Latin America’s Quiet Rise | Columbia Spectat...

Latin America’s Quiet Rise
ByThomas J. Trebat
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 6, 2008
In his recent book Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul, author Michael Reid suggests explanations for the perennial U.S. neglect of Latin America. Latin America is not nearly as poor nor in as much need of foreign aid as is Africa, he argues, not as attractive commercially as China, India, and emerging Asia, and certainly not as strategically important as the oil-rich countries of the Middle East.
Set against these competing dramas, the U.S. still treats Latin America as a front of unending problems to be dealt with as time permits: drug trafficking, anti-U.S. politics in Venezuela, illegal immigration, competition in global markets. The harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric in the Republican presidential primaries panders to some instinct in the national psyche to deal with Latin America by walling it off and forgetting about it. Few politicians really envision Latin America as I do—as an increasingly successful neighbor and a potentially reliable partner in many global initiatives.
Most of the 34 economies of Latin America are experiencing a modest economic boom. With five or six years of economic growth near 5 percent on average, this is Latin America’s longest expansion in many decades. Some luck lies behind this quiet rise, mainly tailwinds in the global economy—rising prices for its natural resource exports and foreign investment. The good fortune that has come to Latin America in the last five years is well deserved and long overdue. It is a region that has done its homework. Inflation has been (largely) vanquished. Public budgets are in better shape.
The economic rise means that per capita incomes are rising, poverty and misery are falling, educational systems are (slowly) improving, health measures are strengthening, and notoriously-unequal income distributions are becoming less unequal. Politically, though authoritarian tendencies often lurk beneath the surface and Cuba awaits a transition, democratic elections are the rule almost everywhere and a vibrant civil society is emerging.
At Columbia, Latin America’s rise should not surprise. With more than 100 Latin America-focused faculty representing thirteen academic disciplines and six professional schools, faculty and researchers are studying and teaching about multiple aspects of Latin America’s complex reality and development problems. Graduate and undergraduate courses devoted to Latin America are on the rise. Spanish remains (by a wide margin) the most popular language on the campus and Portuguese enrollments are also expanding as interest in Brazil grows. Latin American dignitaries and civil society leaders routinely visit. Study abroad opportunities beckon. Global companies and public organizations recruit our graduates to work in careers related to the region.
In a very human way, the Columbia community is nestled in a virtual Latin village where the people, customs, music, and foods of many Latin American nations are on display. The influx of hundreds of thousands of new migrants, mainly Mexicans, is changing the character of the surrounding area. More than 14,000 Mexican-born students are enrolled in New York City schools, many of these in nearby areas such as East Harlem and the South Bronx. Undoubtedly, some of their parents work on or near the campus and we come into contact them on a daily basis. Latin America is all around us.
The Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia acts as a network to promote greater understanding of this region. The Institute’s goals are advanced by bringing financial and human resources to bear on the task of strengthening the curriculum, supporting research, and preparing young persons for careers of great fulfillment working with or in Latin America. A new master’s degree in Latin American studies is being proposed and we are seeking ways to inject more Latin America in the undergraduate curriculum, among many other initiatives.
Our efforts are necessarily modest and reflect only a part of the broader University’s engagement with Latin America. The comparative advantage of the institute in this setting is its mandate to focus exclusively on the region. Many of us as well as increasing numbers of Latin Americans believe that the region is on the verge of a new and much more hopeful period of sustained growth and human development. If we can play even a small role as educators in pushing that process along that will be enough. Sí se puede.
The author is the Executive Director of the Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies for the School of International and Political Affairs.