Inasmuch as Scientific Criticism and Polemic are of the Greatest significance for the development of every branch of historical science, including, of course, the study of Latin America, I should like to offer a few thoughts on this subject.

Soviet historians of Latin America, just as scholars in other fields, attach great significance to the views of specialists everywhere-be they their colleagues in the USSR or abroad; be they Marxists or non-Marxists. Even if we hold different philosophical and methodological positions than our opponents, we are always ready to lend an attentive ear to critical observations. Disagreement with the world view or general historical conception of one or another of our foreign critics by no means prevents us from recognizing the correctness of his views on given problems, provided that the viewpoint in question is convincingly argued and scientificallydemonstrated. Even though we reject any questioning of the basic conceptions advanced by us, we are still able to accept admonitions and to seek a kernel of reason in otherwise totally inadmissible criticisms.

It has often been observed that “Where power is, women are not.” Noting women's virtual absence from the realm of conventional politics, Jane Jaquette urged scholars in 1980 to look beyond elections in studying female political participation in Latin America. Arguing for an “expanded notion of the political,” she called for research on female participation within different social classes, especially their role in “informal networks, … clientele linkages, … strike activities, urban land seizures and barrio politics”. This article employs a community study method to investigate women's grass-roots participation in politics and labor mobilization following World War II in the region of greater São Paulo known as ABC (named after the municipios of Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, and São Caetano).

In prose and poetry and throughout his career, Roque Dalton used the life story of his U.S. émigré father to explore the themes of power, dependency, and identity that interested him and other Salvadoran intellectuals of his era. Yet it was a theatrical image of Winnall Dalton, that of a marauding, gunslinging cowboy, that other writers took as fact and that became part of the poet's posthumous reputation. I show here that the image of a western outlaw is wrong and that Winnall Dalton came from a comfortable, Mexican American family in Tucson that had fallen on hard times just before he migrated to Central America around 1916. Dalton delved into the paradoxes of his own upbringing—raised in a working-class neighborhood as the illegitimate offspring of a millionaire, a Marxist revolutionary who was the son of pure capitalism—almost until his death in 1975. Taken together, the shifting depictions of his father all point to a fuller, more nuanced understanding of Dalton's views on power and the nature of identity than previously understood in the context of the revolutionary struggle that ultimately consumed him.

Government agencies in many countries are prolific publishers of information in a surprising variety of fields, reflecting their myriad activities, their economic and political interests, and the needs and interests of their constituents. Reports of agencies, transcriptions of congressional hearings, and agricultural extension bulletins are well-known examples, but government agencies as sources of reference materials—publications in a format designed to be consulted for specific pieces of information, rather than to be read from start to finish—are often overlooked.

This essay reviews the following films:

Aborto en Colombia / Abortion in Colombia. Dir. Nicolás Cuenca Rodríguez and Ángela Amaya Aguirre. Prod. Nicolás Cuenca Rodríguez and Ángela Amaya Aguirre. Colombia, 2021,16 min. Film is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahjO46Hwokw.

Fly so Far. Dir. Celina Escher. Prod. Women Make Movies and Prämfilm. El Salvador and Sweden, 2021, 88 min. Film is available on Vimeo and DVD.

Las Libres: La historia después de … / Las Libres: The Story Continues. Dir. Gustavo Montaña in collaboration with Centro Las Libres. Prod. At Dusk Media. Mexico, 2014, 94 min. Film is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpW7KJblkbc.

Que sea ley / Let It Be Law. Dir. Juan Solanas. Prod. Cinesur, Les Films du Sud, and Gameland. Argentina, France, and Uruguay, 2019, 86 min.

Few studies have focused on the subject of literacy among Mexican Americans in the nineteenth century. Richard Griswold del Castillo's “Literacy in San Antonio, 1850-1860,” stands out as one of the few studies of Mexican American reading and writing skills in nineteenth-century Texas. Its limitations are obvious, however. As a research note, it made no pretense at comprehensiveness. It focused on only one town, and the ten-year span it covered is rather narrow. Griswold del Castillo nevertheless touched upon an often neglected aspect of Tejano history—the immigrant dimension of the Chicano experience.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Lima Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Edited by Carlos Aguirre and Charles Walker. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017, Pp. xv + 272. $26.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822363484.

