Had massive migration of mexican labor to the southwest not taken place in the twentieth century, it is probable, as Ruth Tuck observed in Not with the Fist: Mexican-Americans in a Southwest City (N.Y., 1946; 29-30), that “side-eddies” of native Spanish-speaking would have been gradually swept into the mainstream of American life, as they almost were in California by 1900. Or perhaps these Spanish-speakers would have remained a picturesque folk in such isolated areas as northern New Mexico and South Texas. But massive migration from Mexico did occur at the opening of this century, adding a new chapter to Southwestern settlement and development, a chapter that differs from the old romanticized Southwest as much as a Chicano barrio or migrant camp differs from a restored Spanish mission or a New Mexico adobe. And yet this chapter—now so important to the ethnic study movement—has been almost totally neglected by Latin Americanists both in the United States and Mexico.

The Catholic Church in Latin America was until the mid-1960s one of the most ignored topics of research in a neglected continent. It was not only overlooked by North Americans and Europeans; stranger still, it received only cursory attention from Latin American scholars. The meagre consideration it did attract was overwhelmingly historical in nature and frequently came from authors promoting or attacking particular religious beliefs and institutions. The controversy in Colombia over the persecution of the Protestants (Goff, 1965), and the dramatic events caused by the reactions of the Church to the Mexican revolution (Brown, 1964), stimulated a literature that was at times extremely biased.

Yet, it is not easy to explain the neglect of the Church in the literature since, unlike peasant leagues or guerrilla movements, it is not a novelty in the region. The Church was founded simultaneously with the Iberian societies; much of the culture of Latin America derives from within the Church and has evolved in relationship to it; social fields such as education and charity have always been heavily influenced by Church doctrine and organizations; and the vast majority of the population are declared Catholics. In addition the Church is a highly structured organization in a region of low organizational development; in all countries Catholic groups have been politically active and in some cases assumed the form of Christian Democratic parties (Williams, 1967) which have held power; and the political models currently being formulated in Brazil and Peru would appear to owe much of their content to traditional Catholic principles of hierarchy, paternalism, and corporate identity.

The historiography of the nineteenth-century political process in latin America is in trouble. With the burgeoning of Latin American history as a professional activity, historians are increasingly “moving beyond” past politics to study social and economic themes. The traditional treatments of the nineteenth century, dedicated to glorifying or debunking heroic leaders, to perpetuating old partisan and ideological struggles, or even to presenting in a more detached way a minutely-detailed political narrative, have lost their allure. It is true, to the obvious consternation of the editors of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, that items in the traditional mold still abound. In Mexico, for example, the celebration of the centennial and sesquicentennial of the two heroic ages of liberalism, the Revolution for Independence and the Reforma, gave great impetus to political writing. Analogous historiographical stimulants can be found in other countries, sometimes where the heroism of the anniversaries is less clear. Yet the value of even the best of such work is increasingly called into question by professional historians.

It requires a lot of temerity to analyze in a few pages such a great and complicated topic as “The Study of Latin American History Today,” especially if one is not Richard Morse. My only vantage point is a rather varied experience. A European historian, I am an autodidact in things Latin American. Since the late 1940s, I have visited and done some research in most of the countries of Latin America, and Spain. I have had the privilege of teaching Latin American history at five major United States universities during a total of five and a half years. At the present time I find myself once again in Europe. Thus I am familiar with the increased European interest in Latin American studies during recent years as well as with the various factors which still hamper us in our job. From the psychological point of view I have probably become a kind of mestizo, a Swedish-Latin-North American blend. Though at ease in any of three environments, I have the feeling of being to some extent an outsider even in the country of my birth. After this presentation-confession I shall first survey the current situation in broad terms. The second point will be to discuss the purpose of the study of Latin American history and finally, to recommend some norms of policy.

The study of history in Ecuador is still in its infancy. Too few foreign scholars have ventured into the country's past and most Ecuadorean historians have failed to produce well-researched studies. Consequently, generalization and bias have passed for scholarship. Although there are many reasons for the backward state of Educadorean historiography, perhaps the most important has been the poor condition of the nation's archives. During the last decade, however, libraries and repositories in the country have improved tremendously. While not yet the equal of research facilities in many other Latin American nations, still it is now possible to do historical research with relative ease in Ecuador.

As all good social scientists know, to analyze a problem properly one needs hard data, the harder the better. The United States government thinks so too, and is a prolific producer and consumer of statistics. If one wishes to do research on the military expenditures of the Latin American countries, for example, one has available not one but at least four sets of statistics complied by or for the federal government.

At this point, however, difficulties emerge: these sets of statistics not only are not identical, but often differ so drastically that they lead to diametrically opposed conclusions.

In recent years there has been an upsurge in what has come to be called “quantitative history.” Despite the enthusiasm for this approach, however, some of its critics have validly claimed that its payoffs have all too often failed to live up to its promises of new and more accurate findings. Perhaps a central reason for this criticism is that although the quantitative historian may have been sufficiently thorough in collecting his data, he has often failed to apply to them the sensitive techniques of modern data analysis. Rather, he has continued to rely on more traditional methods of description such as means and percentages. As a result, quantitative works are often long on tables and short on analysis.