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September 2, 2003 Dear Neteros, Professor Boylan's point on the gender myth in Latin American History is evocative of a larger program in which the Meta histories of LA, dealt mostly in textbooks, have a definitive role in it. Let me give for example a little new book that I had at my side while reading Boylan's message, _Latin American Heroes_ by Jerome R. Adams. In this book we find the familiar names of Bolivar, Zapata and the like. I was gladly surprised to see an effort toward balance because in a list of only 23 individuals I see names from Haiti, Brazil, Central America and the Caribbean. Some of these names are not very popular with certain portions of our population (i.e. Che, Sandino, Castro), which indicates an effort to move beyond reputation and seek objectivity. Yet, in a list of 23 names, there are only 6 women. A gender disproportion in representing the actions and movements in Latin American History has to have an impact in the way readers, lecturers and researchers understand, assimilate and convey the social nature of these countries in either historical or contemporary state. The veiled message behind this gender set up is that the movers and shakers are men and that women are at the receiving end. Would it be hard to agree that this arrangement is complicit in perpetuating the myth of the submissive, silent Latin American woman and hardening the machismo-marianismo dialectic? If that is so, then, we would need a serious redefinition and reorganization of doing either comparative or larger-scope histories. This is a call that was sent out some time ago, but that its appeal seems to be rescinding. Dennis R. Hidalgo Adelphi University
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