Latin America's Year of Elections
Spring 2006Reader Forum
ReVista Readers
July 25, 2005
To the Editor,
I recently received the Spring/Summer 2005 edition of ReVista and found it quite interesting. By my estimation, twelve articles were pointedly critical of U.S. involvement (political, military, and economic) in Latin America, one presented a balanced view, and four were simply informative and non-argumentative.
Conspicuously absent from the articles critical of U.S. involvement in Latin America was any reference to the fact that for almost every questionable and/or crooked deal initiated by a representative of the U.S., there were locals standing by with outstretched hands. Nor was there mention of the immense and continuous generosity shown by the United States towards Latin America in all aspects of life. Also absent from the articles was the citing of references to support statistics and debatable information.
I have retired from actively participating in international activities and currently teach upper-level high school Spanish. Though certainly not an expert in U.S.-Latin American relations, I have been around and I take great pride in presenting a comprehensive, honest, and balanced view of those relations to my very impressionable students. It would appear as though some of those traits were of little concern to several of the contributors to the Spring/Summer 2005 issue of ReVista.
Please forgive an old man who has grown a bit irritable during a lifetime of listening to U.S. bashing by those who are capable of contributing much, much more to U.S.-Latin American relations. I look forward to receiving future copies of ReVista.
Sincerely,
John R. Switzer, major, USMC (Ret.), Phoenix, Arizona
ReVista is committed to remain an open forum for different perspectives on many of the issues concerning Latin America. We certainly appreciate your willingness to put forth your own. On the topic of references, it has been the policy of ReVista to keep them to the very minimum, for the benefit of readability. It has also been the case that when specific concerns about the accuracy of some statements have been brought to the fore, this forum has served as an appropriate place to sort them out between author(s) and readers.
June 11, 2005
To the Editor:
I recently received a copy of the latest edition of ReVista. This edition was dedicated to U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean. The articles focused considerable detail on the role of various domestic factors in shaping relations between and within the Western Hemisphere.
I was disappointed however that there was not any mention of the role of race and its impact on the hemisphere. With high levels of poverty and low educational attainment, Afro-descendant populations in particular have gone largely ignored by students and scholars of Latin America. The significance of this led me and other members of Congress to introduce a bill (H. Con. Res. 175) acknowledging their struggle and calling for greater efforts of addressing the struggles of Afro-descendant groups. For this reason, I would have hoped that your magazine would discuss and raise the issues of race to your readers.
I hope that your group, as a leader on issues of Latin American in the scholastic world, would do more to highlight the challenges of racial groups in the region. Such an impressive publication should not perpetuate the lack of knowledge of the global community to the challenges faced by Afro-descendant populations.
Sincerely,
Charles B. Rangel
Member of Congress
We appreciate your feedback and will keep it in mind for future issues of ReVista.
Alejandro Poiré
Editor, Spring 2006 issue
Letters to the editor are welcome at drpub@fas.harvard.edu, and may be
edited for publication.