The United States and Latin America

This story takes place between two boats, at a distance of 40 years and a great contradiction. It is, to a great extent, the story of this writer, that of his country and its complex, intense relations with the United States—sometimes traumatic (see the postscript at the bottom of this article) and sometimes happy.

I grew up in Mexico with a very clear —and very simplistic—image of the United States. It was the empire. The country that overthrew governments, invaded nations, spied on its allies and decided the destiny of the world without asking permission. In school, at home, in the media, this vision appeared over and over again: that of a powerful giant, egotistical and dangerous. Ronald Reagan was the planetary villain and “Rambo,” his military arm, glorified on the screen. One didn’t have to think much about it: the United States was the “other.” The threat.

“Yankees go home.” The slogan still echoes in my ears. I was born in 1965. During my childhood, Uruguayan democracy collapsed. My adolescence unfolded under a dictatorship, and I was far more exposed to French culture—since I studied at the Lycée Français—than to the American world, which felt distant to me. Although both my parents were deeply interested in Uruguayan politics, public affairs only became a central concern in my own life around 1980, when I was fifteen, after the Uruguayan dictatorship unsuccessfully attempted a constitutional reform inspired by the doctrine of National Security. As I became increasingly involved in politics, I absorbed the dominant beliefs of Uruguay’s leftist middle class at the time. One of the most powerful ideas—nurtured especially by widely read authors such as Eduardo Galeano and Mario Benedetti—was the notion of the imperialist drive of the United States.