Anti-Americanism in Central America

Abstract

Anti-Americanism in Central America, unlike the outbursts of anti-Americanism in the Islamic world, is fueled not by religious fanaticism or anti-Western political or social conviction. America and Americans and the social and political values they symbolize are often extolled and sometimes just as routinely denounced. From the beginning of Central American independence in 1821, isthmian political aspirants, idealists, opportunists, revolutionaries, and social conservatives have found in America's political tradition an example for Central Americans to emulate but ultimately came to regard Americans, along with other outsiders, as an intrusive threat to isthmian culture. Those who ascribe the modern outbursts of anti-Americanism that reverberate not only in Nicaragua—for obvious reasons—but, to our astonishment, in Honduras, El Salvador, and even in the most pro-American country in the region, Costa Rica, to the determination of the Reagan administration to bring down the Sandinista government and the economic and political dislocations wrought by an isthmus at war overlook the deeper causes of this hostility.