RMCLAS 2016

Another piece I wrote up for Peace and Change

This past week I attended the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Conference for Latin American Studies hosted by the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies (RMCLAS) in Santa Fe, NM. While at the conference, I attended a number of panels and roundtables that presented scholarship and teaching practices that might prove interesting to peace and activist scholars.

Transnationalism proved a popular topic at the conference with three panels and a roundtable discussion dedicated to the theme. It is also not surprising that I attended these panels considering that I examine transnational networks. One particular panel, titled “Without Passports: International Solidarity in the Cold War,” presented a different views on international cooperation between North American and Latin American activists. In “International Agents: Locating Transnationalism in the Chicano Movement,” University of New Mexico graduate student Victor Andrew Oneschuck detailed the connections between the Chicano movement and political movements in…

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Feeling the Bern

A few weeks ago, I found out that this June I will present at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations’ annual conference in San Diego as part of a panel discussing cities and municipalities as transnational actors. In preparation for my paper, which will discuss the international sister city or twinning movement with Nicaragua in the 1980s, I have been skimming through some digitized newspaper collections and, in the process, come across a number of articles discussing the former mayor of Burlington Vermont, Bernard “Bernie” Sanders.

It turns out that Sanders was not only a vocal opponent of the Reagan administration’s support for the Nicaraguan Contras, which he described as “a local issue” that robbed the Vermonters of the “funding we need for our children, our elderly people, our poor people,” but he also worked to promote peaceful relations with the Sandinistas.

In 1984, Sanders encouraged the creation of a sister city partnership between Burlington and the Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas, which allowed for North American aid to reach the impoverished Central American community and facilitated a grassroots “people to people” diplomacy. In 1985, he visited Puerto Cabeza and later traveled to Managua in order to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship.

Today, the Puerto Cabezas/Burlington sister city relationship, unlike many similar partnerships begun during this era, is still in effect, with the citizens of Burlington having helped create a tree nursery and other sustainability programs in Puerto Cabezas. For his part, Sanders, who the people of Vermont would later elect as one of their Senators and is currently competing for the Democratic presidential nomination, was deeply moved by his experiences in Nicaragua, which he described as “deeply emotional.” It is, however, unlikely that Sanders still holds Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who is criticized by many for the apparent corruption of his administration, in as high of esteem as he did in 1985.

Mapping the Revolution

I’ve been mapping the transnational networks of the Nicaraguan Revolution for a few years now and I thought that I would share some of the data I have accrued. Below are a few visualizations and the accompanying data. You can download the spreadsheets and upload them to Palladio in order to recreate these visualizations.

Grants

Twinning and Sister Cities

Gabi Gottwald – Political Connections

HathiTrust

New Peace and Change blog post

In the world of digital collections and archives, few organizations compare to the HathiTrust. The multi-institutional library brings together the individual collection of its more than 100 partner institutions to create a digital clearinghouse of nearly 14 million total volumes, including books, journals, magazines and other print material. For scholars of interested in peace research, HathiTrust includes documents from a number of peace organizations, including the American Peace Society and the National Council for Prevention of War. It also includes numerous documents related to the U.S. government and a large catalog of digital books. In fact, roughly 39% of the works hosted by HathiTrust are in the public domain.

Below is an example of the type of documentation that can be found in HathiTrust. It is a program for the Fourth Annual American Peace Congress held in St. Louis, Missouri between May 1 and 3, 1913.

HathiTrust also…

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StoryMap JS

My latest blog post for Peace and Change

Later this week we will have the first post from Alisha Baginski (follow her on Twitter at @BAGINS_), Peace and Change’s student intern, who will be unveiling a digital project she created using StoryMap JS. Before the post debuts, I thought that I would introduce our readers to the digital tool that she is using and its applications in the classroom and beyond.

StoryMap JS is an open-source tool that allows users to create web-based, multimedia-rich narratives that emphasize the importance of geography. Developed at Northwestern University’s Knight Lab, the tool can be used by those looking for a simple means of telling a story ground in space. Built using Knight Lab’s Gigapixel, StoryMap JS also allows for the creation of media rich stories that incorporate videos as well as photographs, maps, works of art and any other image file.

Numerous news organizations, such as The…

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FoundSF

I recently came across a unique, and very useful, digital archive documenting the history of San Francisco called FoundSF. The archive is a wiki – a website that is maintained and edited through the collaborative processes of its users – that catalogs and presents historical artifacts from the San Francisco area. It contains digitized newspapers, videos, and pictures of San Francisco and the communities that call it home. The themes of the collection found on FoundSF range from broad discussions on race, gender, and the area’s ecology, to remembrances of San Francisco theme parks and attractions.

