Open Veins of Latin America at 55 - Incite at Columbia University

Underneath the pageantry of the U.S. semi quincentennial celebration is an unprecedented ethnic cleansing campaign on the hunt for migrants under the guise of homeland security. But the United States has only ever been able to maintain its power and influence through the imperial hemispheric dominance of Latino America and the Caribbean, its economic exploitation, looting, terrorism and mass murder. Sugar, bananas, rubber, gold, oil, and finally, cheap exploited labor continue to prop up this decaying empire. Through a series of vignettes from Eduardo Galeano’s classic Open Veins of Latin America, which turned 55 this year, this course will look to El Sur to deflate the bloated self-image of the U.S. empire. The reading of Galeano will be in conversation with offerings from Christina Heatherton and Harsha Walia.

This event is the first in our Counter-narratives at 250 reading series. This fall, The Walter Rodney / Flores Magón Library & Commons will lead two guided reading discussions centered on works whose anniversaries offer an opportunity to challenge the exclusionary logics of the United States as a settler-colonial state and examine the experiences of minoritized communities. These discussions are part of a four-session series spanning the academic year that responds to the U.S. semiquincentenial and its accompanying officially sanctioned celebratory accounts of the past. The program offers a counternarrative to these accounts through study sessions dedicated to alternative anniversaries that undertake a critical appraisal of history and historical struggles, considering the insights and strategies already available to us in navigating the horrors of the present and asking how we might carry them forward not only survive but live in complicated, meaningful ways.

The reading sessions are open to all, but registration is required; readings will be shared with all registrants in advance of each session.

Readings:

Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, “The Invisible Source of Power,” pg. 135- 170.

Christina Heatherton, Arise: Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution, “How to Make a Rope,” pg. 1-20.

Harsha Walia, Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism, “Displacement Crisis, Not Border Crisis,” pg. 19-38.