It is difficult to determine the audience for this volume; actually, it is difficult to determine the purpose behind its compilation. Jack Himelblau has assembled a collection of writings by prominent figures from most of the major Spanish American countries in the national period. Personages such as Simón Bolívar, Domingo Sarmiento, José Carlos Mariátegui, José Martí, and Benito Juárez contribute one or more pieces. The selections are either complete versions or extensive sections of well-known, formal literary and political discourses transcribed in the original Spanish without translations or introductions. The only exception is a portion of a lecture by Manuel Gamio delivered at the University of Chicago, which is published in its original English.
What is most puzzling about this collection is that some of the very extensive selections say nothing about the culture or condition of Indians, except occasionally in a most indirect fashion. These include Bolívar’s proclamations during the wars for independence, selections from Civilización y barbarie by Sarmiento, selections from El problema pedagógico nacional by Alejandro O. Deustua, fully 90 pages from Mariátegui’s Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (only one of those essays directly addresses the Indian in Peru), pronouncements by Juárez on the nationalization of church properties and on freedom of religion, and similar works by Gabino Barreda and Ignacio Ramírez on the goals and organization of public school instruction.
The authors, though they are national and political figures, are often not even particularly knowledgeable about the Indian peoples in their countries, and they treat them as especially benighted or idealized populations, depending on their political slant. None of the writers are themselves native, nor did any of them write after long residence with or systematic study of indigenous societies. Perhaps the most inappropriate choice of an author is Martí, whose life in Cuba and the United States afforded him no particular insight into Indian issues. But then, his contribution in the volume asserts the benign nature of black-white race relations on his island of birth and never refers to native peoples at all.
Himelblau has chosen to let the pieces in this compilation speak for themselves, but unfortunately they do not. Because they lack introductions and commentaries, only a very informed reader has enough information to assess the historical context in which these writings were presented and to determine whether or not each represents well a major strain of thought. No sense of change through time is achieved, nor is coverage of the forces acting on native societies and cultures even attempted. In the absence of scholarly apparatus, this collection is potentially of service only to established experts; but just such scholars already have access to these readily available materials in more definitive editions.