Perhaps to the surprise of few, there is much space dedicated to the various protest movements that rocked San Francisco over the latter half of the twentieth-century. In fact, a certain rebelliousness pervades the entire archive, with many of the conventions of impartiality ignored. As the curators point out, “FoundSF does not have…

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Swarthmore College Peace Collection

The first post in a series that I am writing for the Peace and Change blog.

In our efforts to better understand the width and breadth of peace scholarship, we at Peace and Change will begin a regular series of posts in which we examine the digital resources available to students, teachers, scholars, and activists. We will shine a spotlight on those tools and archives that forward our understanding of peace studies by either cataloging resources, facilitating student learning, or providing a unique lens through which to view the subject. Through these posts, we hope to introduce readers to resources that may help them improve their scholarship, enhance student learning outcomes, and strengthen their activism.

We chose to begin our series with the Swarthmore College Peace Collection (SCPC), an archive at Swarthmore College, obviously, that houses thousands of documents, including those from the Peace History Society.

The SCPC was founded as a library and archive for the books and papers of Jane Addams, as well as…

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Anastasio Somoza Debalye Responsible for Roberto Clemente’s Death

On December 23, 1972 a violent earthquake rocked Managua, Nicaragua, killing approximately 10,000, wounding another 20,000, and leaving over 250,000 people homeless. Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza Debalye immediately reached declared martial law and called out for international assistance. The international community responded quickly, sending millions of dollars for relief, as well as tons of food, clothing, and building materials.

Among those who sprang to the aid of the people of Managua was future Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente. Clemente, who spent his off seasons working for charities in Latin America and the U.S., led efforts in Puerto Rico to raise money, as well as collect clothing and food for the victims of the quake.

“1962 Baseball Guide.p21” by J. G. Taylor Spink – https://archive.org/stream/baseballguiderec1962stlo#page/20/mode/2up. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1962_Baseball_Guide.p21.jpg#/media/File:1962_Baseball_Guide.p21.jpg

Planes loaded with supplies flew from Puerto Rico to Nicaragua, where the Somoza controlled military, the Guardia Nacional, locked the relief aid away in warehouses around the destroyed city of Managua. Holding a monopoly on the incoming aid, Somoza Debalye used it to enrich himself and secure the system of patronage that kept him in power. Guardia officers received the first cut of all relief supplies, with much of the remainder being sold for the benefit of the Nicaraguan dictator.

Although unaware that Somoza Debalye was behind the graft, Celmente caught wind of his supplies being intercepted by profiteers, instead of making it to the people of Managua. Determined to ensure that his supplies made it to those who needed them, Clemente traveled with the second flight of supplies to Nicaragua; however, shortly after take off his plane crashed into the Caribbean, killing all on board.

Clemente, Pirates’ Star, Dies in Crash of Plane Carrying Aid to Nicaragua

The tragic death of Clemente resulted in an outpouring of grief in the United States and Latin America. Although many suspected Somoza Debalye’s involvement in the misappropriation of relief aid, it was not until many years that the true extent of the dictator’s corruption became widely known. Because of the dictators greed, Clemente took that fateful flight to Nicaragua, and ultimately became another casualty of the Somoza regime.

1970s Costa Rican Advertisements

I found the following adds in some old issues of the Tico Times, an English language newspaper operating out of San Jose, Costa Rica. The first two are offensive and the last one is just silly.

Costa Rica is safe. There are no hungry children or menacing Arab men there. Please bring your investment dollars.

If only the indigenous peoples of the Americas had had social security.

That’s a donkey. Come on.

Make Your Voice Heard on FOIA Reform; Support the FOIA Improvement Act Today

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) (L) and Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-CT) (R). (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX), responding to both federal agencies refusal to embrace President Obama’s mandate to adopt a “presumption in favor of disclosure” and their continued misapplication of the b(5) FOIA exemption, have introduced the FOIA Improvement Act of 2014. The Act will make it easier for everyday Americans to use the FOIA to request and receive documents by fixing the b(5) “withhold it because you want to” FOIA exemption, cementing fairness into the fee system, and strengthening the FOIA ombuds office, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS). Thanks to the much-needed fixes it introduces, the bill is supported by a broad coalition of open government advocates, including the National Security Archive.

But, for these important reforms to be felt, the FOIA Improvement Act needs…

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