Revista Art-Press 249, septembre 1999
How ´latin´is Latin America?
Roberto Romano
Applied to the vast geographical zone that stretches from Mexico to the
Caribbean and from there all the way to the south, “Latin America” is what
Émile Benveniste called a “starter” term. We have plenty of evidence that the
“Latinity” of South America is far from obvious and that the term is misleading
as regards discourse, economics, politics, art and religion: yet, whenever a writer
—even a South American— is stuck for a way of describing the continent´s
cultural fabric, out comes that word ´Latin`, allowing him to start his
argument.
Authors who have taken on the thankless task of studying the “Latinity”
of America tend to begin in the 19th century with intra-European feuding and
the rivalry between Europe and the emerging U.S. Artur Ardao cites Michel
Chevalier, a French Saint-Simonian whose depiction of America cultures,
published in 1836, drew on old ideas concerning hypothetical “Saxon”,
“Germanic”, “Latin” or “Slav” identities. He declared that North America was
Protestant and Anglo-Saxon, while the South was Catholic and Latin. (1) But
here we need to consider the broader context, beyond the social utopias and
doctrines formulated in the “Age of Prophets”. ( 2)
The term “Latin America” originated in French foreign policy and, more
particularly, in Napoleon III´s attempts to gain a firm foot-hold in the
Americas. For the Emperor, it was vital that the U.S. should not take control
of Mexico, since it would make them dominant all the way to the West Indies and
South America. “If”, Napoleon wrote to General Forey, “Mexico retains her
independence and territorial integrity, and if, with the support of France, a
stable governement can be established there, we will have restored its strenght
and prestige to the Latin race on the ´other´ side of the Ocean […] it is our
duty to intervene in Mexico and to raise our flag there”. ( 3) Analysts of
Hispanic South America also signal the attempt to use French culture in the
intellectual movements working for the modernization of society and the state,
with a view to reducing the Spanish influence. In the case of Brazil, we should
not forget that when Dom João fled there as Napoleon I ´s army advanced into
Portugal, he was followed by a wave of French influences whose impact on
Brazilian culture was felt all the way through to the 20th century.
In Search of the ideal colonist
It is important to realize that the name “Latin America” was the fruit of
political, economic, strategic, ideological and even religious conflicts
involving Europe, the U.S. and South America itself. The word “Latin” does not
refer to a common culture inherited from “Latium” via Spain and Portugal, but
was an invention designed to bring out the strategic difference of the southern
continent with regard to the northern one. While North Americans were said to
be Protestant capitalists, materialist believers in the market, South
Americans, like the French, were seen as upholders of cultural and spirituals
values. South Americans governments have played on this uncertanty ever since :
should they assert their affinity with the political, doctrinaire and artistic
forms and culture of France, or welcome U.S. hegemony ? The Organization of
America States, a product of North American dominance, has always been
handicapped by this dilemma: even today, its members still havent´t made up
their minds as to wether it is better to accept U.S. dominance or to seek
cooperation with France, which epitomizes “Latinity”. It was a similar
uncertainty that underlay the debates as to the kind of immigration that would
be strategically most appropriate for the new nations.
Thus, in the 19th century, discussions concerning the kind of workforce
that would best replace the slaves unfailingly referred to ideas about the
“hardworking and disciplined” character of certain nations. Italy, France and
Germany were perceived as models. Hence the large numbers of Italian and German
immigrants in Brazil. The French influx was limited to the major towns and to
highly qualified sectors from the arts to engineering, from agronomy or
urbanism and military planning.
Thus, the recipe for ideal colonization propounded by various social
doctrines at the turn of the 20th century brought together cultures that were
not only in conflict but would soon the fighting each other to the death in two
world wars.
In Brazil, the issue of the “ideal immigrant” was hotly debated from
Empire to Republic. The positivists, purported upholders of French culture,
were divided: some called for German, others for French. Miguel Lemos, the head
of the Positivist Church, represented the latter position, while the former was
embodied by Luis Pereira Barreto, leader of the unorthodox positivists. Lemos
claimed that “Barreto´s ideal is Germanization of Brazil, and so he extols the
´noble German race´. Barreto countered this accusation of Germanophilia with
demographic arguments: “if I have not recommended French immigration, it is
only for reasons of common sense. I know that France does not have enough
inhabitants even for her needs […] and it would be the height of folly to ask
her to depopulate in order to come and populate Brazil. The most rudimentary
knowledge of demography rules this out: it is well known tha the populations of
Prussia and England will double over next 45 years, whereas it will take France
198 years to double its own (Bertillon)”. (4) Like many others, Barreto sought
a way of setting the huge Brazilian territory with productive immigrants who
would be able to break with the “backward” models of the earlier Iberian
colonists.
