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On the Internal Border: Colonial Difference, the Cold War, and the Locations of “Underdevelopment”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2008

Alyosha Goldstein
Alyosha Goldstein
Affiliation:
American Studies, University of New Mexico
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Extract

In 1962, the recently established Peace Corps announced plans for an intensive field training initiative that would acclimate the agency's burgeoning multitude of volunteers to the conditions of poverty in “underdeveloped” countries and immerse them in “foreign” cultures ostensibly similar to where they would be later stationed. This training was designed to be “as realistic as possible, to give volunteers a ‘feel’ of the situation they will face.” With this purpose in mind, the Second Annual Report of the Peace Corps recounted, “Trainees bound for social work in Colombian city slums were given on-the-job training in New York City's Spanish Harlem…. New Mexican Indian reservations and Spanish-speaking villages make realistic workshops for community development trainees. Puerto Rico provides experience in living in a Latin American environment. The Island of Hawaii, with its multiracial population, remote valleys and varied rural economy, performs a similar function for volunteers headed for Southeast Asia.”1 Local communities throughout the United States were chosen for their apparent similarities to locations abroad such that they might serve as a staging ground for President John F. Kennedy's vaunted Cold War diplomatic venture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 26 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History 2008

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References

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21 Operation Bootstrap, 77.

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23 U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, Toward Economic Development for Native American Communities, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969), 236Google Scholar.

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26 Rice, Gerald T., The Bold Experiment: JFK's Peace Corps (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 10–12Google Scholar.

27 Indeed, historian Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman has commented, “The Peace Corps brought into the American lexicon a new term—culture shock—which it did not invent but certainly helped to popularize.” All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 134.

28 Cleveland, Harlan and Mangone, Gerard J., eds., The Art of Overseasmanship (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; and Cleveland, Harlan et al., The Overseas Americans (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960)Google Scholar.

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30 Arnold, Charles B., “Culture Shock and a Peace Corps Field Mental Health Program,” Community Mental Health Journal 3, 1 (Spring 1967): 53–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Textor, Robert B., ed., Cultural Frontiers of the Peace Corps (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966)Google Scholar.

31 On the centrality of psychological thought as a normative framework in mid-twentieth-century U.S. thought, see Ward, Steven C., Modernizing the Mind: Psychological Knowledge and the Remaking of Society (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002)Google Scholar.

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33 Quoted in Ginsberg, “Short-Term Training,” 65.

34 Characterization quoted from Sullivan, George, The Story of the Peace Corps (New York: Fleet Publishing, 1964), 64–65Google Scholar. Regarding how certain sectors of Hawaìi encouraged field training on the islands, see “Concurrent Resolution of Hawaii Legislature Relating to Peace Corps,” Congressional Record 107, 4 (1961): 4849; and Englund, David L., “Peace Corps Training and the American University,” International Review of Education 11, 2 (1965): 209–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 The reference here is to Moritz Thomsen's memoir Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), which is emblematic of a number of laudatory Peace Corps volunteer memoirs published during the 1960s.

36 Michael Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era (Charlottesville: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 144–46. Sargent Shriver, reiterating the conventional interpretation of Frederick Jackson Turner's “frontier thesis,” insisted, “the Peace Corps is truly a new frontier in the sense that it provides the challenge of self-reliance and independent action which the vanished frontier once provided on our own continent. Sharing in the progress of other countries helps us to rediscover ourselves at home” (in Latham, Modernization as Ideology, 145).

37 “A Proposed Training Center for Peace Corps Personnel, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 10, 1961,” 1–2, Box 1; and Tom L. Popejoy, President, UNM, letter to Dr. Joseph Kauffman, Chief, Training Program, Peace Corps, Washington, D.C., 2 June 1962, Colombia III Training Proposal 1962, Box 8, Peace Corps Collection, Center for Southwest Research, General Library, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque [hereafter PC/CSWR].

38 Mead, Margaret, Cultural Patterns and Technical Change (New York: Mentor Books, 1955), 151–77Google Scholar. The cover text on the Mentor popular press edition read: “An exciting voyage to distant lands where century-old methods of ancient people give way to the most modern machines and techniques mankind has devised” (my emphasis).

