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

66 reframing latin america
This initial travel experience provided the material for his fi rst book, Adventures
of a Tropical Tramp. He eventually traveled to many places across
the globe, including Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia,
returning to New York only for short periods of time. Before he died at
the young age of 36, Foster became a prolifi c writer, producing seven travel
memoirs, a magazine, and a play. 1
The excerpt that follows is drawn from Foster’s brief trip through El Salvador
in 1923 as part of a longer trip through Mexico and Central America that
led to the writing of his third book, A Gringo in Mañana-land (1924). 2 Foster
had a great affection for Latin America and its people, which is evident in his
writings. He also had a hearty sense of adventure. He enjoyed the process of
discovery and relished the opportunity to bring home stories of new things.
Foster was an insightful and astute observer, but he viewed Latin America
and its people through a particular lens, through a particularly constructed
window, to borrow from our previous analogy. It is this lens that we are interested
in understanding here, not to agree or disagree with Foster, but to
know the fi lter through which he viewed Latin America.
Notwithstanding the fact that Foster liked Latin America and its people
a great deal, he viewed them with cultural biases not uncommon among
early twentieth-century North Americans. Much of what he sees inspires
in him a sense of superiority and a feeling of relief that he does not have
to actually live in the wretched conditions he encounters. Foster relies on
a great many generalizations and cultural biases. For example, he points
out that the roads are not paved and that the driving is more dangerous.
Then he accuses all the drivers of being reckless, a generalization showing
cultural bias. To explain why Central America can’t develop he describes
the “comic opera” of “internal bickerings” among its countries, despite the
fact that “the whole fi ve could be lost in Texas.” 3 This territorial comparison
does not go unnoticed by his implied audience, the U.S. citizen, whom
he prompts to compare the “unity” of their vast nation with the inherent
division of such “tiny” countries as those in Central America. 4 A caption
under a photo of an indigenous women carrying a bucket reads, “In these
pleasant tropical countries no peon girl escapes maternity.” 5 He refers to
the Central American as a walking contradiction who, “like the Mexican,
is both an idealist and a materialist [as] [h]e sees no inconsistency in being
both devoutly religious and frankly immoral.” 6
From our perspective, much of Foster’s comments are uncomfortable to
read, but to be fair, we can’t expect him to view El Salvador outside the
norms of his time. But we are interested in identifying the essentialism
in his text, as distinct from generalizations or cultural biases. Foster rests