Imaginarios, representaciones y usos de la nación estadounidense en tiempos de celebraciones centenarias latinoamericanas (1910-1926)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to trace U.S. imaginaries, representations, and uses made during the cycle of Latin America’s centennial celebrations by a number of men of culture, diplomacy, and regional politics who played prominent roles in discussions about how the countries in the subcontinent should position themselves and act toward one another and toward the United States. By analyzing the multiple references and uses of symbols, signs, and other attributes of the Northern nation that circulated between 1910 and 1926 in a series of speeches, conferences, essays, articles, and books -largely unnoticed by the historiography on the subject-, it will be possible to observe how different images of such country were constructed and disseminated in order to promote and legitimize certain political-ideological searches and bets. Contrary to readings that have reduced the Latin American map at the time to the tension between Pan-Americanism and anti-imperialism, this article ultimately aims to make this image more complex by repositioning other uses and meanings around the United States at a particular moment of the continent’s history, in which its imperialist expansion encountered a systematic search by Latin American countries to reassert their interests, positions, and national identities.