Latin america
Social/Economic inequality in Latin America
"Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the regions of the world with the greatest inequality," said David de Ferranti, World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean who, with Guillermo Perry, Francisco H.G. Ferreira and Michael Walton, guided the team that produced the report. "Latin America is highly unequal with respect to incomes, and also exhibits unequal access to education, health, water and electricity, as well as huge disparities in voice, assets and opportunities. This inequality slows the pace of poverty reduction, and undermines the development process itself." The richest one-tenth of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean earn 48 percent of total income, while the poorest tenth earn only 1.6 percent, the research team found. In industrialized countries, by contrast, the top tenth receive 29.1 percent, while the bottom tenth earn 2.5 percent. The report singles out race and ethnicity as enduring determinants of one's opportunities and welfare in Latin America. Indigenous and Afro-descended people are "at a considerable disadvantage with respect to whites
Che Guevara
(1928-1967) Argentinean revolutionary leader; he was an aide to Fidel Castro during the Cuban revolution. , was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution. Since his death, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous counter-cultural symbol. , Born in Argentina in 1928. After going on a motorcycle trip, he saw the horrors of poverty which motivated him to become a doctor, which he became in 1953 after atending medical school. Fidel Castro had a similar idea to help the needy and so together they joined forces in hopes of overthrowing Cuba's dictator, Batista. He was not supported by the US, who actually killed him in Bolivia. The US invaded cuba at the bay of pigs to stop the growing relations between cuba and the soviet union (oil connections). the US was defeated. Che trained people in guerilla warfare. He went to Congo in Africa to continue to spread communism but this failed. then he tried bolivia, when he was killed by use of guerilla warfare
Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) the political party introduced in 1929 in Mexico that helped to introduce democracy and maintain political stability for much of the 20th century , the most powerful political party in Mexico from the 1920s to 2000, which won every presidential election during that time , The PRI was a political party that dominated in Mexico. They had monopoly over Mexican elections for many years. They managed to control every election until 2000. They were defeated because the Mexican government depended their oil, and in the 80´s the oil prices fell drastically causing the Mexican power to privatize their oil companies. In 2000 the PRI had lost most of its economical power and they where defeated by Vicente Fox.
Worker militancy in Argentina
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Madres of the Plaza de Mayo
1976-1983, Argentina. (Week 7) Women who protested the disappearance of their Children during Argentina's Dirty War. Significant because brought international attention.
Guatemalan Civil War
From 1960 to 1996, the Central American country of Guatemala was wracked by a civil war between the government of Guatemala and insurgents. The CIA had helped install the government in an earlier coup d'état and continued to support the government through the civil war. The counter-insurgency tactics of Guatemala are known to have been brutal and violent, with tens of thousands of forced disappearances.
U.S. Intervention
April-November 1914. President Woodrow Wilson The Tampico Affair was set off when nine American sailors were arrested by the Mexican government for entering off-limit areas in Tampico, Tamaulipas.[4] The unarmed sailors were arrested when they entered a fuel loading station. The sailors were released, but the U.S. naval commander demanded an apology and a twenty-one gun salute. The apology was provided but not the salute. In the end the response from President Woodrow Wilson ordered the United States Navy to prepare for the occupation of the port of Veracruz. While awaiting authorization from the Congress to carry out such action, Wilson was alerted of a delivery of weapons for Victoriano Huerta due to arrive in the port on April 21 aboard the German-registered cargo-steamer SS Ypiranga. As a result, Wilson issued an immediate order to seize the port's customs office and confiscate the weaponry. The weapons had actually been sourced by John Wesley De Kay, an American financier and businessman with large investments in Mexico, and a Russian arms dealer from Puebla, Leon Rasst, not the German government as newspapers reported at the time.[5] Huerta had usurped the presidency of Mexico with the assistance of the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson during a coup d'état in February 1913 known as La decena trágica. The Wilson administration's answer to this was to declare Huerta a usurper of the legitimate government, to embargo arms shipments to Huerta, and to support the Constitutional Army of Venustiano Carranza.
The Process of the Cuban Revolution,1959
First communist state in Western Hemisphere, has close ties with USSR. , CUBA - CURRENT revolution that led to the overthrow of the United States proxy ruler General Fulgencio Batista's regime on January 1, 1959 by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement and other revolutionary elements within the country. Also refers to the ongoing implementation of social and economic programs by the new government since the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship, including the implementation of Marxist policies.
