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The Cambridge Companion to
Modern Latin American Culture
The term Latin America refers to the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking
states created in the early 1820s following the wars of independence,
states that differed enormously in geographical and demographic
scale, ethnic composition and economic resources, yet shared distinct
historical and cultural traits. Specially commissioned essays by leading
experts explore the unity and diversity of the region’s cultural
expressions. These essays analyse history and politics from the
nineteenth century to the present day and consider the heritage of
pre-Columbian and colonial Latin America. There is a particular focus
on narrative as well as on poetry, art and architecture, music, cinema,
theatre, and broader issues of popular culture. A final chapter looks at
the strong and rapidly expanding influence of Latino/a culture in the
United States. A chronology and guides to further reading are included,
making this volume an invaluable introduction to the rich and varied
culture of modern Latin America.

Cambridge Companions to Culture
The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture
Edited by Eva Kolinsky and Wilfried van der Will
The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture
Edited by Nicholas Rzhevsky
The Cambridge Companion to Modern Spanish Culture
Edited by David T. Gies
The Cambridge Companion to Modern Italian Culture
Edited by Zygmunt G. Bara
´
nski and Rebecca J. West
The Cambridge Companion to Modern French Culture

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A catalogue recordforthisbook is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
The Cambridge companion to modern Latin American culture / edited by John King.
p. cm – (Cambridge companions to culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0 521 63151 3 – isbn 0 521 63651 5 (pbk.)
1. Latin American – Civilization. 2. Arts, Latin American. i. King, John, 1950– ii. Series.
f1408.3.c283 2003
980.03 – dc21 2003053229
isbn 0 521 63151 3 hardback
isbn 0 521 63651 5 paperback
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that URLs for external websites referred
to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has
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Contents
List of illustrations page ix
Notes on contributors x
Acknowledgements xiii
Note on translations xiv
Chronology of major events xv
Map 1 Latin America, 1830 xxv
Map 2 Latin America, 2000 xxvi
Introduction 1
john king

Illustrations
1. David Alfaro Siqueiros, ‘From the University to the People and the
People to the University’, 1952, Rectorate Building, UNAM campus,
Mexico City (photo Valerie Fraser). page 213
2. Carlos Cruz-Diez, ‘Physichromie No. 1270’. Mixed Media, 1990.
Reproduced by permission of the University of Essex Collection of Latin
American Art. 216
3. Amilcar de Castro, Untitled, 1980. Reproduced by permission of the
University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art. 217
4. Roberto Matta, ‘The End of Everything’, 1942. Reproduced by
permission of the University of Essex Collection of Latin American
Art. 219
5. Nadin Osp
´
ına, ‘Idol with doll’, 2000. Reproduced by permission of the
University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art. 221
6. Juan O’Gorman, studio house of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, 1931–2,
Mexico City (photo Valerie Fraser). 224
7. Oscar Niemeyer, Itamarat
´
ı Palace, 1962, Bras
´
ılia (photo Valerie
Fraser). 229
8. Manuel Medel and Mariano Moreno ‘Cantinflas’ in El signo de la muerte,
1939. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Mexicano de
Cinematograf
´
ıa Archive. 289
9. Dolores del R

