Good Neighbors in Latin America

A Review of Fredrick D. Pike’s FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Years of Generally Gentle Chaos

Fredrick B. Pike is a professor of Latin-American History at the University of Pennsylvania. In his life time, he has written seven books. He has a wife, daughter, and four grandchildren. He currently resides in Virginia. He has traveled to Philadelphia, Spain, and France. He lived in Peru and Chile for research.

BY TOM DANG

Predating the 1930s, the Latin Americas have always been an overlooked part of the Western hemisphere. From their beginnings as Spanish colonies to their independence as autonomous nations, the Latin countries remain a minor power compared to their more powerful neighbor, the United States. Considered as an inferior people, the Latinos were looked down upon and considered to be technologically and politically backwards. To the Americans, the Latinos were “the hemisphere’s losers, the poor, the dark-of-skin, the primitive.”1 However, Fredrick B. Pike examines and analyzes how American changed their relations with the Latin Americans during the 1930s in his book FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Years of Generally Gentle Chaos. In his book, he considers the economic and political factors in shaping Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policy. Afflicted by economic distress during the great depression, the American people begin to sympathize with their no-longer-distant neighbors. Pike sees Roosevelt’s terms as a period of great change towards America’s perspective to their Latin neighbors.

Upon entering the 1930s, Americans did not hold Latin America in very high opinion. Full of pride at their own nation, the Americans saw the Latinos as a primitive people, neither possessing the United States’ economic prosperity nor its democratic freedom. Latin America was associated with urban poverty and inept government – Americans hailed themselves as superior beings. However, as the American economy crashed, American prejudice against Latin America began to subside. Previously, America took pride in their powerful economy fueled by capitalism and free enterprise. But when the stock market crashed and eventually the Great Depression spread across the U.S. economy, the public opinions of business quickly changed along with their opinions towards Latin America. With the “declining sympathy for American business,” there was a “rising empathy for Latin America.”2 Americans began to sympathize with the Latin Americans as they saw the similarities between the Latinos’ society and their own. As the number of unemployed and homeless started to increase, the Americans realized that they were no longer much superior to their southern neighbors. Roosevelt saw this change and began to utilize it to gain popular support for his campaign. Influenced by the earlier Monroe Doctrine, he began to champion his “Good Neighbor” policy in order to turn government attention towards the Latin Americas. The American people saw Wall Street as their enemy, and they began to view the Latin Americans as their allies suffering a similar fate. Previous divisions were set aside. While Protestants in America were hesitant to support the primarily Catholic Latin nations, Roosevelt was able to support integration of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, fundamentalist and modernist Protestant divisions “contributed enormously to America’s ability to assimilate Catholicism into the national mainstream; it also helped to remove Catholicism as a major stumbling block to amicable relations with Latin America.”3 FDR placed religious divisions aside when he tried to help the Latin American nations. Religion also played a crucial role with the popularity of the social gospel. Promoting justice in every aspect of society, advocates believed in helping the less fortunate Latin American people. American intellectuals also played a part in putting the Americas and Latin countries closer together. Through their intellect, they gained political power in the south and began to become pensadores and taught at Latin universities and schools. During the New Deal era, Roosevelt also supported artists. Many New Deal programs supported artists as a legitimate profession and provided them with funding as they created artworks promoting American culture. Latin artists began to like their neighbors who suddenly became “intent upon fulfilling their spiritual and aesthetic potential.”4 As the Great Depression and the New Deal brought many changes to American society, there were also great changes in the American opinion of Latin Americans.

During the late 1920s and the 1930s, white Americans began to become more accepting to cultural diversity. The Harlem Renaissance brought attention to black culture and a change to typical American culture. Whereas white Americans used to be stubborn and prejudiced, they started to become more open-minded to different cultures and beliefs. In fact, Americans began to “develop a Vogue for things Mexican.”5 However, the Americans still did not see the Latin Americans as contemporaries; they viewed the Latin Americans as a traditionalist, simplistic, and primitive people. Many saw Mexican murals as primitive folk art. This love for all things primitive stemmed from distaste in modern capitalism and industries, which most Americans blamed for the Great Depression that caused many people to face poverty. During the 1930s, a significant amount of Mexican-Americans, or Hispanics, lived in the southwestern United States. Similar to the African-Americans, Mexican-Americans were discriminated against and treated as badly if not worse than their black contemporaries. Many stores had signs forbidding Mexican employees or even Mexican customers. However, in order to change the Mexican-American people’s social status, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was developed in 1929. LULAC attempted to bring Hispanics to the middle-class community and garner respect from the Anglo-Americans. Similarly, Latin Americans did not have a high respect for Americans, who they derogatorily called “Gringos,” either to the Latin Americans, the United States was “imperialistic, materialistic, utilitarian, cold, vulgar, immoral, contemptuous, barbarians, lustful, brutal, expansionist, lack of idealism, no soul, hostile to art, worship of money, sense of superiority, Octopus of the North, rude, coarse, crude, stupid, [and] racist.”6 Ironically, both sides of the hemisphere hated each other’s culture and beliefs. The Americans viewed Hispanics and Latin Americans as primitive and had less respect for the person depending on how dark he or she was. The Latin Americans viewed the United States as conceited bigots who focused on manipulating other races. While the average American viewed Latin Americans with a not so kind eye, Roosevelt attempted to promote his good-neighbor act by proclaiming, “the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.”7 While many American disliked their Mexican neighbors, Roosevelt persistently tried to unite the Western hemisphere.

