How is South America history told in US history classes?

28 comments

1. When I was in school we learned nothing about Latin America in history class “because you’re supposed to learn that in Spanish class.”

   In Spanish class we only learned about Spain and Mexico.

2. Monroe Doctrine – Fuck Yeah!

   Panama Canal – Fuck Yeah!

   Big Stick Diplomacy – Fuck Yeah!

   Returning the Panama Canal – *crickets*

   Latin American Revolutions – The American Revolution was 1776, Fuck Yeah!

3. Up until the American Revolution, U.S. History incorporates both Americas in regards to pre-history, American tribes, and colonization. Afterwards, not discussed because its irrelevant to U.S. History.

   We also have World History, but it does not really expand much from what was already covered in U.S. History. World History tends to be very European focused.

   Overall, we are taught very little about South American history.

4. When I was in school, it was in related to their involvement with the United States or Europe.

   In college, I had to take a few years of Spanish. We discuss individual countries, but it was an overview of their formation, important cultural aspects, and unique traits in comparison to other Spanish-speaking countries.

5. In high school, pretty poorly if at all.

   Most Americans don’t know much about Latin America.

6. Not covered well at all, except for the containment and interventionist policies of the 70s/80s. Our education is primarily American history, Western European history and then a sliver of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China and Japan.

7. I remember learning about the conquistadors and the indigenous cultures of South America in elementary school. Not much South American history after that until I took Spanish in high school, when we learned a little bit about the various countries, a few cultural facts and their major historical figures. This was all over 30 years ago, so my recollection is pretty hazy.

8. Not enough. Our history is obviously self-focused, but also really Eurocentric.

9. We learn a little about Cortez and Montezuma, the Incas and Mayans, the Atlantic slave trade, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, and the Zimmerman Telegram. That’s about it.

10. In my school we learned about, off the top of my head:

    * Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca
    * Latin American revolutions, Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin, how they were inspired by the USA but their ideology differed from ours. We learned they wanted more of a hybrid aristocracy and republic and thought the US system would not be stable in the long run.
    * Monroe Doctrine
    * Failure of the US to make good connections initially with South America (we didn’t show up to an international meeting I’m blanking on the name of)
    * Panama canal
    * US interventions in Latin America during the cold war
    * Peron’s Argentina
    * Pinochet’s Chile

    We learned more about Mexico and the Caribbean than about South America though.

11. Not covered at all beyond the initial colonization. The only reason I know what the war of the triple alliance is, for instance, is because I saw some random fact on Reddit saying Paraguay lost 90% of its male population in a war.

12. > how the Latin american revolutions are portrayed in the US classes

    Pretty much not at all.

13. We see frequent questions here that go something like “How much of (insert country or region)’s history do Americans learn in school?” The first answer should always be that the US has no nationally standardized educational curriculum, particularly for history. The answers will vary by state, district or even individual school.

    That being said, for me on South America’s history, a little, but not much. The Spanish exploration and conquering of the Incas was covered, then we briefly learned about the Napoleonic-era revolutions against Spain, but virtually nothing afterwards. I guess they wanted it to end on sort of a happy note before things got too complicated.

    The little history we did learn was included in my grade school “social studies” class, which included geography, economics, and culture. We did a general survey of Latin America, which in my memory lasted a few weeks.

    After about 5th grade, South America barely came up for the remainder of my formal education.

14. I learned literally nothing about it in school.

15. History in the US is largely world history as pertains to Western Civilization followed by the history of the United States. South America is only discussed as it relates to one of those two things (eg, exploration of the Americas prior to the American Revolution).

16. Its in the textbooks, we just don’t normally cover it.

    I ignored my history teacher and read ahead in world history class. The book covered the Incas, Spanish colonization and the Bolivaran revolutions.

    Ap US history actually talked about the cold war in Latin America (like how we overthrew the government of Guatemala)

    Geography class also goes over south American geography.

