Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This book is about the presence of northeastern Brazilian colonial architecture in two West African countries: Benin (the former Republic of Dahomey) and Nigeria. This particular style was taken there by merchants and slaves (ex-slaves and their [...]

In this article, Marta Traba maintains that the German artists Guillermo Wiedemann and Leopoldo Richter achieved an understanding of, and transmitted the essence and spirit of “the black race and the Indian race, and the ambience characteristic of [...]

In this text, art historian and activist Victor Alejandro Sorell ponders on arguments for designating Chicano people a nation: the history of the twelfth-century Aztec homeland Aztlán, —located in the U.S. Southwest,— included; the seizure of [...]

In this letter, Christopher Columbus describes for the Court of Spain the islands and peoples encountered during his initial journey across the Atlantic Ocean to what is currently known as the Caribbean. Columbus reports taking possession of the [...]

In this essay, Nuyorican artist Juan Sánchez explains that The Puerto Rican Equation commemorates the centennial of the United States invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898. Sánchez writes that the work of the artists in the exhibition demonstrates that [...]

In 1995, Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri wrote “El Manifesto: Notes on El Puerto Rican Embassy,” which describes the sociopolitical condition of Puerto Ricans as a colonial people whose sense of nationhood is expressed and maintained through the [...]

In this text, Antenor Orrego argues that nationalist culture should not be based on the traditional cultures of Peru, but rather on a totally new Pan-American sensibility. Orrego argues that a contemporary “Peruanismo literario” is a false idea [...]

In this text, Mariano Picón-Salas weighs the benefits of the dominance of ritual in Mexican society versus that of economics in the United States. He begins by arguing that the protestant emphasis on the individual has shaped a modern society North [...]

Venezuelan anthropologist Rodolfo Quintero describes the “oil culture” in this thesis as the most devastating consequence of cultural colonization suffered by his country. Through it, the colonizers altered and distorted the social development of [...]

Installation artist and scholar Amalia Mesa-Bains argues for the importance of understanding Chicano history and identity in a geographical and spatial framework. She discusses the significance of land—both material and imagined—in Mexican- [...]

Curator and artist Juan Sánchez compares colonialism to an epidemic that causes physical and mental harm. He maintains that the will of the Puerto Rican people to survive colonial oppression is manifested in their culture. Quoting from the writings [...]

To Diego Rivera, discrimination against Indians is the greatest collective crime of the descendants of the Spanish colonists on the continent. If this situation is not corrected, Latin America will be set on a path to extinction. In this essay, as [...]

Pablo Rojas Paz explains that Guillermo de Torre’s proposal is nothing more than a formal protest, imperialist in character; one of many that Latin America has been subjected to periodically, be it by France, North America, or in this case, Spain. [...]