Qu
´
eb
´
ecois cultural politics, on women’s writing, race and identity in
Puerto Rico and on Caribbean popular music.
james dunkerley is Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies,
and Professor of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London. Amongst
his books are Americana: The Americas in the World, around 1850 (2000),
and (edited with Victor Bulmer-Thomas) The United States and Latin
America: The New Agenda (2000). He is currently preparing a study of the
Bolivian Revoluton.
valerie fraser teaches at the University of Essex and is co-director of
the University of Essex collection of Latin American Art. Publications
include Drawing the Line: Art and Cultural Identity in Contemporary Latin
America (with Oriana Baddeley, 1989), The Architecture of Conquest:
Building in the Viceroyalty of Peru 1535–1635 (1990) and Building the New
World: Studies in the Modern Architecture of Latin America 1930–1960 (2000).
randal johnson is Professor of Brazilian Literature and Culture at the
University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Literatura e
Cinema: Macunaima do Modernismo da Literatura ao Cinema Novo (1982),
Cinema Novo x5: Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Film (1984), The Film
Notes on contributors xi
Industry in Brazil: Culture and the State (1987), and Antonio das Mortes
(1998) and is editor, or co-editor of Brazilian Cinema (1982; expanded
edn, 1995), Pierre Bourdieu’s The Field of Cultural Production (1993) and
Black Brazil: Culture, Identity and Social Mobilization (1999).
john king is Professor of Latin American Cultural History at the
University of Warwick. He has authored and edited some ten books on
Latin American cinema, literature and cultural history. His most

C farlane is Professor of Latin American History at the
University of Warwick. Publications include Colombia Before
Independence: Economy, Society and Politics Under Bourbon Rule (1993) and
The British in the Americas, 1480–1815 (1994). He is completing a study of
the Wars of Independence in Spanish America.
william rowe has taught at the universities of San Marcos (Lima),
Liverpool, King’s College London, Universidad Iberoamericana
(Mexico) and is currently Anniversary Professor of Poetics at Birkbeck
College, University of London. At King’s College he was Professor of
Latin American Cultural Studies and founder of the Centre for Latin
American Cultural Studies and the Journal of Latin American Cultural
Studies. The author of many books on Latin American literature and
culture, his most recent work is Poets of Contemporary Latin America:
History and the Inner Life (2002).
vivian schelling is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Cultural
Studies at the University of East London. She is the co-author, with
xii Notes on contributors
William Rowe, of Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America
(1991). She has recently edited Through the Kaleidoscope: The Experience of
Modernity in Latin America (2000).
ilan stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino
Cultures at Amherst College. His books include The Hispanic Condition
(1995, expanded edition 2001), The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays
(1997), The Riddle of Cantinflas (1998), Mutual Impressions (1999), On
Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (2001), and Spanglish: The Making of
a New American Language (2003). In 2000 Routledge published The
Essential Ilan Stavans.
jason wilson is Professor of Latin American Literature at University
College, London. He has published extensively on Latin American
poetry, surrealism, travel writing and literary translation. His most

1492 Columbus searches for westward route to Asia and makes
first European contact with America; Spanish conquest
of Moorish kingdom of Granada; expulsion of Jews from
Spain
1493 Columbus’s second voyage; establishment of first
Spanish settlement on Hispaniola
1494 Treaty of Tordesillas: Castile and Portugal agree to
partition exploration and exploitation of the world
1498 Vasco de Gama sails Portuguese fleet to India;
Columbus’s third voyage brings first certain sighting of
South America
1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral, commanding second Portuguese
fleet for India, lands on coast of Brazil and claims it for
Portugal
1500– 2 America Vespucci sails down east coast of South America
1502– 4 Columbus’s fourth voyage surveys coasts of Central
America
1502– 9 Nicol
´
as de Ovando takes expedition of settlement to
Hispaniola and becomes the first royal governor
1507 Martin Waldseem
¨
uller makes first world map, showing
‘America’, named in honour of Amerigo Vespucci
1511 Foundation of Santa Mar
´
ıa del Darien, first Spanish town
on American continents; conquest of Cuba from
Hispaniola; establishment at Santo Domingo of first