17. Idk about others but we covered preAmerica history (Azteca, incas, etc), minimally covered some key nations (gran Columbia, Brazil, etc), and than the cold war is discussed pretty heavily.

18. We had a segment on the great revolutionaries of South America, but that was like over the course of 8 years. I think most schools taught that at the end of the history of Spain in South America. We also had a segment on local native American tribes. The problem is that none of this is really repeated over the course of high school. You might see it again in an AP class, but not everyone take those.

19. The big thing that bothered me about Latin American history was that the story went, “Country X had a revolution and became free of Spain. Hooray! Then there was a coup and now a dictator is in control.”

    And for each country, the dates and names all changed and you had to remember which date and which names went together, but we were taught nothing about what drove the differences.

    So no, it was terrible. (It was also the 1980s, so plenty happened since then.)

20. If you are specifically asking about South America, as opposed to Latin America as a whole, then I remember learning about the following:

    * The Inca Empire.

    * Pizarro’s conquest of the Incas.

    * Brief mention of how the slave trade included Brazil.

    * The Latin American Revolutions, including mentions of Simon Bolivar, Bernardo O’Higgins, and Brazil’s bloodless independence.

    * Mention of Panama separating from Colombia (which was done as a background before the more in-depth discussion of the construction of the Panama Canal).

    * Brief coverage of how and why Vargas became dictator of Brazil.

    * The overthrow of Salvador Allende and rise of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, including a brief mention of the US involvement in the coup.

    * Juan and Eva Peron in Argentina.

    * Argentina’s “Dirty War” and the Falklands War.

21. In classes on American history, Latin America is only covered in the ways that directly intersect with the US: Spanish colonization, the Monroe Doctrine, the Adams-Onis Treaty, the Mexican-American war, the Spanish-American War, and the Panama canal.

    In world history classes, there’s generally a bit more relevant info: more detail on the Spanish conquest of the Americas, Simon Bolivar’s revolutions, and possibly some Cold War stuff (e.g., the Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs). Bolivar is generally portrayed in a positive light, what with him being heavily inspired by America. High school Spanish courses may also have some history/culture aspects—I remember watching a movie on the Argentine Dirty War and the Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo in my class. But by and large, the cultural focus was largely on Mexico, what with it being the country that borders us and all.

    More specific Latin American history studies generally don’t happen unless a student takes an elective specializing in it, generally at the university level.

22. Something about Spaniards and Portuguese then it skips to the Alamo.

23. Basically Spain and Portugal signed the treaty of Tordesillas, and Portugal got lucky that Brazil was on their side. So that’s why Brazil exists. Cortez conquered the Aztecs and Pizarro the Incas. Bolivar copied the US and got independence for the Spanish colonies. Brazil was naughty and had slavery after us. That’s about but.

24. Almost not at all in my experience. The tip of South America was something to be sailed around until the Panama canal. That’s about it.

25. My father is Colombian. The Latin American revolutions are covered in AP World History as one of what are called the “Enlightenment Revolutions”. Of those revolutions, the Latin American revolutions probably get the least focus (compared to the American and French revolutions), but they are covered.

26. “South America existed, Simon Bolivar was the George Washington of South America.”

    That’s about it from what I remember.

27. I am an outlier here, as I had to take Latin American history for my senior year of high school. It was part of the IB diploma. That course focused on the most recent ~200 years of Latin America. In addition to examining internal conflicts of LA countries, the curriculum included discussions on the USA’s role in various revolutions and destabilization efforts.

    I am a terrible history student, so please don’t quiz me :/

28. I took a Latin American history class in college. The professor, who might have been the best teacher I ever had, opened the first day of class saying, “at the end of this course you will understand less about Latin American history than you do now.”

    And he was right. I learned so much in that class but at the end I had way more questions than I did answers. Y’all’s history, economies and political systems are so diverse and complex that my little American mind was spinning. 10/10 course, would have taken more but unfortunately a follow up class wasn’t offered.