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Latin American Imperialism Analysis

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Imperialism is one of the many ways in which the United States has influenced immigration from Latin and Central America into the United States. The United States’s desire to expand their territory and protect their wealth has led them into Latin American territories such as Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador time after time. As a result of this incursion a massive wave of immigration occurred, which led Latin Americans to rush into the U.S. to escape the economic and political pressures created by U.S. intervention. The political violence and economic instability of Guatemala and El Salvador, along with the forced invasion of Mexican territory by the United States, have all shaped the experiences of these countries. I will examine how imperialistic …show more content…
launched Operation PBSUCCESS and established a military government that would replace the democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz. This operation served to demonstrate the United State’s significant role in the politics of Guatemala, and how they had created a country that would be plunged into war and political violence (this would later influence Guatemalan migration to the United States). “Operation PBSUCCESS” was authorized by President Eisenhower and allowed the use of intensive paramilitary and psychological attack to replace a democratically-elected president with a leader that would benefit the United State’s political needs. The last step of PBSUCCESS called for the “gathering of Communists and collaborators”. Although Arbenz was able to flee the country, unfortunately hundreds of those who remained in their homeland were rounded up and killed through this coercive military regime. Citizens were troubled between supporting a military dictatorship or risking their lives to oppose a government that was inhumane and did not care how many lives would be lost. After PBSUCCESS, Guatemala’s 36-year civil war initiated as left-wing guerrilla groups began fighting against government military forces. If Guatemalan civilians publicly declared their opposition to the military regime they would be subject to torture and …show more content…
It was because of this war and violence that many Guatemalans decided to leave their homeland and migrate to the United States. In the Columbia History of Latinos in the United States since 1960 (2004) by David Gutierrez, there is an example of a particular Mayan group of Guatemalans who had fled from their villages and are described as “A particularly interesting case… the Q’anjob’al Maya in Indiantown, Florida, who initially came to the United States fleeing the scorched-earth policy of the Guatemalan government in the early 1980s, which destroyed numerous indigenous settlements the Guatemalan highlands” (Gutierrez, pg.188). The Q’anjob’al Maya fled the violent conditions in Guatemala and it is clear that their decision was strongly influenced by the United States’ political intervention that caused war and violence in their respective homeland. Many Guatemalans considered themselves and were recognized by others as refugees, although the U.S. government did not share their views. The United States frequently rejected their applications for asylum and denied any form of extensive assistance. Because many Guatemalans were denied the right to residency or refugee status in the United States, these individuals were often forced to cross the borders illegally and faced the increasingly difficult,

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