Pistoleras de Empire: Reading the US Army's "Latin American Challenge and Hispanic Soldier Policy"

Framing the emergence of the United States as a global hegemon, the Cold War is perhaps the definitive story of the 20th century United States. The set of policies, programs, rhetorics, and ideologies it promoted, however,... [ view full abstract ]

Framing the emergence of the United States as a global hegemon, the Cold War is perhaps the definitive story of the 20th century United States. The set of policies, programs, rhetorics, and ideologies it promoted, however, did more than shape the lives of people within the nation. Through war and other mechanisms, U.S. activities as part of the Cold War affected people around the world. Indicative of its importance, the forces undergirding the Cold War continue to have lingering effects even a generation beyond its “end.” This panel presents four papers utilizing interdisciplinary methods to situate U.S. Latinas and Latinos as part of the larger narratives of the Cold War.

Military strategies meant to prepare for “Latin American contingencies” during the Cold War occupy center stage in Garza’s "Pistoleras de Empire: Reading the US Army’s “Latin American Challenge and Hispanic Soldier Policy”. In her examination of the September 1985 study commissioned by senior Army leadership, she argues that Cold War hemispheric logics of empire relied upon the generic figuration of the US “Hispanic soldier” as they envisioned Central America as a threat.