39 Clark S. Knowlton, “Area Development in New Mexico: Implications for Dependency and for Economic and Social Growth,” New Mexico Conference of Social Welfare, 1961–1962 (Clark S. Knowlton Collection, Box 33, Folder 8, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, Santa Fe), 2, 4.

40 Ganzales-Berry, Erlinda and Maciel, David R., eds., The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and Montgomery, Charles, The Spanish Redemption: Heritage, Power, and Loss on New Mexico's Upper Rio Grande (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

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43 Burma, John H. and Williams, David E., An Economic, Social and Educational Survey of Rio Arriba and Taos Counties (El Rito, N.M.: Northern New Mexico College, 1960)Google Scholar provides contemporary data on the complexity of class and ethnic relations in the area.

44 “The Entrance of C.D. into Northern New Mexico Communities,” Mar.–Apr. 1963, Box 4, PC/CSWR.

45 Nabokov, Peter, Tijerina and the Courthouse Raid (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Gardner, Richard, ¡Grito!: Tijerina and the New Mexico Land Grant War of 1967 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970)Google Scholar; López Tijerina, Reies, They Called Me “King Tiger”: My Struggle for the Land and Our Rights (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

46 “Phase I & II Lesson Plans,” Community Development, Box 4, PC/CSWR.

47 “Manual for PCV's Field Work,” Training—Community Development—Field Training, Box 5, PC/CSWR.

48 “Field Experience—Colombia XIII,” Evaluations, Oct. 1963; and “Group Leaders' Report—Week of ‘Field Utilization,’ Colombia XIII,” 19 Oct. 1963, Training—Community Development—Field Training, Box 4, PC/CSWR.

49 Elliot V. Smith, “Peace Corps Training Center Evaluation, October 11, 1965,” Training—Community Development—Evaluation of Program, Box 7, PC/CSWR.

50 Bill McKinstry, “Field Experience—Purpose,” report reprinted in John Arango, “The Community Development Program of the University of New Mexico Peace Corps Training Center for Latin America” (Albuquerque, N.M.: June 1965), 134–45 (Report—Community Development Program 1965, Box 3, PC/CSWR).

51 Field Experience—Purpose, Training—Community Development—Training Plans in New Mexico 1965, Box 7, PC/CSWR.

52 John Arango, “The Community Development Program of the University of New Mexico Peace Corps Training Center for Latin America” (Albuquerque, N.M.: June 1965), 134 (Report—Community Development Program 1965, Box 3, PC/CSWR).

53 Peace Corps, Second Annual Report, 36.

54 Arango, “The Community Development Program,” 51.

55 John Arango, memo to David T. Benedetti, Director of the UNM Peace Corps Training Center, 14 Apr. 1965, 5–6, Correspondence—General 1965, Box 3, PC/CSWR.

56 John Arango, letter to Jules Pagano, 8 Feb. 1965, Correspondence—General 1965, Box 3, PC/CSWR.

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58 Pagano, Education in the Peace Corps, 34.

59 “No Changes, Please,” The New Mexican, 6 Dec. 1963: n.p.

60 Letter, Crisóforo Martínez to Marshall Nason, Director, UNM Peace Corps Training, 28 Mar. 1964, El Llano, N.M., Training—Community Development, Box 7, PC/CSWR.

61 The quotation is from “Peace Corps Trainees Enroute to Villanueva…,” Daily Optic, 22 Apr. 1964: 1. Also see “New Peace Corps Members Arrive,” Daily Optic, 8 May 1964: 1; “Peace Corps Work Continues,” Daily Optic, 8 May 1964: 1; “Villanueva Area Development Group Elects,” Daily Optic, 16 June 1964: 1.

62 “U.S. Peace Corps Training Center to Close Jan. 21,” Albuquerque Journal, 5 Jan. 1967: n.p. (Newspaper articles—1967, Box 3, PC/CSWR). Lack of University enthusiasm was probably a contributing factor as well. UNM President Tom Popejoy wrote Peace Corps Training Center Director David Benedetti, “it seems to me that this is an appropriate time for us to give more attention to instructional and research programs which relate to South America” (16 Jan. 1967, Correspondence—General—1967, Box 3, PC/CSWR).