While the ideological debate raged on, politicians pursued “practical”
ways of replacing the African slaves who had sustained the country´s economic
activity for hundreds of years. Thus the first liberal government made plans to
import Chineses laborers, who were reputed to be “an excellent working tool”.
While the positivists objected, their humanitarian approach was very much the
exception. With their hegemonic position in world coffee production and trade,
liberals took a pragmatict approach, seeking immigrants who would increase
productivity and agricultural expertise while offering “innate” honesty and
discipline. This idealized “good immigrant” —the mirror image of Rousseau´s
“noble savage”— was, they argued, the only way of overcoming the handicaps
afflicting large numbers of the poor, including the “desorganized and lazy”
peasant farmers, the “savage and violent” natives and, last but not least, the
Africans, that “impure and redoutable horde of the two million blacks, suddenly
gifted with constitutional prerogatives”. Described by some prominent liberals
as the “this African toxin”, blacks were perceived as threatening “the physical
unity of the Nation itself, abasing the nationality level in proportion to
their prominence in the mixture” (5) For such liberals it mattered little
whether immigrants were Latins or Teutons: they could be anything provided they
were not African, not part of the “toxin” threatening to cripple economic and
social depelopment.
Thus, in accordance with this policy of substitution, governments from
the Empire period to the Republic attracted immigrants of nearly every
nationality. Today, in the State of São Paulo, not far from the border with
Paraná, the small town originally named Núcleo Colonial Barão de Antonina
remains a kind of Tropical Babel, with the descendents of Russian, Japanese,
Hungarian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish and many other nationalities all
living side by side. The plan had been to give these new arrivals and
adaptation period to learn all about the conditions of Brazil and the land that
they would soon be farming. But this was abandoned in favor of the direct
implantation of the different national groups in separate regions. The Núcleo
is a monument, a unique community where Russians would fraternize with Japanese
and and all would tend their garden in perfect, Candide-like harmony. (6)
Why do I insist on this aspect of Brazilian immigration ? Because it played
a crucial role in the “modernization” of the country´s economic life, as indeed
it did throughout south America. While the black labor force was less prominent
in Argentina and Chile, the political élites there were just as anxious to find
“industrious and disciplined” immigrants to replace the “undesirable” Indians,
the Spaniards, who were reputedly averse to hard physical work, and other
“backward” groups. In the light of this doctrine, which prevailed in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, it seems more than a little dubious to describe
South American culture as “Latin”.
Thus, if we dig beneath the culturally homogenous topsoil of the Spanish
and Portuguese languages, we find a real diversity of cultures and populations.
We already know, of course, that North Americana has its own “Latin” territory
in Quebec, that English is spoken in the Caribbean and that at least two
Guianas are not “Latin”. To this can be added the Germanic population in the
State of Espirito Santo, which is of Pomeranian origin. São Paulo too has a
sizeable German colony, complete with Jewish communities that have sustained a
Yiddish culture. Throughout the country one can find inhabitants of Arab
origin, mainly Lebanese or Syrians, plus Turks and Armenians. In Paraná State, there
are large Japanese, German, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Russian colonies.
In the State of Santa Catarina you will find Germans, poles as well as
Portuguese from the Azores, which has a different culture from the Portuguese
mainland. There are large German and Italian contingents in Rio Grande do Sul.
Thix mix of nationalities proved highly uncomfortable for the dictator
Getúlio Vargas, both before, during and after World War II. In the face of the
Nazi thread, and the risk that the German and other populations might break
away, his government took a number of extreme measures. A ban on vernacular
languages in schools and public places was consolidated by an aggressive
propaganda campaign in favor of “Brazilianness”, a fictional construct in which
cultural, political, religious and racial conflicts were dissolved into a
homogeneous value system founded on a mythical “racial democracy”. The reality
is that all these cultures and nationalities created and continue to create
their own distinct political, artistic and religious forms which are a long
away from this notional “Brazilian culture”. If we look at those States without
prominent Slavic or German groups, we find another negation of the country´s
supposed “Latinity” : African influences. These are specially strong in Bahia´s
markedly islamic religion and culture. In Pernambuco, Paraiba and other
north-eastern states, vestiges of dutch culture can be detected in among the
Portuguese, while the region´s intellectual history has been marked by a German
influence which is perceptible even today.