Perú. 5 tomos. America Latina en la historia contemporánea. Dirigido por Carlos Contreras Carranza. Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE, 2013–2015.

Tomo 1, Crisis imperial e independencia, 1808–1830. Coordinado por Scarlett O’Phelan Godoy. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2013. Pp. 11–336. ISBN: 9788430607884.

Tomo 2, La construcción nacional, 1830–1880. Coordinado por Carlos Contreras Carranza. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2014. Pp. 2–360. ISBN: 9788439607884.

Tomo 3, La apertura al mundo, 1880–1930. Coordinado por Oscar Gonzales. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2015. Pp. 11–304. ISBN: 9788430607884.

Tomo 4, Mirando hacia dentro, 1839–1960. Coordinado por Marcos Cueto. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2015. Pp. 13–312. ISBN: 9788430607884.

Tomo 5, La búsqueda de la democracia, 1960–2010. Coordinado por Antonio Zapata. Madrid: MAPFRE, 2015. Pp. 13–367. ISBN: 9788430607884.

This article explores the workings of social and territorial stigma among residents of an stigmatized neighborhood in Santiago de Chile in the context of nationwide conflict. By attending to the narratives of social organizers, it shows how stigma framed the narratives of the Chilean revolt of October 2019 produced by two female organizers older than fifty years without tertiary education. It argues that, for those with less educational and political resources, stigma can help think through a social conflict by translating broader political issues into everyday life experiences and can both constrain and enable different forms of engagement in the revolt. The narratives were obtained by ethnographic interviews carried out in a broader project of the unfolding of the unrest in Santiago’s peripheries between November 2019 and July 2020.

This study identifies evidence of the influence of diversification and leverage on the financial performance of Brazilian and Mexican family businesses. It analyzes 102 Brazilian and 71 Mexican publicly traded family companies. Data analysis uses ordinary least squares regression in Stata. The results indicate that Brazilian family businesses have a higher return on assets when diversifying their products or services. When diversifying international markets, Brazilian companies present a lower return on assets and return on equity. For Mexican companies, international diversification derives a higher return on assets and return on equity. In addition, results show that leverage moderates the relationship between diversification and performance both for Brazilian and Mexican family businesses. The study contributes to the current literature by investigating that diversification improves business performance and that leverage is a significant element in intensifying the benefits of this strategy in the performance of family businesses. The study also emphasizes that diversification can be useful to address market difficulties and imperfections in unstable scenarios, such as when it is targeted to planned performance and considers financial conservatism in family companies.

La comunidad indígena Dojura (Emberá-Chamí) en Colombia está olvidando su iconografía tradicional, debido a que perdieron el contacto con sus territorios ancestrales por diferentes eventos de desplazamiento forzado. Por ello, se propuso construir una metodología de recuperación de símbolos a partir del modelo SECI (Socialización, Exteriorización, Combinación e Interiorización) de Nonaka, con lo cual, se espera lograr una sistematización de signos y a su vez una resignificación en la comunidad de modo que su cosmogonía en los territorios que habitan actualmente, les permita obtener sentido de pertenencia con su entorno. El trabajo llevado a cabo permite mostrar cómo a través de la sistematización de esta experiencia y con distintos ejercicios de generación de conocimiento, es posible recuperar los símbolos y permitir que haya un proceso de aprendizaje en la comunidad, como parte de los procesos de salvaguarda de la práctica cultural del tejido en chaquira.

La cifra de desaparecidos en Argentina motiva debates recurrentes. Durante la última dictadura militar (1976–1983) sus denunciantes elaboraron diversas cifras y estimaciones pero el número de 30 mil desaparecidos adquirió un carácter canónico. Tras retornar la democracia, la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas registró 8.960 casos. En los años noventa, en un contexto de impunidad, grupos de la sociedad civil elaboraron sus propias cifras y en los dos mil el Estado ofreció nuevos registros. El resurgimiento del negacionismo y la relativización del crimen revitalizaron este debate. Este trabajo historiza las cifras de desaparecidos y víctimas de desaparición forzada elaboradas por diversos actores y propone una aproximación académica sobre el tema. Comprende a estas cifras en su doble dimensión: como fruto de la elaboración de conocimiento sobre las desapariciones y como expresión de los combates por la memoria sobre las violaciones a los derechos humanos sucedidas en el país.