Week Seven – The Export Boom as Modernity

This week’s reading discusses the impact of export on the development of the economy and Latin America as a whole. It was interesting to learn that the boom of Latin America was largely due to the rising economies of North America and Europe. These growing economies were in great need of raw materials and resources and Latin America was rich with these. In turn, these first world economies were bringing new technologies and investment into Latin America. This not only helped the region become more modern but it also helped increase productivity and agricultural goods could be more aggressively cultivated. This was largely in part of the railroad systems that were emerging all throughout the republics. The railroads helped make the world seem smaller and reachable.  Western ideas and concepts were deemed as a requirement for success for Latin American countries and many other worldwide because of how successful their economies were at the time which everyone else aspire to be like the Europeans and North Americans.

The reading also talks about photography and how it shaped the identity of Latin Americans. Photographs are a huge part of history, we are privileged today that we have the access and the ability to interpret photographs from hundreds of years ago. It is one thing to read pages of statistics, historical facts and documents but the interpretation of a photograph from a different perspective than the photographer and the photographed can explain more than what is being said. Photographs consist of posed individuals in made-up settings. They allow individuals to picture themselves however they want, wherever they want. Introducing photography helped embed the stereotypes of people and spaces of Latin America to the world – many of them being very negative. For example, photographs portrayed the idea that light-skin, European-like dress, and clean settings was equivalent to wealth. Hence, many Indigenous and African upwardly mobilizing individuals dressed and appeared European-like in photographs. This is a disturbing in that it is self-discriminating and self-destructive, but also represents the confusion and inequality that modernity brought to Latin America.

In the document about Porfirio Díaz, It is hard to argue that his ways of gaining power and achieving his goals was ideal due to the corruption and violence used. However, he must be credited for  bringing in order and helping Mexico progress and develop. Díaz was a controversial president and it is understandable why some would not trust him and call him a liar or a manipulator, but his success must be acknowledged whether he is a genuine person or not.