Classroom Films on Latin America: A Review of the Present Situation with Some Suggestions for the Future

Abstract

T EACHERS of survey courses on Latin American history have long been aware that their students have only vague and generally erroneous impressions of this diverse region. Having absorbed the stereotypes that constantly appear in films, on television, and in the press, North Americans often seem to believe that their neighbors to the south are bandits, corrupt dictators, or bearded revolutionaries. To counteract such images, many instructors who have traveled in Latin America incorporate slides of artifacts, mountains, and people in their classes. Only a few, however, report that they regularly use motion pictures to illustrate points made in lectures. The question then arises-are films available and are they worth showing at the college level? To discover the answer, Professor Lewis Hanke and I, with the aid of a research grant from the United States Office of Education, undertook to review educational and feature films dealing with Latin America. We perused commercial and university rental catalogs identifying films of potential interest for college audiences. Over a period of oine months we screened and rated 160 films. To gain insight into faculty and student response to movies, we sent a questionnaire on the use of audio-visual materials to members of the Conference on Latin American History and other teachers. At the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, we held a