Abstract

DIAZ ARIAS, David. BETWEEN CASTE WAR AND MESTIZAJE: IMAGES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN LIBERAL CENTRAL AMERICA, 1870-1944. rev.estud.soc. [online]. 2007, n.26, pp.58-72. ISSN 0123-885X.

This article analyzes how politicians, newspapers, and intellectuals represented indigenous people of Central America during the so-called Liberal Era (1870-1944). They portrayed “Indians” as barbarous, rebellious, manipulable and, therefore, a driving force behind the caste wars of Central America. Based on these images, Central American liberal elites confronted the “Indian problem” in three different ways: hiding their indigenous heritage by labeling their imagined communities as “white” (Costa Rica); integrating Indian communities within the new nation-states but rejecting their cultures, traditions, and identities (El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras); and fi nally by continuing with the colonial model of exclusion (Guatemala).

Keywords : Representations of indigenous people; Central America; imagined communities; cultural policies.

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