Childhood and the Cultural Politics of Development in Pan American Day Celebrations, 1930-1948
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Abstract
(analytical)
This article takes a critical look at the construction of Latin American childhood imagined from the vantage point of the United States through the cultural politics of Pan Americanism. It analyzes children’s participation in the celebrations of Pan American Day (April 14) as a political-cultural project of the Pan American Union. Through cultural historical analysis of primary sources, the article argues that children gained political visibility in the public sphere as cultural agents of a new hemispheric political initiative led by Washington, D. C. The resulting metaphorical construction of Latin America as childlike in the (neo)colonial gaze infantilized the region’s inhabitants, a historical tendency that intensified when children were mobilized as agents of hemispheric diplomacy.
Keywords: Modern history, Foreign relations, diplomacy, Latin American history, childhood, nationalism.
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