro-Cuban poetry embraced race mixing, seeing it as a resolution of historical tensions between white and black.
• It is uniting based on shared political ground rules and ideals, and focuses on the idea of mixed race.

“Scientific Racism”

• The 1890s saw the rise of "Scientific Racism" from the US and Europe.
• Based on Social Darwinism and the White Man's Burden, it was the belief that national populations could be whitened over time through immigration and intermarriage.
• It considered race mixing as degeneration.

Nationalism in Mexico

• Nationalists took power, inspired by the centennial of Hidalgo's 1810 rebellion.

Mexican Revolution

• Diaz, the dictator of Mexico for 34 years, faced opposition.
• Reformers supported Francisco Madero from Northern Mexico for president.
• Madero wanted Diaz to share his power but was jailed and exiled.
• Madero became radical, advocating for the return of indigenous lands, such as those lost to sugar plantations in Anenecuilco.
• Emiliano Zapata, leader of Anenecuilco, joined Madero's uprising.
• The image of Zapatas, with broad sombreros, black mustaches, and cartridge belts, became an icon of the Mexican Revolution.
• In 1911, Diaz was exiled to Paris.
• In 1913, Diaz was assassinated with the help of US ambassadors during the Mexican Revolution.
• The period from 1914 to 1920 was a time of intense revolutions and two US interventions.
• Road-building programs lessened Mexican isolation.
• There was some land redistribution to indigenous peoples.
• The new government helped the impoverished rural majority and launched initiatives in public education, which reduced illiteracy.
• Pancho Villa led the Northern Division, an army of former cowboys, miners, railroad workers, and oil field workers.
• In 1917, the "Constitutionalists" movement gained the upper hand.
• They drafted a new revolutionary constitution with anticlerical attitudes.
• They aimed to destroy traditions associated with old patterns of cultural hegemony and got rid of caudillos.
• They controlled Mexico's future for the rest of the century.
• The Cristeros fought against them, as counter-revolutionary peasants aiming to maintain clerical attitudes.
• The Constitution of 1917, still in use today, had strong nationalist inspiration.
• It allowed villages to recover common lands for redistribution to landless peasants.
• It granted the right to unionize and strike.
• It limited the privileges of foreigners.
• It lessened the rights of the Catholic Church; the Mexican Church lost its wealth and could not own real estate.
• It created a one-party system that lasted until the end of the century: the National/Mexican/Institutional party, whose members included Madero, Zapata, and Villa, using revolutionary/national images.