Submitted by: Suzanne Oboler, Professor, Latin American and Latinx Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Read online at: “Our America”
“This essay was written in New York City in January 1891; published (as “Nuestra América”) in the newspapers La Revista iIlustrada (New York City) on January 10, 1981, and El Partido Liberal (Mexico City) on January 30, 1891. This is a seminal work of Latin American nationalism, “Our America” argues for the rejection of European and United States cultural values in the forging of racially harmonious and politically stable Latin American nations. José Martí was born January 28, 1853, in Havana, Cuba, to lower-middle-class Spanish parents. The man who would become known as the “Apostle,” and adored by Cubans of all political persuasions was only 17 when he was convicted of treason and sentenced to six years’ hard labor for agitating for Cuba’s independence from Spain. Marti spent his adult life in exile, most of it in New York City, a situation that he grew to think of as his “cup of poison”. While in exile, Marti wrote prolifically for Spanish-language Latin American newspapers, mostly about the United States and the necessity of defending and nurturing Latin American culture, and he organized what he hoped would be the revolutionary army that would at last free Cuba. His essay “Our America” speaks not just to Cuba but to the whole region now known as Latin America. The essay strives to create a new commonality among the people of Latin America, to encourage a sense of unity and self-determination in the face of growing U.S. expansionism. (It should be noted that Marti did not use the term “Latin America,” which would become common only in the twentieth century; rather he spoke of the “Americas” and “Our America.” For clarity, this entry employs the twentieth-century term.)”
Accessed from the Internet. Written before copyright law. In the public domain.
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