2023/11/10 by Steven P Rodríguez · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Diverse Education Studies and Reforms #Global Education and Multiculturalism
paper · doi:10.1093/dh/dhad089
openalex publication_date 2023/11/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
On April 27, 1931, Rollin S. Atwood, a professor of economic geography at the University of Florida, wrote an excited letter to George S. Hensley, the Vice President of Whitney National Bank, predicting a new era of relations between the U.S. South and Latin America. As the inaugural director of the University of Florida’s Institute of Inter-American Affairs (IIAA)—an early U.S. academic research center on Latin America—Atwood spoke from a place of intense interest. “It is our duty as citizens of the South,” Atwood declared, to “increase the prestige and productivity of this region” and “realize the unique place we play in ‘Affairs Inter-American.’”1 Atwood was one of many southerners with an expansive vision of the role that the South could play in U.S.-Latin American relations, especially in cultivating trade relations between the regions. “Trade and industry are coming,” Atwood continued, “but are we ready for it? Do we sufficiently realize our place in the picture?” Atwood’s vision was eminently paternalistic and regional.2 He saw the South and Latin America as belonging to “one big family,” with the South playing the role of the “father,” gently leading its southern neighbors to create a “foundation for better and truer understanding.”3