Fidel Castro
Cuban revolutionary leader who overthrew the corrupt regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and soon after established a Communist state. He was prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and has been president of the government and First Secretary of the Communist Party since 1976. A Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba was converted into a one-party socialist state, with industry and business being nationalised under state ownership and socialist reforms implemented in all areas of society.,
The Desaparecidos
During Argentina's Dirty War and Operation Condor, many alleged political dissidents were abducted or illegally detained and kept in clandestine detention centres , where they were questioned, tortured and sometimes killed. The disappeared ones were people who were considered to be a political or ideological threat to the military junta. The Argentine military justified torture to obtain intelligence and saw the disappearances as a way to curb political dissidence.Whenever the female captives were pregnant, their children were stolen away right after giving birth, while they themselves remained detained. It is estimated that 500 young children and infants were given to families with close ties to the military to be raised. Eventually, many of the captives were heavily drugged and loaded onto aircraft, from which they were thrown alive while in flight over the Atlantic Ocean, so as to leave no trace of their death. Without any dead bodies, the government could easily deny any knowledge of their whereabouts and any accusations that they had been killed. In addition, the forced disappearances was the military junta's attempt to silence the opposition and break the determination of the guerrillas.People murdered in this way (and in others) are today referred to as "the disappeared" (los desaparecidos). There is an activist group called "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo", formed by mothers of those victims of the dictatorship. In addition, a similar group was formed, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo with the goal of finding the children stolen by the Argentine government during the Dirty War. The phrase was recognized by de facto President General Jorge Rafael Videla, who said in a press conference, "They are neither dead nor alive, they are desaparecidos (missing)". It is thought that in Argentina, between 1976 and 1983, up to 30,000 people (8,960 named cases, according to the official report by the CONADEP) were killed or disappeared. According to a declassified cable, an estimate by the Argentine 601st Intelligence Battalion in mid-July 1978 (which started counting victims in 1975) produced a figure of 22,000 persons killed or "disappeared"- this document was first published by John Dinges in 2004
Immigration to Latin America
Melting Pot In the Americas. Jewish diaspora to Latin Americas. Jewish community in argentina. other immigrants come for work and free living. Immigrants hotel in Buenos aires built in 1906 can hold 4000 people.
The Muralist Movement in Mexico
Mexican muralism was the promotion of mural painting starting in the 1920s, generally with social and political messages as part of efforts to reunify the country under the post Mexican Revolution government. It was headed by "the big three" painters, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. From the 1920s to about 1970s a large number of murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were created on public buildings, starting a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico and has had impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States where it served as inspiration for the Chicano art movement. Mexico has had a tradition of painting murals The movement was strongest from the 1920s to the 1950s, which corresponded to the country's transformation from a mostly rural and mostly illiterate society to an industrialized one. While today they are part of Mexico's identity, at the time they were controversial, especially those with socialist messages plastered on centuries-old colonial buildings.[4] One of the basic underpinnings of the nascence of a post revolutionary Mexican art was that it should be public, available to the citizenry and above all not the province of a few wealthy collectors
Populism in Argentina
Post 1940s -Style of campaigning meant to advocate political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary peoples needs and wishes Juan Domingo Peron ( wife Evita Peron )- goals were social justice and economic development. capitalism over socialism. 5 year plan 1. increase workers pay 2. achieve full employment 3.stimulate industrial growth 4. less radiant on foreign trade Womens suffrage in 1947. Peronism - against class exploitation , universityies and public transportation and utilities
Rigoberta Menchu
Rigoberta Menchu was a Quiche Mayan woman who wrote a novel about her and a spokesperson for her people during the conflicts of the cold war in Guatemala in the late 20th century. Menchu lived in a community where the people wished only to raise its crops and follow its traditional customs during this time. Rigoberta herself was influenced by liberation theology and became a spokesperson for her people. In 1992 she won the Nobel Peace Prize for calling world attention to the atrocities of Guatemala's dirty war. The story of her life, I, Rigoberta Menchu, became essential reading for anyone interested in the low-intensity conflicts of the cold war. It was later shown that she had merged her own story with other people, but no one could deny the existence of the horrors she described. Rigoberta Menchu is significant because she shared her story with the world about the conflicts going on in Guatemala.
The Argentine Dirty War
The Dirty War (Spanish: Guerra Sucia) was the name used by the Argentine Government for a period of state terrorism in Argentina against political dissidents, with military and security forces conducting urban and rural guerrilla violence against left-wing guerrillas, political dissidents, and anyone believed to be associated with socialism. Victims of the violence included an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 left-wing activists and militants, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers. Some 10,000 of the "disappeared" were believed to be guerrillas of the Montoneros (MPM), and the Marxist People's Revolutionary Army (ERP). The guerrillas were responsible for causing at least 6,000 casualties among the military, police forces and civilian population according to a National Geographic Magazine article in the mid-1980s. The disappeared ones were considered to be a political or ideological threat to the military junta and their disappearances an attempt to silence the opposition and break the determination of the guerillas. Declassified documents of the Chilean secret police cite an official estimate by the Batallón de Inteligencia 601 of 22,000 killed or "disappeared" between 1975 and mid-1978. During this period, in which it was later revealed 8,625 "disappeared" in the form of PEN detainees who were held in clandestine detention camps throughout Argentina before eventually being freed under diplomatic pressure. The number of people believed to have been killed or "disappeared," depending on the source, range from 9,089 to 30,000 in the period from 1976 to 1983, when the military was forced from power following Argentina's defeat in the Falklands War. The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons estimates that around 13,000 were disappeared.
