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

chapter 4
An Opening Jaunt: El Salvador in 1923
To open our theory section, imagine taking a trip to Latin America. Our
guide is Harry Foster, a North American, and our destination is El Salvador
in the early 1920s. Our guidebook is Foster’s A Gringo in Mañana-land, a
description of his travels that he published in 1924. It may seem strange to
begin this theory section with a primary text, but we have chosen to do so
for two reasons. First, we aim to encourage readers to recognize all texts as
discourses. Second, we seek to provide a case study of identity essentialism
that will prepare them for the denser theoretical explanations that follow.
At the time of Foster’s travels to Central America in the 1920s, many
people in the United States saw Latin America (and especially Central
America) as a frontier, just as Britons saw Africa or the Orient in the late
1800s. It was a place full of unknowns and potential discoveries, where
anyone with a sense of adventure and determination could supposedly fi nd
himself or herself, make a pile of money, or bring back stories worth telling
to the curious folks back home. It is probably not a coincidence that shortly
after the so-called closing of the Wild West, travelers and businesspeople
from the United States began directing their attentions southward to Latin
America. Subsequently, travel narratives became a popular form of literary
activity and a common way to share information about other parts of the
world. Harry Foster was one of those writer-adventurers.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, on Oc to ber 31, 1894 and attended
Newton Academy and Lafayette College. While in college he joined ROTC
and in 1917 he left to fi ght in World War I. After returning from Europe, he
was posted on the U.S.-Mexican border where he fi nished his military career.
In 1919, while still a young man, he traveled throughout Latin America.