Burton, Julianne. “Culture and Imperialism” Sage Publications. (1978): 2-10.

Culture and Imperialism explains the repercussions that capitalism and technology have produced, in terms of the effects they have had on culture. The author claims that capitalism divides and transforms culture, whereas technology is intertwined with culture, as it is an avenue for cultural exchange. This article was published in a magazine, Latin American perspectives, yet it fails to present much of a Latin American perspective at all. There are a few sentences here and there that demonstrate this perspective, but overall the article appears to be more an overview on the inner-workings of capitalism, technology, and culture. This article, while useful on showing the relationship of capitalism, media, and culture, isn’t extremely helpful in showing a Latin American perspective, it practically fails to incorporate Latin America at all.

Potthast-Jutkeit, Barbara. The history of family and colonialism: Examples from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. History of the Family, 1081602X, 1997, Vol. 2, Issue 2

Barbara Potthast-Jutkeit’s article examines the effects that colonialism has had on traditional cultural values in Latin America and Africa, with a particular emphasis on family forms. The article goes into detail concerning the replacement of traditional culture with the typical values and norms of Christians and Europeans. One such example given is the replacement of matrilineality and polygamy by monogamy and patrilineality. This article is useful because it provides specific examples of the effects of colonialism upon traditional culture in Latin America and Africa, instead of merely providing an overview. This article also appears to provide evidence and conclusions similar to other articles concerning the same subject matter, there is a pattern when it comes to cultural imperialism and colonialism: white, Christian men colonize a society whose ideals and cultures are different. This leads to a loss of traditional culture due to an enforcement of European values. This article provided me with specific evidence of negative effects concerning imperialism upon culture.

Teague, Aileen. 2019. “The United States, Mexico, and the Mutual Securitization of Drug Enforcement, 1969–1985.” Diplomatic History 43 (5): 785–812.
This academic journal is about the United States’ and Mexico’s efforts regarding the drug war and drug trade. Among the various themes covered, the most useful to my research are: the response Mexico had towards the drug control policies that the United States implemented, The political violence that these policies brought, and factors that contributed to the militarization of both regions. The author’s use of primary sources to back up their argument and the use of secondary sources to strengthen them is remarkable. This source is useful when trying to measure the impact that US policies have had in Mexico and its people.

Hunt, Edward. “Staying the Course in Mexico: The Role of the US in the Drug War, 2006–present.” Third World Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 6, June 2019, pp. 1184–1205.
The author argues that the Merida Initiative was one of the main factors that contributed to the violence. The Merida Initiative was a multi billion dollar US assistance that, after its put into effect, drug related violence increased, when replaced in 2012 there was an observable decrease in violence, and when a similar program was brought again, the violence increased again. Although the article does make a lot of speculations, it does make a good job at backing up their argument with credible evidence. This source is perfect when looking directly at the impact that the US had in Mexico with a specific policy.

Johnson, Loch K. “Congressional Supervision of America’s Secret Agencies: The Experience and Legacy of the Church Committee.” Public Administration Review 64, no. 1 (2004): 3-14.

Author and political scientist Loch Johnson analyzes the creation of the Church Committee and its dealing with United States secret agencies. He argues that the creation of these agencies was grounded in the need to protect the United States against foreign attacks, but also poses a threat to democratic society. He draws on sources such as political theory journals, as well as intelligence and counterintelligence records, to support his argument. His work provides a view of secret agencies that is less grounded in skepticism, as many works tend to be, and more grounded in professionalism that can be accredited to his editorial position for the Journal of Intelligence and National Security. Loch’s piece will be useful for me because it provides a professional view of the Church Committee and its proceedings, and provides a modern context to the activities of secret agencies during the Cold War.

Falcoff, Mark. “Head-Hunting: Assassination As a Policy.” The National Interest, no. 24 (1991): 103-05.

American scholar and policy consultant Mark Falcoff examines the role of planned assassinations in the activities of the secret service. He argues that assassination attempts were common under many presidents during the Cold War, especially in Latin American countries, such as Chile and Cuba. He uses proceedings from the Church Committee itself and pairs it with historical documents from Cuba and other countries to emphasize the role that secret agencies played in Latin America. His scholarship provides a way to see the effects of alleged misconduct by United States intelligence and counterintelligence in Latin American societies. I will be able to utilize this work to analyze the Church Committee’s proceedings and how they related to the Latin American countries whose leaders’ lives were possibly in danger through assassination attempts.