Drug War in Mexico
The Mexican drug war 2000-present The Mexican Drug War is an ongoing armed conflict among rival drug cartels fighting one another for regional control and against the Mexican government forces and civilian vigilante groups. Since 2006, when intervention with the Mexican military began, the government's principal goal has been to put down the drug-related violence. Additionally, the Mexican government has claimed that their primary focus is on dismantling the powerful drug cartels, rather than on preventing drug trafficking, which is left to U.S. functionaries. Mexican drug cartels have become more powerful since the demise of the Colombian Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s. Mexican drug cartels now dominate the wholesale illicit drug market and in 2007 controlled 90% of the cocaine entering the United States. Arrests of key cartel leaders, particularly in the Tijuana and Gulf cartels, has led to increasing drug violence as cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States. Analysts estimate that wholesale earnings from illicit drug sales range from $13.6 billionto $49.4 billion annually Estimates set the death toll above 120,000 killed by 2013, not including 27,000 missing
The Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: Proceso de Reorganización Nacional, often simply el Proceso, "the Process") was the name used by its leaders for the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar (the last military junta) or la última dictadura (the last dictatorship), because several of them existed throughout its history. The Argentine military seized political power during the March 1976 coup, amid violent factional conflicts between supporters of recently deceased President Juan Domingo Perón. The junta continued the Dirty War. After losing the Falklands War to the United Kingdom in 1982, the junta faced mounting public opposition and finally relinquished power in 1983.
U.S. Immigration Policy towards Mexico
The U.S. issued The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 which limited the total number of immigrants allowed into the country. It also favored immigrants from western Europe more. So the change was that instead of all immigrants coming it at once, it was limited. This affected the U.S. because it caused drop in immigration to the U.S. Many people already in the country just felt that new immigrants would drag the country down both economically and morally. They were upset because new immigrants were taking their jobs for less money and making it harder for those already there to find jobs. Another concern was religious differences. Many of the new immigrants were Catholic. The essential intent of the immigration laws in the US during the 1920's was to restrict immigration through the use of quotas. There was also the Immigrant Act of 1924. It was to restrict the entry of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, while welcoming relatively large numbers of newcomers from Britain, Ireland, and Northern Europe.
Efrain Rios Mont
a former de facto President of Guatemala, dictator, army general, and former president of Congress. In the 2003 presidential elections, he unsuccessfully ran as the candidate of the ruling Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG). Best known outside Guatemala for heading a military regime (1982-1983) that was responsible in some of the worst atrocities of Guatemala's 36-year civil war. The war ended with a peace treaty in 1996. The civil war pitted left-wing rebel groups against the army, with huge numbers of Mayan campesinos caught in the crossfire. At least 200,000 Guatemalans were killed during the conflict, making it one of Latin America's most violent wars in modern history.
Mexico 1968
The student revolt of 1968 in Mexico is known to the world because of the massacre of October 2 in the Plaza of the Three Cultures at Tlatelolco in Mexico City. More than 10,000 soldiers and police officers carried out a military operation of surrounding and of shutting in planned by the Presidency of the Republic against a peaceful meeting of approximately 6,000 people, among whom there were students, professors, mothers, children, employees and workers. Evidence shows that this killijng was planned by the government, and they actually fired the first shots. Mexico hosted the Olympics in 1968, which led to many problems. People wanted money to go towards more useful things rather than new stadiums.
Bracero Program
United States labor agents recruited thousands of farm and railroad workers from Mexico. The program stimulated emigration for Mexico. , 1942-1954Created because of wartime labor shortages. So many men had joined the military there were labor shortages. U.S and Mexican government came up with a program where mexicans would temporarily work in the U.S. during the war. Worked on railroads, food processing, etc. Very successful program. After the war there wasn't a labor shortage so it was expected Mexicans would leave. 1954 created a program called operation wetback, a massive deportation of mexican workers. Dwight Eisnhower came up with it. significance- this was going to be a major catlyst for immigration.
The Mexican Revolution
initially a rebellion against Diaz; the conflict soon erupted into a civil war between the Constitutionalits and the aliled forces of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata , Created constant political instability south of the border and undermined Wilson's hopes for better U.S. relations with Latin America. , Young reformer Francisco I. Madero was a firm supporter of democracy and of making government subject to the strict limits of the law. The success of Madero's movement made him a threat in the eyes of President Diaz. Shortly before the first democratic elections of Mexico in 1910, Madero was apprehended in Monterrey and imprisoned in San Luis Potosi. Learning of Diaz's re-election, Madero fled to the United States in October of 1910. In exile, he issued the ''Plan of San Luis,'' a manifesto which declared that the elections had been a fraud and that he would not recognize Diaz as the legitimate President of the Republic. Diaz had been the dictator of Mexico the previous 31 years and young reformers wanted him out.
