Chapter 7: Nationalism

Latin America pushes to a new nationalist cultural and economic agenda, the defined idea of diversity, the racial mixing and nativism challenging the ideas of Europeans. The nationalists were the urban middle class of mixed race; they did not benefit so much from the export boom so they challenged the superiority of the European Culture. There was also a critique related to the constant foreign intervention and military intervention.

In Mexico the nationalists took power through the Mexican Revolution. The revolution, directed by Zapata, transformed Mexico lands were redistributed and there was public education initiative.

Also industrialization also became central to nationalism. There was economic activism, protective labor laws and manipulated exchange rates. Mostly the larger markets were benefitting from industrialization, the poor and rural population did not see much of this phenomena.

In Brazil for instance, industry was much more profitable than agriculture.  During the Vargas presidency there was also an overproduction of coffee that caused a crisis in the industry. Nationalism was in fact very good for Vargas, it really helped maintain his popularity since there was the creation of a lot of government agencies, the national steel company, national motor factory and etc. Vargas also organized labor works and protected the workers.

Nationalism was also great to promote Brazilian culture, from Gilberto Freyre, promoting Brazilian heritage to Carmen Miranda promoting Brazilian music in the US.