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

72 reframing latin america
quite brilliantly with the men at the table, chattered only playful nonsense
to his wife. In consideration of his pride, she artfully concealed the fact that
she was his intellectual equal.
Now and then one reads in our newspapers or magazines about the equal
suffrage movement in Mexico or the organization of a new women’s club in
Chile. But such innovations have yet to gain an extensive following. With
the same confl ict of idealism and materialism that distinguishes Latin-
American men, the women may verbally deplore their lack of liberty but
are in reality quite satisfi ed with it. They are of a race which is inclined
to follow the easiest course, and the easiest course is to attach themselves
to some convenient man and allow him to worry about life’s problems. In
these pleasant tropical countries no girl of the lower classes escapes maternity;
most girls of the middle classes, not being over-critical about whom
they marry, can land some one; even in the more particular aristocratic
circles the spinster is a rarity. The wife usually has her own way when questions
arise about the household or the children. Beyond that she is quite
content with complete male dominance. And she is passively happy.
Discussion Questions
• Consider the infl uence these discourses have on how the United
States thought about and continues to think about Latin America. In what
ways is Foster’s travelogue representative of past and current Western
constructions of Latin America?
• How does Foster react to Latin American essentializations of the
United States? Based on his presentation of El Salvador, is this reaction
justifi ed?
• What do Foster’s observations suggest about the U.S. view toward
Latin Americans at this time? In what ways is Foster subject to and participant
in the constructive process of discourse?
• Consider Foster not only as an individual writer but also as part of a
much larger print culture that wrote about Latin America in a similar way.
What effect do these travel narratives have on the audience’s perceptions
of Latin America? Could these texts eventually shape Latin Americans’
ideas about their own identity and who they are as a people?
• On two occasions Foster refers to Latin Americans as a race, although
the contexts to which he refers are not rooted in racialized difference.
What does this reveal about the essentialistic nature of his interpretive
framework?
• What might Edward Said have said about Harry Foster?