Minor Omissions: Children in Latin American History and Society (Living in Latin America)

290 Pages·2002·10.96 MB·English

by  Tobias Hecht

Minor Omissions
Living in Latin America
Robert M. Levine
Series Editor
Minor Omissions
Children in Latin American
History and Society
Edited by
Tobias Hecht
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
The University of Wisconsin Press
1930 Monroe Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53711
www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/
3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
Copyright © 2002
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
"The Children's Rebellion" copyright © 1980 by Cristina Peri Rossi
Translation copyright © 2002 by Tobias Hecht
All rights reserved
5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Minor omissions : children in Latin American history and society I
edited by Tobias Hecht.
p. cm. - (Living in Latin America)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-299-18030-1 (cloth: alk. paper) - ISBN 0-299-18034-4 (pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Children-Latin America-History. I. Hecht, Tobias, 1964- II.
Series.
HQ792.L3 M56 2002
305.23'098-dc21
2002003993
For Irene Hecht
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
Tobias Hecht 3
1. Sketches of Childhood: Children in Colonial
Andean Art and Society
Carolyn Dean 21
2. Model Children and Models for Children in Early
Mexico
Sonya Lipsett-Rivera 52
3. Historical Perspectives on Illegitimacy and
Illegitimates in Latin America
Nara Milanich 72
4. Down and Out in Havana: Foundlings in
Eighteenth-Century Cuba
Ondina E. Gonzalez 102
5. Minor Offenses: Youth, Crime, and Law in
Eighteenth-Century Lima
Bianca Prerrw 114
6. The State, the Family, and Marginal Children in
Latin America
Donna]. Guy 139
7. The Child-Saving Movement in Brazil: Ideology in
the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Irene Rizzini 165
viii Table of Contents
8. How Haitian Artists Disclose Childhood of All
Ages
LeGrace Benson 181
9. Victims, Heroes, Enemies: Children in Central
American Wars
Anna L. Peterson and Kay Almere Read 215
10. August
Bruna Verissinw 232
11. Children and Contemporary Latin America
Tobias Hecht 242
The Children's Rebellion
Cristina Peri Rossi 251
Glossary 273
Contributors 275
Acknowledgments
This book would never have come into being without the encourage-
ment of Robert M. Levine. My thanks go first to him.
Isabel Balseiro and Keith Hart, my toughest critics, were spot on,
as usual. Anonymous readers for the press offered helpful suggestions
on the first draft, and Paul Wise made the final manuscript a better
read. Nara Milanich gave invaluable advice at every stage.
I am very grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities,
which supported my work on this book through a one-year research
fellowship for independent scholars.
Although I am just one among many contributors to this volume,
I think it is fair to say that we all have an intellectual debt to scholars
of childhood and the family in Latin America whose work is not rep-
resented here. In particular, I wish to thank Lewis Aptekar, Claudia
Fonseca, Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, Asuncion
Lavrin, Maria Emma Mannarelli, Maria Luiza Marcilio, Patricia Mar-
quez, Mary Del Priore, Mark Szuchman, and Ann Twinam. Readers are
encouraged to turn to the work of these authors to find some of the
treasures regrettably omitted here.