[Mexico], as precursors of other missionary orders and
vanguard for evangelization of the native peoples of
America
1530– 3 Measles epidemics in Mesoamerica and Andean America
1532 Portuguese settlement at S
˜
ao Vicente, followed by
further settlements in Brazil and division of Brazil into
captaincies
1532– 6 Francisco Pizarro conquers the Incas, takes Cuzco and
founds city of Lima
1535 Viceroyalty of New Spain established
1536 First foundation of Buenos Aires
1538 Foundation of Santaf
´
e de Bogot
´
a and beginnings of
Spanish settlement in New Granada [Colombia].
Probable date of arrival of first African slaves in Brazil
1541 Foundation of Santiago de Chile begins colonization of
Chile. Buenos Aires destroyed
1543 Viceroyalty of Peru founded
1545 Silver ores discovered at Potos
´
ı in Upper Peru
1546 Silver ores found at Zacatecas in northern Mexico
1545– 6 Typhus, pulmonary plague epidemics in Mesoamerica
and Andean America
1548 Foundation of La Paz [Bolivia]

a
1755 Beginning of reform programme for Portugal and Brazil
by Marquis of Pombal
1759 Jesuits expelled from Portuguese territories
1762 Capture of Havana by British
1763 Peace of Paris restores Havana to Spanish rule; Spanish
review of government and defences of Cuba starts process
of reform which will spread to Spain’s other colonies.
Capital of Brazil shifted from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro
1764 First reforms to Spain’s system of regulating trade with
its American colonies
1765 Jos
´
edeG
´
alvez begins ‘general inspection’ of New Spain,
setting in motion Bourbon reforms of government and
taxation in Spanish America. First major anti-reform
rebellion in Quito
1767 Jesuits expelled from Spanish territories
1776 Creation of the Viceroyalty of R
´
ıo de la Plata, with capital
in Buenos Aires
1780– 2 Great Indian rebellion led by T
´
upac Amaru in Peru
xviii Chronology of major events
1781 Anti-government rebellion in New Granada by the
‘Comuneros’

Constitution of C
´
adiz; plans reconquest of independent
Spanish American territories
1815– 16 Restoration of Spanish government throughout Spanish
America, except the River Plate provinces
1816 United Provinces of R
´
ıo de la Plata declare independence
1818 Spanish defeat in Chile at battle of Maip
´
u
1819 Simon Bol
´
ıvar defeats Spanish army at Battle of Boyac
´
a;
declares Republic of Colombia
1820 Jos
´
e San Mart
´
ın invades royalist Peru. Military revolt in
Spain and restoration of Constitution of C
´
adiz and
constitutional monarchy. Military revolt in Portugal and
introduction of constitutional monarchy
Chronology of major events xix
1821 Battle of Carabobo brings independence to Venezuela.

1850 Atlantic slave trade into Brazil ends
1852 Rosas deposed in Argentina
1855 Overthrow of Mexican dictator Santa Anna by Revolution
of Ayutla
1862 Argentina reunited. French invasion of Mexico. New
Granada renamed Colombia
1864– 70 War between Paraguay and Brazil, Argentina and
Uruguay
1867 Napoleon II withdraws army from Mexico; execution of
Maximilian
1868 ‘Ten Years War’ against Spanish rule in Cuba
1876 Porfirio D
´
ıaz comes to power in Mexico
1877 Frozen meat first shipped from Argentina to Europe
xx Chronology of major events
1879– 80 Roca completes ‘conquest of the desert’ in Patagonia
1879– 83 War of the Pacific between Chile and Peru and Bolivia
1886 Abolition of slavery in Cuba
1888 Abolition of slavery in Brazil
1889 Brazil declared a republic. Lesseps’s Panama canal
scheme collapses
1890 Baring crisis leads to collapse of British investment in
region
1891 Civil war in Chile
1895 Uprising against Spanish rule in Cuba
1898 Spanish-American War; USA occupies Cuba and Puerto
Rico
1899 ‘War of the Thousand Days’ in Colombia
1903 European powers back Venezuelan rebels and blockade