Despite their negative opinions of each other, Latin America and the United States shared many similar practices. Agrarianism in the north resonated with agrarianism in the south of the border. As the president of Mexico in 1934, Lazaro Cardenas brought many land reforms to Mexico. The Mexican focus on agricultural industry gained support from the agriculture industry in the United States. At the time, many different interest groups, religions, and individuals struggled to shape the Good Neighbor Policy. Pike divides the groups into two major coalitions. First of all, there were the advocates of the soft approach. These individuals “focused far less on encouraging the spread of free-enterprise, individualistic, market capitalism south of the border than did champions of the hard approach.”8 On the other hand, the hard-school proponents believed that competition gave way to economic development which resulted in alleviation of social problems and eventually turn every competent, capable individual into a capitalist. Hard school members believed that during the Depression, nothing was wrong with the socioeconomic system; the soft-school found American economy to be failing and they did not want it to spread to the Latin Americas. Soft-school members looked toward Latin Americas as a source of supply that would help with the problems of the Americans, who became “crusty, materialistic Yankees.”9 However, one of the largest factors that influenced Roosevelt was security. Roosevelt wanted to create an inter-American cartel that would unite the Western hemisphere. The cartel plan called for American financing of a trading corporation that would control marketing of New World Exports. As a result, in the occurrence of a war, the United States could continue trade with the Latin Americans even though they were cut off from the rest of the world. However, this plan faced critics, especially from the left. They viewed the plan as an attempt to gain control over the Latin American economy and eliminate foreign business rivals. FDR also used the Latin Americas as a springboard to develop skills in diplomacy. According to Pike, Roosevelt was very idealistic. After settling affairs in Latin America, Roosevelt hoped to gain respect and attention from the Old World. If he could address problems in the Western Hemisphere, he hoped to influence and alleviates problems in Europe, including problems with Hitler and Mussolini. Unfortunately, Roosevelt did not play a large part in European affairs until World War II. With the breakout of World War II, Roosevelt began to fear invasion of the Western hemisphere. As the German and Italian armies swept across weaker nations, Roosevelt feared that the fascist powers would compete to dominate the Latin Americas. Eventually, FDR began focusing on mixing a cultural bond between Latin America and the United States. He promoted exhibits of the arts of the Americas to promote cultural unity. By the end of his terms, the Good Neighbor policy started to apply to economic, security, and cultural factors.

Following the Second World War, Americans no longer feared a fascist threat in Latin America. However, they started to fear a Marxist or communist uprising in the Latin Americas. Unfortunately, Roosevelt was unable to tend to this growing threat due to his health problems. In April 1945, Roosevelt’s death “caused greater grief in Mexican than that of the passing of any Mexican in generations.”10 While Mexico grieved for the loss of Roosevelt, other Latin nations such as Argentina showed less sympathy and criticized Mexico for siding too closely with the United States. The successor to Roosevelt, Harry Truman, received much less approval from the Latin nations; he appeared to be an archetypal “gringo” that had little care for the United States’ neighbors. Furthermore, the Great Depression ended after the Second World War, and America returned to a state of prosperity. With this newfound prosperity, Americans looked toward corporations and had less sympathy for the Latin Americas. Latinos became more discriminated against as Americans described Mexican-Americans as “not their kind of people.”11 According to Americans, central and South Americans were quick-tempered, emotional, backward, lazy, ignorant, and suspicious. With the rise of American economy, Anglo-Americans returned to their opinions pre-Good Neighbor policy. However, with the advent of the cold war, interest in Latin America was rekindled. During the Eisenhower administration, American feared a communist uprising in the Latin American nations. Fearing a base in the Western hemisphere for communism, the Americans placed effort in stopping the Latin Americas from falling into a communist government. Although not largely influenced by the United States, most of the Latin American nations did not fall into communism. In contemporary times, Latin American culture is still prevalent. Even though the Americas are less directly involved in Latin American government, Latin America still affects the United States. Immigrants flood from Mexico into America and bring their culture. Although there is no official policy, the Latin Americas are still the United States’ good neighbor.