For this post, I read a Wikipedia article written on economic discrimination. This highlighted animosity in the workforce and how this has been derived from colonial attitudes as “economic discrimination is usually performed by whatever groups are held to be “in power” at the time.” And how this “power” often leads to discrimination in worker’s pay which directly affects the livelihood of there own and family’s lives. This also dives into the structure being placed in the hiring process, creating an even stronger power imbalance by not even allowing one to have the opportunity. While I thought this was all said well, and with the credited sources, I do believe during some places the text got a little tangled, almost in an attempt to use too many “academic” in places where a more colloquial form of language would portray the information in a much better light. This whole idea, however, is exactly what appears in the immigration process. Colonial attitudes are so intensely rooted in aspects of the idealized white  “American ”culture that discrimination is still holding strong in aspects of peoples’ lives that are essential for living, which opens up a whole other discussion of human and racial morality.

This time around, I decided to read a wikipedia article entitled The Culture of Nicaragua. I have been interested in Nicaragua ever since I traveled there my junior year for about two weeks. I would like to learn more about Nicaraguan culture for both my own interest and because it may be a good topic for my final research paper. The article is useful to provide a brief overview of Nicaraguan culture, so there is no particular bias as it is factual and used for a better understanding of their culture. The article mainly covers regional culture, languages in Nicaragua, the population of Nicaragua, religion, music, and education. The article’s sources include a variety of ethnologies, census data, and several facts from UNESCO. Overall, I think the article is good, as it increased my base knowledge, yet I think it is lacking detail. I think that the article could and should be much longer, a culture cannot be summed up in a few brief paragraphs.

I picked the article “Mexican Drug War” to evaluate. Part of the article focuses on the history of Latin America regarding the Mexican drug war. Based on the nature of the topic, the history of it has been rightfully described very negatively. The corrupt government and the ongoing problem that doesn’t seem to get solved or have any improvements is a great focus of the article. Although this is all true, very little is mentioned about the massive demand that the United States and other European countries provide for Mexico and the impact that these countries have on the ongoing problem in Mexico. Based on this, I came to the conclusion that the article is biased. After viewing some of the 410 sources that this article used, I concluded that most of these sources are reliable scholarly articles. When looking at the areas that I believed to be more biased, I noticed that the problem was not the sources themselves, but the interpretation and persona bias of the editor of this section. I plan to add more sources that depict that full picture of the problem and try to evaluate them and reflect what the article is trying to get across from a more unbiased point of view than the previous editor had.

I picked the page “Argentina-United States relations” on Wikipedia. This page describes the relationship between the United States and Argentina over time. This is related to our course theme of Latin American history and Latin American-U.S. relations. The lack of enough information and outdated statistics make this page look biased toward the U.S. While this page provides information on a variety of aspects like trade and embassy functions, it does not include too much information related to the U.S.-Argentina relations before Argentina’s independence. Also, it is clear that many statistics listed in the trade and public opinion sections have not been updated since 2011 and 2012. Beyond that, the lemon dispute as one of the most important bilateral issues between the U.S. and Argentina is not fully summarized on the page and is outdated since 2012. Even the page specifically for the lemon dispute is outdated as well. 

The information is pretty U.S.-centric as it excludes most of the Spanish-written sources. I might suggest the editors add in more Spanish historical sources before the independence of Argentina to give the readers a better sense of the historical relationship between the U.S. and Argentina. Also, it would be great if the page can be updated with more recent issues and the resolution to past issues such as the lemon dispute. It is misleading that only the photos are updated but not the text. Making these changes would make the page more reliable and comprehensive.

The question that I wish to research is the involvement the United States plays in the drug war. Furthermore, how has the United States approached the drug war and what have they done to combat it from the demand side of the problem. The war on drugs has long been a source of tension for US-Mexican relations.This issue has often been portrayed as the problem being with Mexico and its people for bringing drugs to the United States, but the media does not talk about the things the United States can do to prevent the problem itself. I believe this question is important to understand Latin American history and their impact on the United States because it is often one of the main reasons why Mexicans or LAtinos in general are discriminated against and why this discrimination is justified.

For my research I will be analyzing the Church Committee and its dealings with the CIA. I want to look at the investigations that took place and examine the findings in relation to the influences the Cold War had on the sudden excess of intelligence expenditures. This research will provide specific insight into the United States’ relationship with Cuba during this time, which in turn helps to interpret current relations, and possibly even improve them. Personally, I hope to gain a better understanding of political interactions between the United States and Latin American countries, and I think the Church Committee hearings and results will give quite an interesting lens through which to view these interactions.

For my research topic I want to examine the economical significance of the growth of soccer in Latin American countries, specifically Brazil. I want examine how soccer came to be so culturally significant and almost synonymous with Latin American culture. However, my main focus will be on the economic significance that soccer has had on the growth of these countries through history. By doing this I hope to explore a subject that is near to my hearts, sports and combine it with Latin American history in order to provide both an exciting and insightful research project.