Revolution:CENTAM-US 1900-2000

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Revolutions: Central America, Mexico, and US, 1900-2000 The twentieth century opened with revolutionary conflicts that shook Mexico from 1910 to 1930. El Salvador and Guatemala faced deep societal conflicts in the 1930s and 1950s, culminating in devastating confrontations in the 1980s. Then the 1990s brought a rising in Chiapas that proved explosive yet limited. Throughout, revolutionary conflicts challenged power and demanded justice; they rattled the US economic and military-diplomatic power that backed local regimes; in time the mix of political conflicts, social risings, and transnational repressions set off waves of migration that transformed life across North America. This seminar will engage key studies of revolution and resistance in three nations that became primary exporters of people to the United States. The goal is to understand the exploitations that set off revolutions, the repressions that limited their outcomes, and the transnational globalization that followed—generating societies of enduring, often deepening inequities and pervasive marginalities in times of population explosion. We will engage diverse texts analyzing these questions in three adjacent yet different societies—with the US taking distinct roles in each. Based on common readings, participants will write independent historical analyses probing the origins, courses, and outcomes of revolutions that sought societal transformations yet ended in population expulsions.