Pike wrote the book in order to analyze the causative factors of the Good Neighbor Policy. Because of the Great Depression, he believes that the change in social conditions and widespread poverty caused antipathy for businesses and corporations and sympathy for the Latin Americans. Anglo-Americans often held a low opinion towards the Latin Americans due to their “primitive” society and backwardness. Pike believes that FDR tried to intervene in Latin American government because the “Latins had a lot of growing up to do before they could adjust to U.S. culture.”12 Pike’s point of view is usually from an American side as he studied mostly U.S. history and is residing in the United States. However, he tries to remain neutral as he sometimes explains Latin America’s attitude towards the United States. According to Pike, for eleven months he lived in Chile and had his “first immersion, in situ, in the culture of a Latin American country.”13 His viewpoint is based mainly on his experience in the United States but also his time living in a Latin American country. While writing his book, he consulted numerous other history books to conglomerate his ideas. By reading books from past historians, he could develop a thesis that could be steadily proven and drew on conclusions others have made. Through historiography, he was able to get viewpoints from Latin Americans and from sources that he could not have consulted personally.

His book was successful enough to obtain two reviews. One review by Mark Falcoff in 1997 praised Pike for his handling of the subject. Falcoff states that “from a methodological point of view [Pike’s] latest book may well be the best ever published on U.S.-Latin American relations.”14 Rather than just stating American foreign policy, he also states the cultural and political aspects that caused the policies. He doesn’t resort to grand theories but rather recognizes that there are unintended consequences from decisions. Irwin F. Gellman, on the other hand, compliments Pike for being “brilliant and incisive,” yet notes that many of his arguments are “not always logically brought to a conclusion.”15 Unlike Falcoff, Gellman argues that the book does not examine its broad topics extensively and is primarily written for scholars who have read deeply on the subject. While Gellman is often irritated with his writing, he admires his unique style. Pike’s book is indeed difficult to read for one who has researched extensively on the subject. While he supports his claims, he does not go into specific details on many of the events his mentions. Often, he places anecdotes of himself into the book or compares the events to contemporary works like plays. His diction is grandiose and difficult to read for the uneducated. Overall, his book presents his argument convincingly but lacks explanation to someone who is new to the subject.

The 1930s marked an important watershed in American political and economic history. According to Pike, the Good Neighbor Policy was derived from economic turmoil due to the Great Depression. After Americans experienced poverty and unemployment, they started to become sympathetic to the Latin Americans who were experiencing the same problems. During times of prosperity, the Americans looked down on the struggling Latin Americans. However, due to influences from the public such as the social gospel, Americans began to look upon the Latin Americans as neighbors that required help. Before, the Latin American colonies were viewed as economic colonies that were primitive and unimportant. The United States rarely dealt with them unless they were threatened by European powers. With doctrines such as the Monroe Doctrine preventing European powers forcing themselves on to Latin Americans, the United States tried to keep the nations in isolation. However, with the Good Neighbor policy, the United States began to directly intervene in the Latin Americans. The Americans believed that the “mutual adversity helped bring them . . . together.”16 As a result, the United States became less passive in their relationship with Latin America.

This era caused great changes to present America. While the current Latin Americans do not allow United States to directly control their internal affairs, Latin America still plays a part in United States society. Especially from Mexico, immigrants flood into the United States seeking new opportunities and careers. However, according to Pike, “the Latino dream of upward social mobility was proving empty.”17 Despite Latino attempts to improve their social status, they are brought down by both racism and inability to be successful.

The 1930s were a time of great change for both the United States and Latin America. For some time, America was uninvolved with Latin America, especially southern America. However, with the Great Depression, U.S. foreign policy changed. FDR’s “enigmatic qualities served him well as a hemispheric statesman” and he was able to improve relations with the Latin Americans.18 While FDR’s policy was not wholeheartedly supported, he brought the Western hemisphere closer together.

Endnotes

Student Bio

Tom Dang was born in Fountain Valley, California. He is currently a junior attending Irvine High School. His hobbies include water polo, swimming, and biking. He plans to attend Johns Hopkins University and attend medical school. He hopes to become an anesthesiologist.