This work is an addition to the dozens already published on the eternal theme of U.S. relations with Latin America, but it has more than usual significance. Fredrick Pike here expands on a problem touched on most recently by Arnoldo de León (They Called Them Greasers, 1983) and Robert W. Johannsen (To the Hall of the Montezumas, 1985). It is not the concrete impact of relations in the diplomatic and economic spheres, but the background assumptions and conceptions shared by representatives of U.S. cultural and political life concerning the “less developed” societies of the continent. Taken up by the American public in various forms, these ideas influenced the views of the spokesmen for “American civilization.”
Pike proceeds from the thesis that, from the standpoint of English-speaking Americans, the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic America is that between “civilization” and “primitivism,” between a society striving consciously after higher goals and one enthralled by natural emotions and atavisms. This is the theme of the first chapter, where, as he does throughout the book, Pike buttresses his conclusions with an impressive quantity of citations from scholarly, journalistic, and literary sources. The subsequent nine chapters trace the theme from the nineteenth century down to the present day and examine the views of Anglo-Saxon society toward various spheres of life in Latin America, which in turn often emulated life in the United States, whether actual or idealized. Pike notes a marked difference in the views held by men and women, whom American males have considered more “susceptible” to “natural influences” (p. xiv). He adduces differences between “Anglos” and “Hispanos” in the fields of economics, sex, religion, and so forth as they appeared to English-speaking Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the myth arose of “higher” and “lower” societies coexisting on the American continent—a myth that has evolved until the present day.
Not surprisingly, Pike devotes a good deal of attention to the reflection of this Latin American myth on two themes that already in the nineteenth century had become symbols of the “American spirit”: the idea of the frontier and racial mixing. The first, both inside and outside the territory of continental North America, was one of the characteristics of American ideology by the turn of the century, associated with such names as Turner, Strong, Mahan, and Roosevelt. Pike’s discussion fully satisfies the reader’s expectations. For example, he compares the literary, quasi-mythical frontier hero, the cowboy, with the prevailing “Anglo” conception of the Mexican vaquero. The former was regarded as the embodiment of frontier virtue; the latter its degenerate antithesis (pp. 137-39). A similarly unflattering picture emerges on the second theme. The Latin American was seen as an inferior halfbreed, the product of crossing Spanish with native or African elements. Not surprisingly, such a view was not far removed from that of certain circles in Latin American society, a survivor from the colonial past.
The author points to efforts within “Anglo” American society to overthrow the traditional view of Latin America. These were evident in the cultural and political spheres during the era of the Good Neighbor Policy, and later in the attempt to halt the progress of communism in the region during the Kennedy administration. The latter especially, in Pike’s opinion, revealed a contradiction, when Latin America evinced an alarming tendency to fall victim to a new form of barbarism in the form of Marxist and Communist ideology.
Pike reaches a conclusion that should come as no surprise. Once created, the myth showed remarkable durability, and this in turn influenced the reality more than the societies have been willing to admit. But the author finds hope in the possibility of overcoming old stereotypes. His optimism may be excessive: the destruction of stereotypes, after all, can be more difficult than it first appears. Nevertheless, studies such as this one provide a clearer picture of the problem, and therefore contribute to its solution.