63 Albert R. Wight and Mary Anne Hammons, Guidelines for Peace Corps Cross-Cultural Training, 4 vols. (Estes Park, Colo.: Center for Research and Education, and Washington, D.C.: Peace Corps Office of Training Support, 1970), ix, x.

64 “Peace Corps: Negroes Play Vital Role in U.S. Quest for Friends Abroad,” Ebony 17 (Nov. 1961): 38–40; “Peace Corps Training at Howard: Negro University Prepares Interracial Group for U.S. Good-Will Missions Abroad,” Ebony 18 (Nov. 1962): 69–77; Thurston, Juanita, “Valuable Job of Volunteer,” Christian Science Monitor (16 June 1971): 12Google Scholar; “Minority Activity in the Peace Corps,” Congressional Record 117, 18 (6 July 1971), 23541–42; Zimmerman, Jonathan, “Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961–1971,” Journal of American History 82, 3 (Dec. 1995): 999–1028CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Amin, Julius A., “The Peace Corps and the Struggle for African American Equality,” Journal of Black Studies 29, 6 (July 1999): 809–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Ashabranner, Brent, A Moment in History: The First Ten Years of the Peace Corps (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1971), 259Google Scholar.

66 Memo, Sargent Shriver to the President, 27 July 1965, “Weekly Report of Peace Corps Activities,” Peace Corps 1965, Box 129, Confidential Files, Agency Reports, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.

67 Leon Ginsburg, “Project Peace Pipe” (Report presented at the Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity board meeting, 8 July 1967), 3; Fred R. Harris Collection, Box 284, Folder 16; Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center, Congressional Archives, University of Oklahoma, Norman.

68 Harris, LaDonna, LaDonna Harris: A Comanche Life, Henrietta Stockel, H., ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 59–64, 80–82Google Scholar.

69 Mrs. Harris [LaDonna Harris], Fred R. and Ginsberg, Leon H., “Project Peace Pipe: Indian Youth Pre-Trained for Peace Corps Duty,” Journal of American Indian Education 7, 2 (Jan. 1968): 26Google Scholar.

70 Harris and Ginsberg, “Project Peace Pipe”: 23.

71 Fischer, Fritz, Making Them Like Us: Peace Corps Volunteers in the 1960s (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), 102–3Google Scholar.

72 On this point, also see Ashabranner, A Moment in History, 268–70; and Jack Anderson, , “Peace Corps Indian Project Fails,” Washington Post, 4 Nov. 1970: B19Google Scholar.

73 Interview with LaDonna Harris, 6 June 2006, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

74 For discussions of the “internal border,” see Balibar, Étienne, “Fichte and the Internal Border: On Addresses to the German Nation,” in Masses, Classes, Ideas (New York: Routledge, 1994)Google Scholar; and Redfield, Marc, “Imagi-Nation: The Imagined Community and the Aesthetics of Mourning” in, Culler, Jonathan and Cheah, Pheng, eds., Grounds of Comparison: Around the Work of Benedict Anderson (New York: Routledge, 2003), 75–105Google Scholar.

75 Balibar, Étienne, Politics and the Other Scene (London: Verso, 2002), 154Google Scholar. Balibar contrasts “real universality” with “fictive universality” and “ideal universality.” Fictive universality has to do with the domain of institutions and representations. Ideal universality is intended to suggest “the fact that universality also exists as an ideal, in the form of absolute or infinite claims which are symbolically raised against the limits of any institution” (163–64).

76 Mehta, Uday Singh, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 46Google Scholar.

77 Mehta, Liberalism and Empire, 191.

78 As quoted in Cobbs Hoffman, All You Need Is Love, 197.

79 “Address by Sargent Shriver before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., 18 Apr. 1964,” Aides Files—Richard N. Goodwin, Box 24; Poverty Speeches; Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.

80 “The Werner Report: Board Dissents with Report,” Navajo Times, 15 Jan. 1970: 19.