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The thwarted Central American revolutions during the latter half of the twentieth century marked a watershed in what had become a global anti-imperialist movement striving for a more egalitarian future. Examining a range of documentary, literary, and artistic works, including Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Héctor Tobar, Jennifer Harbury, and Horacio Castellanos Moya, States of Defeat looks at how left-wing intellectuals in the United States reckoned with the fallout from these defeats through wide-ranging creative expressions of indignation, cynicism, and grief. Here, author Eric A. Vázquez is joined in conversation with Maritza E. Cardenas and Jason Ruiz.Eric A. Vázquez is assistant professor in American studies and Latina/o/x studies at the University of Iowa and author of States of Defeat: US Imaginaries of Revolutionary Central America.Jason Ruiz is director of institute for latino studies and professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire and Narcomedia: Latinidad, Popular Culture, and America's War on Drugs. Maritza E. Cardenas is director of global studies and associate professor of English at the University of Arizona. She is author of Constituting Central American-Americans: Transnational Identities and the Politics of Dislocation.EPISODE REFERENCES:Blood on the Border / Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizEmpire's Workshop / Greg GrandinThe Ruse of Repair / Patricia StuelkeLas Sandinistas! / filmJesse AlemánJennifer HarburyJean DonovanRigoberta MenchúThe Tattooed Soldier / Héctor TobarHoracio Castellanos MoyaDavid StollMaría Josefina Saldaña-PortilloDon White Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador archive at California State University NorthridgePRAISE FOR THE BOOK:"Insightful and brilliant, States of Defeat uses the defeat of the Central American revolutionaries by US–backed, brutal right-wing militaries to analyze the meaning of revolutionary failure for the United States."—María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, author of Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the United States "Eric A. Vázquez asks hard questions about what is at stake, who benefits, and what matters in the making of alliances across borders. Every chapter is rich with a nuanced account of anti-imperialist creativity and commitment."—Melani McAlister, author of Promises, Then the Storm: Notes on Memory, Protest, and the Israel–Gaza WarThe book States of Defeat: US Imaginaries of Revolutionary Central America by Eric A. Vázquez is available from University of Minnesota Press. Thank you for listening.
#TRAPorTREAT2 kicks off with Tracey Rollin. Tracey is the author of the new book “Santa Muerte: The History, Rituals, and Magic of Our Lady of the Holy Death”, just released this week by Red Wheel/Weiser, one of the preeminent publishers of occult and esoteric literature. RESOURCES “Santa Muerte: The History, Rituals, and Magic of Our Lady of the Holy Death” by Tracey Rollin Tracey’s website “The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World” by Burr Cartwright Brundage “Funerals, Festivals, and Cultural Politics in Porfirian Mexico” by Matthew Esposito “Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande” by Marc Simmons SUPPORT Check out our support page. Because podcasting costs money. Website maintenance, storage space, equipment, late night organic juice runs when we're up all night editing. Help us offset some of that cost by supporting the show monthly. This will also help us increase our storage space so we can provide longer episodes and more of them. Leave your name in a note and you’ll be recognized on air (if you don’t mind). We have seven levels of monthly support: Initiate - $1.11 Astrologer - $3.33 Magician - $5.55 Alchemist - $7.77 Adept - $9.99 Shaman - $11.11 Ascended Master - $13.13 Don't want to support the show monthly? No sweat. You can make a one-time donation in an amount of your choosing. MUSIC Vestron Vulture - “I Want to be a Robot (Tribute to Giorgio Moroder)” SOCIAL Twitter Instagram Facebook Snapchat Tumblr Pinterest DISCLAIMER This podcast is produced in the Kingdom of Ohio and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. REMINDER Love yourself. Think for yourself. Question authority.
In Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire (University of Texas Press, 2014), Jason Ruiz explores the role of a distinct group of actors in the relationship between the United States and Mexico: American travelers, travel writers and photographers who visited and worked in Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With the junction of rail lines between the United States and Mexico in the 1880s, travel to Mexico became accessible to many in the populous U.S .East and Midwest. Through their photography and written accounts, These new travelers produced a popular representation of Mexico to the U.S. public which influenced both contemporary U.S. policy and modern U.S. attitudes towards Mexico. Drawing on the vast body of documentation and representation left by American travelers to Mexico, Ruiz argues that these travelers helped shape a form of U.S. cultural and economic imperialism distinct to Mexico. Travelers replicated many of the common tropes of imperialist discourse, viewing Mexicans, and especially indigenous Mexicans, as infantile, sensual, and backwards. At the same time, however, travelers also saw in the regime of Porfirio DÃaz the possibility that Mexico could become a productive, modern, “sister republic” to the U.S. Ruiz notes that to this end, American travelers promoted a range of social and economic transformations in Mexico: the uplifting of the mestizo class, U.S. economic interventionism and investment, and finally – as the Porfiriato collapsed in the Mexican Revolution – direct U.S. military intervention. And while the specific economic vision of American travelers was curtailed by the Revolution, Ruiz argues that their depictions of Mexico continue to influence Americans today through the modern tourist industry. Jason Ruiz is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire (University of Texas Press, 2014), Jason Ruiz explores the role of a distinct group of actors in the relationship between the United States and Mexico: American travelers, travel writers and photographers who visited and worked in Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With the junction of rail lines between the United States and Mexico in the 1880s, travel to Mexico became accessible to many in the populous U.S .East and Midwest. Through their photography and written accounts, These new travelers produced a popular representation of Mexico to the U.S. public which influenced both contemporary U.S. policy and modern U.S. attitudes towards Mexico. Drawing on the vast body of documentation and representation left by American travelers to Mexico, Ruiz argues that these travelers helped shape a form of U.S. cultural and economic imperialism distinct to Mexico. Travelers replicated many of the common tropes of imperialist discourse, viewing Mexicans, and especially indigenous Mexicans, as infantile, sensual, and backwards. At the same time, however, travelers also saw in the regime of Porfirio DÃaz the possibility that Mexico could become a productive, modern, “sister republic” to the U.S. Ruiz notes that to this end, American travelers promoted a range of social and economic transformations in Mexico: the uplifting of the mestizo class, U.S. economic interventionism and investment, and finally – as the Porfiriato collapsed in the Mexican Revolution – direct U.S. military intervention. And while the specific economic vision of American travelers was curtailed by the Revolution, Ruiz argues that their depictions of Mexico continue to influence Americans today through the modern tourist industry. Jason Ruiz is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire (University of Texas Press, 2014), Jason Ruiz explores the role of a distinct group of actors in the relationship between the United States and Mexico: American travelers, travel writers and photographers who visited and worked in Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With the junction of rail lines between the United States and Mexico in the 1880s, travel to Mexico became accessible to many in the populous U.S .East and Midwest. Through their photography and written accounts, These new travelers produced a popular representation of Mexico to the U.S. public which influenced both contemporary U.S. policy and modern U.S. attitudes towards Mexico. Drawing on the vast body of documentation and representation left by American travelers to Mexico, Ruiz argues that these travelers helped shape a form of U.S. cultural and economic imperialism distinct to Mexico. Travelers replicated many of the common tropes of imperialist discourse, viewing Mexicans, and especially indigenous Mexicans, as infantile, sensual, and backwards. At the same time, however, travelers also saw in the regime of Porfirio DÃaz the possibility that Mexico could become a productive, modern, “sister republic” to the U.S. Ruiz notes that to this end, American travelers promoted a range of social and economic transformations in Mexico: the uplifting of the mestizo class, U.S. economic interventionism and investment, and finally – as the Porfiriato collapsed in the Mexican Revolution – direct U.S. military intervention. And while the specific economic vision of American travelers was curtailed by the Revolution, Ruiz argues that their depictions of Mexico continue to influence Americans today through the modern tourist industry. Jason Ruiz is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire (University of Texas Press, 2014), Jason Ruiz explores the role of a distinct group of actors in the relationship between the United States and Mexico: American travelers, travel writers and photographers who visited and worked in Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With the junction of rail lines between the United States and Mexico in the 1880s, travel to Mexico became accessible to many in the populous U.S .East and Midwest. Through their photography and written accounts, These new travelers produced a popular representation of Mexico to the U.S. public which influenced both contemporary U.S. policy and modern U.S. attitudes towards Mexico. Drawing on the vast body of documentation and representation left by American travelers to Mexico, Ruiz argues that these travelers helped shape a form of U.S. cultural and economic imperialism distinct to Mexico. Travelers replicated many of the common tropes of imperialist discourse, viewing Mexicans, and especially indigenous Mexicans, as infantile, sensual, and backwards. At the same time, however, travelers also saw in the regime of Porfirio DÃaz the possibility that Mexico could become a productive, modern, “sister republic” to the U.S. Ruiz notes that to this end, American travelers promoted a range of social and economic transformations in Mexico: the uplifting of the mestizo class, U.S. economic interventionism and investment, and finally – as the Porfiriato collapsed in the Mexican Revolution – direct U.S. military intervention. And while the specific economic vision of American travelers was curtailed by the Revolution, Ruiz argues that their depictions of Mexico continue to influence Americans today through the modern tourist industry. Jason Ruiz is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices