3.0

credits

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This course examines the tumultuous history of the United States’ relationship with Central America, from William Walker’s filibustering in the 1850s to the recent wave of migration from the Northern Triangle. We will consider how US policymakers, organizations, and individuals have judged the isthmus in economic and national security terms and intervened accordingly, and we will examine how Central Americans have viewed the United States as a model of modernization, an interloper, and a site of refuge, as well as the ways in which they have shaped the North-South relationship despite the asymmetry of political, economic, and military power. Sources will include works of scholarship such as Confronting the American Dream and The Last Colonial Massacre, as well as texts from Central American authors, including the poetry of Roque Dalton, the personal testimony of Rigoberta Menchu, and the reporting of Óscar Martínez.