In the early 1940s as the conflict between the Axis and the Allies spread worldwide, the U.S. State Department turned its attention to Axis influence in Latin America. As head of the Office of Inter-American Affairs, Nelson Rockefeller was charged with cultivating the region’s support for the Allies while portraying Brazil and its neighbors as dependable wartime partners. Genevieve Naylor, a photojournalist previously employed by the Associated Press and the WPA, was sent to Brazil in 1940...

Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914-1977), nicknamed Bitita, was a destitute black Brazilian woman born in the rural interior who migrated to the industrial city of Sao Paulo. This is her autobiography, which includes details about her experiences of race relations and sexual intimidation.

In May 1888 the Brazilian parliament passed, and Princess Isabel (acting for her father, Emperor Pedro II) signed, the lei aurea, or Golden Law, providing for the total abolition of slavery. Brazil thereby became the last “civilized nation” to part with slavery as a legal institution. The freeing of slaves in Brazil, as in other countries, may not have fulfilled all the hopes for improvement it engendered, but the final act of abolition is certainly one of the defining landmarks o...

Focusing on Brazil, this text covers issues such as: the legacy of colour; social realities; and diversions and assertive behaviour.

An unprecedented account of the long-term cultural and political influences that Mexican-Americans will have on the collective character of our nation.In considering the largest immigrant group in American history, Gregory Rodriguez examines the complexities of its heritage and of the racial and cultural synthesis--mestizaje--that has defined the Mexican people since the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. He persuasively argues that the rapidly expanding Mexican American i...

SR Books' two popular Human Tradition in Latin America titles covering nineteenth- and twentieth-century history have been combined into one exciting new volume. The most compelling chapters from these books are now presented in The Human Tradition in Modern Latin America. This collection offers powerful, fascinating biographies of ordinary people caught in the sometimes devastating historical changes that have occurred in Latin America. From the turbulent struggles for independence in the...

A Companion to Mexican History and Culture features 40 essays contributed by international scholars that incorporate ethnic, gender, environmental, and cultural studies to reveal a richer portrait of the Mexican experience, from the earliest peoples to the present.Features the latest scholarship on Mexican history and culture by an array of international scholarsEssays are separated into sections on the four major chronological erasDiscusses recen...

"Professor Tannenbaum has given us ten keys to Latin America. They are: the Land and the People, Race, Religion, Regionalism, the Hacienda, Education, Leadership, Politics, The United States and Latin America, and Castro and Social Change ... Professor Tannenbaum has traveled throughout the Latin American countryside and knows the continent as few Latin Americanists do... His remarks are often wise and penetrating."- Hispanic American Report...

The third installment of Gates's documentary trilogy on the Black Experience, following America Behind the Color Line and Wonders of the African World.Selected as a 2012 Outstanding Title by AAUP University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World during the Middle Passage. While just over 11.0 million survived the arduous journey, only about 450,000 of them a...

In this hugely praised narrative, New York Times reporter Larry Rohter takes the reader on a lively trip through Brazil's history, culture, and booming economy. Going beyond the popular stereotypes of samba, supermodels, and soccer, he shows us a stunning and varied landscape--from breathtaking tropical beaches to the lush and dangerous Amazon rainforest--and how a complex and vibrant people defy definition. He charts Brazil's amazing jump from a debtor nation to one of the world's fastest...

Twentieth-century Los Angeles has been the locus of one of the most profound and complex interactions between variant cultures in American history. Yet this study is among the first to examine the relationship between ethnicity and identity among the largest immigrant group to that city. By focusing on Mexican immigrants to Los Angeles from 1900 to 1945, George J. Sánchez explores the process by which temporary sojourners altered their orientation to that of permanent residents, thereby la...

Fernando Henrique Cardoso received a phone call in the middle of the night asking him to be the new Finance Minister of Brazil. As he put the phone down and stared into the darkness of his hotel room, he feared he'd been handed a political death sentence. The year was 1993, and he would be responsible for an economy that had had seven different currencies in the previous eight years to cope with inflation that had run at 3000 percent a year. Brazil had a habit of chewing up finance ministe...