US-Latin American Relations

19th Century and Early 20 th Century

  • American Diplomacy 1778 to the Present: Treaties, Agreements and Correspondence . This is the Avalon Project of Yale Law School, which contains the full text of many written agreements between Latin American countries and the United States. A large number of them are from the 18 th and 19 th centuries.
  • Constitutions of the Americas Offered online through Georgetown University, the website contains the text of every Latin American constitution. The only drawback arises if you do not read Spanish, since they are all in their original form, but it is also possible to utilize an online translator (such as Babel Fish Translation) that can transform each document into English.
  • The Mexican-American War and the Media From the Department of History at Virginia Tech, this site is a collection of newspaper articles (from the United States and Britain) of the time, timelines, images and links to the documents associated with the war. It does not devote much attention to the Mexican side. For further research, it also provides links to extensive bibliographies:
    For a more pro-Mexico perspective, Invasión Yanqui: The Mexican War http://www.humanities-interactive.org/invasionyanqui/is presented by the Texas Council for the Humanities Resource Center and contains images, commentary, essays, and bibliographical links.
  • The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War This website is based at the Hispanic Division of the U.S. Library of Congress, and provides a chronology and index of people, places, and events. It has presentations on Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Spain.
  • The Panama Canal This is the official site of the canal. It contains a large amount of information, both historical and current. This includes the canal’s legal and historical foundaions, its administration, photos (including a live camera), news, press releases, and other information.

Cold War Era

  • The National Security Archive, Guatemala Documentation Project The National Security Archive has links to previously classified U.S. government documents related to the 1954 invasion as well as the civil war that began not long afterward. It includes instructions on assassination and lists of those targeted for murder.
  • The Organization of American States This is the official website of the OAS, which has a large number of documents, publications and general information on its activities and its organizational structure.
  • The Inter-American Development Bank The official sit of the bank, which includes a large amount of information on investment, economic policies, reports on specific countries, status reports on development projects, and a wide array of other related topics. It is a useful source for studying either individual countries or the region as a whole.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis A site developed by Harvard College that provides primary documents, commentary and analyses about the crisis itself and crisis decision-making in general, links to other sites on the topic, and a bibliography on further sources (including those by Soviet officials).
  • School of the Americas Watch The website of a non-profit organization dedicated to closing the School of the Americas (in 2001 renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation). It contains detailed descriptions of the school’s graduates, especially those involved in human rights abuses, copies of press articles about the school, and other information about military abuses of power.
  • CIA Electronic Reading Room Bay of Pigs As a result of the Freedom of Information Act, the Central Intelligence Agency has placed online its own assessment of the failure of the Bay of Pigs. It consists of two volumes and approximately 400 pages in PDF format.
  • Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional The official website of the FSLN. It contains many documents (including some dating prior to the revolution), press releases, official statements, photos, and other links.

Trade

  • Americas Program A website run by the Interhemispheric Resource Center, an independent think tank critical of U.S. policy. Focusing especially on economic issues and trade, it is critical of current policies while also seeking to provide workable alternatives. The website has a large number of analyses, think pieces, policy briefs, and other publications, many of which center on NAFTA.
  • Free Trade Area of the Americas Website the site offers links to the structure and committees of the FTAA, discussion of key economic issues, and documents related to the negotiation of the agreement.
  • International Monetary Fund Website The IMF website contains reports, analyses, press releases, and press briefings for countries all over the world, dating back to the early 1990s. An easy way to navigate the site is to choose a specific country, which is an option available on the homepage, which yields a list of reports in chronological order.
  • MERCOSUR Website the organization’s own website only contains Spanish and Portuguese as language options, but it includes all the relevant documents, meetings, accords and agreements associated with MERCOSUR. However, another website linked to Mercusor is the Mercosur Economic Research Network , funded by a variety of national and international sources. It offers a wide range of working papers and briefs that address Mercosur’s functions as well as its relationship to other countries and international organizations.
  • NAFTA Secretariat the official website of the Secretariat, which is the dispute resolution center for the free trade agreement. It includes all of NAFTA’s founding agreements, a discussion of disputes and their resolution, and even provides an option to receive emails on pending cases and decisions.

Human Rights

  • United Nations, Human Rights Section Part of the U.N.’s website is dedicated to human rights. It includes the entire text of the Universal Declaration, in addition to a wealth of other documents, treaties, and commission reports on a variety of topics, such as protection of women’s rights, children, racial discrimination, and political persecution.
  • Amnesty International, Americas This section of the Amnesty International website focuses on the western hemisphere. It has links both to regions and to specific countries. Each country link then contains reports, dating back over a decade, on issues that AI has raised and its perceptions of actions being taken by the government of that country.
  • Human Rights Watch, Americas Like Amnesty International, HRW has a specific section on the Americas, and constantly updates its press releases on current events related to human rights abuses, and links to each country that have reports dating back to 1989.
  • Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The website of this OAS commission provides text of all human rights agreements and documents, along with press releases, speeches, annual reports (from 1970 to the present), and special reports. It also includes many country studies dating back to the 1960s.
  • Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC), Human Rights The University of Texas provides a very useful website that has links to a large number of topics and organizations. For human rights, it includes direct links to regional organizations, NGOs in Latin American countries and in the United States, in addition to research resources and publications on human rights.

Immigration

  • Americas Program: Border Information Clearinghouse This website provides links, statistics, government documents and statements by non-governmental organizations, and a database of immigration-oriented activists. It is run by the Interhemispheric Resource Center, an advocacy group focused on U.S. foreign policy.
  • The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute This is a non-profit organization created by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. It provides documents, press releases, publications, and policy recommendations on a wide range of issues, with immigration prominent.
  • Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) The homepage of a large, strongly anti-immigration organization. It includes articles on a wide range of immigration topics, all of which are geared to demonstrating its harmful effects.
  • National Council of La Raza The website of a prominent advocacy group for Hispanic Americans. It includes discussions of farm worker rights, U.S. immigration policies (and U.S. foreign policy more generally), social security, welfare reform, and other issues.
  • Regional Conference on Migration The official website of the RCM, which includes official communiqués, activities, research articles on migration issues, and links to immigration-related government websites for each member country as well as to other websites across the world dedicated to the topic.
  • United States Census Bureau, Immigration The Census Bureau homepage can be reached at www.census.gov , but going directly to the immigration page provides access to data, reports, and working papers on international immigration and the foreign-born population (both current and projected ) in the United States.

Cuba

  • Cuban American National Foundation This is CANF’s official website. It includes constantly updated links to news stories about Cuba, along with analyses and editorials intended to highlight the problems with the Castro government and the need for his ouster. It also keeps updated information on Cuban prisoners and dissidents.
  • The Elian Gonzalez Case PBS organized a webpage with links to the major decisions of the Elián González case, including texts of courts rulings, statements by protagonists in the case, congressional debate, and the legal background.
  • Granma International This Cuba’s official newspaper online in English (in addition to Spanish, it is also available in Portuguese, French, German, and Italian). It contains the news of the day, plus images, and special reports. It provides an excellent view into how world events and U.S. policy are interpreted by the Cuban government.