The Latin American Way of Life

Abstract

IN SPAIN THE NATIONAL IDEAL for centuries was the Gran Senor, who, richly attired and with hands unsoiled by work of any kind, rode off across the meseta on his gaily caparisoned steed. Don Quixote on his bony nag was a take-off on the Gran Senor as Cervantes saw him. The proud sefior or arrogant hidalgo (literally, son of something) was not interested in agriculture, manufacture, or finance; proof of this was given when he banished from the Spanish Empire Jews and Moors, who excelled in those fields. Hence, Spain's New World colonies were developed largely without benefit of the crafts, techniques, and capital which these intelligent, industrious people would have added as a leaven. Most of the early Spaniards in the New World were not from the upper classes, but their dominion over Negro slaves or Indian serfs made it possible for them to assume upper-class status. Work with the hands was taboo for the Iberians and their cultural heirs, who still want to be considered as in the gentleman class. They are caballeros, or horsemen (which means gentlemen in Spanish), and the modern Latin American in all too many cases does not want to come down off his high horse and join in the activities of the workers in the fields and of the petty businessman in the market places. All too many promising young men, with a gentleman complex, swagger around in poorly fitting suits, with a riding quirt in their delicate white hands, and with no higher aim than to achieve a job on the public payroll, no matter how insignificant or how poorly paid. Petty graft is a great temptation. La Mordida, or bite, is a recognized institution. And even if an intention existed originally of doing honest work, it is soon swallowed up in what is aptly called tinterillismo, or ink-bottle-ism-the hopeless bog of petty officialdom's red tape. Another much-used word in Latin America is papeleo, approximately the equivalent of paper shuffling or red tape. Papeleo, endemic all over the area and a great waste of time and money, energy and patience, is a kind of black shadow of the cumbersome administrative machinery of colonial times, darkening the path for many people of high and low degree as they go about their daily affairs. Witness the involved process for getting a license to drive a car in a