The German cultural heritage is particularly strong in Chile, especially
in the army. There is also an obvious German presence in Paraguay and Peru,
which has a prominent Japanese community. The Anglophilia of the Argentinean
upper classes has become something of a joke to their neighbors, while powerful
movements in Chile and even Brazil have tried to strenghthen the German
cultural and economic presence in these countries. (7) A similar phenomenon has
occurred in Uruguay. In contrast, countries to the north, such as Venezuela,
have assimalet North American cultural models more throughly than their
neighbors.
It is undeniable that French culture has had a decisive influence on the
official and unofficial culture of many countries. This was the case in Brazil,
from the Empire periodo through to World War I, when the arts, politics,
economics, science and even the military were indebt to Gallic models and
products. Only after World War II did the army begin to model its techniques
and strategies on those of the United States. In recent decades howeverm
Brazilian interest in French culture has waned somewahat, largerly through
fault of the French government itself, which has failed to maintain its
connection in the region. Among university freshmen, those with a basica grasp
of French are outnumbered by both English and the German speakers.
From the above, it follows that while political considerations (and,
therefore, the concept of “Latinity”) will be central to South America´s
cultural self-definition and global positioning in the coming century, it would
be a mistake to overlook the minority cultural “pockets” that are so much a
part of the national fabric. Some of these communicate with one another, others
remain obstinately isolated. Nowadays it is not so uncommun for former German
colonies to attempt to forge new links with the motherland. The same has
happened with Italy, Spain, Portugal and, to a lesser degree, France. Since it
is possible to claim the former nationality of one´s grandparents, many
citizens are trying to add an Asian or European nationality to their South one,
while developing their links with the linguistic, social, scientific and
cultural practices of the old country. This phenomenon is recent, but
developing fast. And while most grandchildren of European immigrants
(particularly those from Ukrainem Germany, Hungary, Poland and Russia) studying
in universities in the Brazilian Souths still don´t speak their ancestral
languages, European countries are trying to change this situation.
Cultural Globalization
The “Latinity” of south America is thus a universal abstraction, an
increasingly square peg in the round hole of social, political and economic
reality —all the more so since the growing cultural influence of the U.S.
renders impossible the kind of “Latin hegemony” that could be envisaged in the
19th and early 20th centuries. At a time when adoption of the US dollar as the
national currency is increasingly seen as the only bulkwark against economic
collapse, when cable TV and the internet are the new and highly efficient
agents of an imperial style Pan-americanism. It is important to redefine the
real meaning of this “Latinity” which almost automatically disapears in the
analysis of South American cultural and social diversity.
Notes
(1) A. Ardao : Panamericanismo y Latinoamericanismo. America Latina en
sus ideas. (Mexico City: Siglo Veintino Editores, 1986).
(2) Refer to Paul Benichou´s well-know analysis: Le Temps des Prophètes.
Doctrines de l´age romantique. (Paris, Gallimard, 1977).
(3) Letter dated july 3, 1862. Cf. M. Rojas, Los Cien Nombres de
America. Eso que Descrubio Colón (Barcelona: Lumen, 1991).
(4) Cf. Ivan Lins, História do Positivismo no Brasil (São Paulo, CECEd.
1991).
(5) Julio de Mesquita Filho: A Crise nacional. Reflexões em torno de uma
data (São Paulo, Seção de Obras de O Estado de São Paulo, 1925). Cf. Roberto
Romano: Brasil, Igreja contra Estado (São Paulo, Kayrós Ed. 1979).
(6) More informations avaiables: http://www.baraodeantonina.sp.gov.br/historia.asp
(7) Brepohl de Magalhães, M.D. : “Os Pangermanistas Na Argentina, No
Brasil e No Chile.” In: E. G. Dayrell; Zilda Iokoi. (Org.). América Latina Contemporânea:
desafios e perspectivas (São Paulo, Ed. Expressão e Cultura, 1996), páginas
212.
Roberto Romano
Translation from the French, C. Penwarden.
Translation from the French, C. Penwarden.
Roberto Romano teaches political philosophy at the Universidade Estadual
de Campinas. His publications include Lux in tenebris, Silence et bruit and
others books and articles.