Nicaragua
1930 Military revolt against second Yrigoyen government in
Argentina. After revolt in southern Brazil Get
´
ulio Vargas
takes presidency. Coups in Peru and Bolivia
1932 Peasant uprising in El Salvador brutally repressed. Vargas
suppresses revolt in Brazil
1932– 5 Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay
Chronology of major events xxi
1933 Creation of Chilean Socialist Party. US troops leave
Nicaragua. Apra proscribed by military in Peru.
Overthrow of Machado dictatorship in Cuba; ascendency
of Fulgencio Batista
1934 C
´
ardenas government in Mexico begins social reforms.
Sandino assassinated
1935 Venezuelan dictator G
´
omez dies; ten years of ‘democratic
caesarism’ follow
1937 Vargas establishes Estado Novo authoritarian regime in
Brazil
1938 Civilian government restored in Argentina. Popular
Front supports Aguirre Cerda administration in Chile.
Mexican government expropriates foreign oil companies
1942 Brazil breaks relations with Axis, joins Allied war effort
1943 Military coup in Argentina supported by Colonel Per
´

constitution
1952 Per
´
on re-elected president of Argentina; Evita Per
´
on dies.
Revolution in Bolivia opens twelve-year rule of MNR.
Batista declares dictatorship in Cuba
1953 Military dictatorship of Rojas Pinilla in Colombia. Failed
assault on Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba by
rebels led by Fidel Castro
xxii Chronology of major events
1954 Get
´
ulio Vargas commits suicide whilst in office. USA
supports counter-revolutionary intervention in
Guatemala
1955 Per
´
on overthrown by conservative military coup
1956 Kubitschek wins Brazilian elections, embarks on
accelerated industrialization. Cuban rebels under Castro
land in Sierra Maestra from Mexico
1958 Frondizi elected civilian president in Argentina with
help of Peronist votes. Coup overthrows Venezuelan
dictatorship
1959 Civilian government restored in Venezuela under
Betancourt; all major parties bar the Communists
included in constitutional accord. Victorious rebel forces
enter Havana

1973 Per
´
on returns to Argentine presidency. Right-wing
takeover in Uruguay. Coup led by Gen. Pinochet
overthrows Allende and opens prolonged dictatorship
1974 Per
´
on dies; succeeded by his widow
1976 Reformist military regime established in Ecuador.
Military coup in Argentina opens unparalleled
repression of opposition forces
1979 Sandinistas (FSLN) overthrow Somoza dictatorship in
Nicaragua
1980 Assassination of Archbishop Romero in Salvadorean civil
war. New authoritarian constitution in Chile. Return to
civilian government in Peru
1980– 3 Extensive military repression in Guatemala resulting
from guerrilla offensive
1982 Argentine military invade Falkland Islands; defeated
after short but fierce war. Violent suppression of
anti-dictatorial protests in Chile. Civilian government
restored in Bolivia. Escalation of guerrilla activity and
social violence in Peru
1983 Civilian government restored in Argentina. US invades
Grenada
1985 Civilian government restored in Brazil
1986 Abortive assassination attempt against Pinochet.
Iran-Contra scandal reveals extent of US intervention
against Nicaraguan government
1987 Arias Plan lays basis for Central American peace accords

´
an, leader of Peruvian guerrilla Sendero Luminoso,
captured. Widespread controversy over commemoration
of anniversary of 1492
1994 Establishment of North American Free Trade Area
(NAFTA) by Canada, Mexico and USA. Zapatista uprising
in Mexican state of Chiapas. Major financial stabilization
plan in Brazil designed by Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
US military intervention in Haiti to restore civilian
government
1996 Guatemalan civil war formally brought to end with
internationally brokered accords
1997 Remains of Che Guevara repatriated from Bolivia to Cuba
1998 Ex-dictator Pinochet arrested in London. Hugo Ch
´
avez
wins Venezuelan elections, starts comprehensive
remodelling of political system. Attempts by Pastrana
government to broker end to thirty-year civil conflict in
Colombia stymied; US promotes ‘Plan Colombia’
1999 Peronists lose Argentine presidential elections
2000 Fujimori resigns Peruvian presidency. Widespread
mobilization of rural communities in Bolivia and
Ecuador. Vicente Fox, candidate from the PAN (National
Action Party) wins the Mexican presidential election
Compiled by anthony m
CC farlane
and james dunkerley