Juan Gonzalez

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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: January 13, 2001
Latest Update: January 21, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

I chose to include this book in Spring 2001 in response to our academic discourse in Fall 2000. In our graduate class in Distributive Justice, in Theory class, and in Love and Peace class, many of our Latino/a students joined with Marlene Veliz in challenging the structural violence in our own discourse. Marlene correctly identified the unstated assumption we seemed to be using that Blacks, but not Latinos, had suffered slavery and colonization.

Juan Gonzalez' Harvest of Empire is a good text for trying to bring our unstated assumptions about empire, colonization, and the "Other" to a new level of awareness. Gonzalez is a journalist, and as such, he writes clearly and well. He documents his sources thoroughly, and supplements written sources with interviews, as did Patrick Tierney in Darkness in El Dorado. He is not an historian, as Patrick Tierney is not an anthropologist, by profession. Both are writers with passionate commitment to their causes. Both have chosen to speak for the "Other."

Structural Context

To read any text critically and effectively, we must first understand the structural context from which the text arose. Juan Gonzalez' Harvest of Empire was published in 2000, in the United States, where freedom of speech is strongly protected, where "empire" is an issue that concerns many groups, where postcolonial studies is growing as a respected field of study, where democracy is valued, or at least paid lip service, depending on your perspective.

Data on immigration (p. xi) - according to these data, there is a large audience of Latinos in America. It is their perspective that is presented in Harvest of Empire. A solid understanding of the issues requires that you be aware of the perspective of the dominant discourse.

First Chapter of Harvest of Empire online:

• First Chapter

Reviews:

• The Real Multinationals Linda Robinson. NY Times Site.
• Niel Bornstein Review MonkeyFist Site.
• A History of Latinos in America by Daniel L. Muņoz Sr., La Prensa San Diego.
• Review by Jennifer Riley Students of Color Webpage, Wesleyan University.
• Libreria Latina Scroll down a third of the way to Featured Titles.