Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

202 reframing latin america
president by overthrowing the man who had nurtured his career. Ironically,
Gómez allied himself with elites and intellectuals who viewed Venezuela
through a European and racialized lens. They supported Gómez out of a
belief that Venezuela needed an authoritarian regime to control the masses.
To its credit, the Gómez regime successfully centralized the national government
and put an end to Venezuela’s long history of internecine confl ict
between rival caudillo bands. This stability was facilitated by the government’s
exploitation of petroleum reserves in a joint venture with Great
Britain.
In the 1920s, however, a growing nationalist and populist movement began
to challenge the Gómez dictatorship, accusing it of corruption, nepotism,
and selling the country out to foreigners. The annual Week of the Student
celebration in 1928 turned into a mass protest against the regime. So
decisive were these protests that they established an opposition that dubbed
itself the Generation of ’28.
Inspired by those protests, Gallegos wrote Doña Bárbara in 1929 as a critique
of the Gómez government. Ironically, Gómez liked the novel, perhaps
because Gallegos avoided the sensitive issue of oil and because the novel
was well-received throughout Latin America. Gómez nominated Gallegos
to be a senator, but Gallegos declined the offer, choosing to go into voluntary
exile in Spain rather than compromise his political beliefs.
Following the death of Gómez from natural causes in 1935, Gallegos
returned to Venezuela and was appointed minister of education. In 1945 he
supported a coup d’état that brought Rómulo Betancourt to power. Then,
during the election to select Betancourt’s successor, Gallegos was chosen
as the candidate of Acción Democrática (Democratic Action), a multiclass
party founded in 1941 that drew support from a mixture of workers, peasants,
and the middle class. Gallegos won the election in 1947 with a great
majority of the popular vote, becoming the fi rst freely elected president of
Venezuela. Although short-lived, his government made gains in education
and health care. The military, however, saw his policies as radically excessive
and ousted Gallegos in a bloodless coup. He fl ed to Cuba in 1948 and
later went to Mexico before returning in 1958 to Venezuela, where he remained
until his death in 1969.
The story of Doña Bárbara revolves around a confl ict between two characters,
Santos Luzardo and Doña Bárbara. The novel opens as Luzardo, a
refi ned lawyer from Caracas, is returning to his birthplace, the family’s
hacienda in Venezuela’s interior plains. His initial intent is to sell the property,
but upon arriving he discovers the region to be dominated by Doña
Bárbara, a local caudillo boss, who has consolidated land and built up a