Dr. Corinne Antezana-Pernet, a postdoctorate scholar at the U. of Illinois at Chicago, presented her work entitled "Fighting for their Welfare: Grassroots Activism in the Movimiento pro emancipacin de la mujer chilena (MEMCH), 1937-1949." Dr. Antezana- Pernet described the role that MEMCH, an organiza-tion founded and controlled by women, played in mobilizing provincial Chilean women. She discussed MEMCH's reliance on traditional techniques for recruiting women and its success in creating a space for women in the Popular Front coalition. She examined the membership of provincial MEMCH committees and found that they were predominantly working class. The provincial committees often looked to middle class Santiagenas for education and guidance, but more often than not, the committees were left to their own devises. They used petitions and newspaper support to improve local water supplies, install street lights, enhance public safety, and expand education. MEMCH also operated as a mutual aid group. Prov incial MEMCH groups, in contrast to their urban sisters, worked on ameliorative, practical goals rather than transformative changes.

Drs. Thomas Whigham and Barbara Potthast-Jukeit then jointly presented (or rather in a carefully orchestrated sequence) their work entitled "Population Loss in the Paraguayan War: New Evidence from Asunción." Dr. Potthast-Jukeit introduced the o ngoing debate over losses in the Paraguayan War and the truly extraordinary mortality rates as compared to other major conflicts. She explained that scholars have compiled the rates using the 1846 Census as a baseline, even though it is incomplete, and t he 1864 Census. Dr. Whigham then explained that in 1990 Major Hugo Mendoza discovered an 1870 Census in the Paraguayan Defense Ministry. This census, complied by jueces de paz and jefes políticos, challenges all the previous estimates of loss. Its major gap is the population in Asunción and Pilar. The results reveal that 72-74%

of the pre-war population is missing. The two scholars agree that this represents about a 60-69% real loss of population. Dr. Potthast concluded the presentation by sketching the effect these losses had on gender relations and land policy.

Dr. Stephanie Bower of Indiana U. Southeast commented on these two research efforts. She linked the two by gender, but warned the audience to find their own connections. She admired the transclass links that Dr. Antezana-Pernet documented and the signi ficance of the early attempts by MEMCH to carve out a public space for Chilean women. She also pointed out the comparative value of Dr. Antezana-Pernet's work. Moving on to the second presentation, Dr. Bower praised the seamlessness of Dr. Whigham's and D r. Potthast-Jukiet's collaborative research. She shared in the excitement of the new material discovered in the 1870 Census. Finally, she noted that the census changes not only the interpretation of the war but also gender relations in postbellum Paraguay .

Therein ensued an animated debate on the utility of the 1870 Census in which nearly all of those assembled participated. Among the comments, those made by Professors Vera Reber and Mark Szuchman stood out. The main points of discussion centered around the assessment of "wastage" as opposed to population loss by outmigration. All agreed that 1870 Census discovery will continue to fuel research in this period of Para-guayan history. The audience then considered Dr. Antezana-Pernet's work. Her research on the composition of MEMCH and the relationship between the leadership in Santiago and the participants in the countryside attracted the most attention. She was commended for refining women's participation in public and private spaces.

The meeting adjourned at 7:05 pm so that those assembled might continue their discussions from a more advantageous position at the CLAH cocktail party.

Joan E. Supplee, President

The Colonial Studies Committee heard the result of the research of four scholars who are either nearing the completion of their dissertation or who recently completed. The four presentations all focused on issues dealing with the interaction of na tives peoples and Spanish during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries. They ranged from Ecuador in the south to New Mexico in the north. Kris Lane, from the U. of Miami presented "The transition from encomienda to slavery in 17c Barbacoas (Colombia)."

While both the encomienda and slavery have been closely examined as coerced labor forms in a variety of Spanish American contexts, few studies have described how these systems inter-acted in late developing fringe areas. The placer gold mines of the Barbacoas district (under combined jurisdiction of Popayan and Quito) were just such an environment. Between approximately 1620 and 1700, this region was transformed from an uncontrolled frontier to a major source of gold (producing ca.20,000 castellan os annually by the 1680s), from an economy of subsistence to a captive market, and most remarkably, from an indigenous majority to a black majority, from an society based on the encomienda to one based on slavery.

This paper examined the issue of why the encomienda, supposedly tamed by 16th-century reforms, lived on, in all its exhaustive extremes, in this back country mining zone. It demonstrated why slavery was only gradually embraced, wage labor being deemed too unreliable. The explanation offered for the survival of the encomienda beyond its utility as an economic institution is that elites in this marginal district had few other means of gaining prestige.

Donal P. Shannon, of UCLA shared the fruits of his research regarding colonial Costa Rica in a paper entitled "Colonial Indian Cofradías and Cabildos in Nicoya and Costa Rica." The history of the Indians of colonial Costa Rica and Nicoya has ign ored the crucial role that they played in its economic development. The pueblos were complex socio-economic units where indigenous interests were vigorously pursued. Cabildos and cofradias survived into the nineteenth century. Nicoya maintained its cof radias and the special privileges of an Indian pueblo into the National Period. Striking differences of wealth and class characterized these Amerindian communities. Shannon demonstrated the particularly active role which indigenous peoples played in the colonial period.

Todd Little-Siebold, of Lewis and Clark College presented "Interpretive Identities: Rendering Ethnic Diversity in Colonial Guatemala." This paper explored the articulation of metropolitan and local ideologies of identity on the eve of independence by using local parish records to track the diversity of ethnic labeling systems which sprung up in the Audiencia. A primary focus of the paper was the historical construction of the identities of non-indigenous and non-Spanish groups. By looking at groups like mulattoes, mestizos, and "demas castas", this paper explored the position of the population of mixed descent in Guatemala and how locals and outsiders labelled and categorized them. Using the case of San Agustin Acasaguastlan in eastern Guatemala as the central example Little demonstrated how there was dissonance between local and metro-politan systems of categorization. This dissonance revealed a point of articulation between imperial theory and local practice in the person of the parish priest of San Agustin and other like him throughout the Audiencia and the empire.

This case and the diversity of labeling systems found in a broad survey of census documents and parish records from the period between 1780 and 1815 reveals that the politics of identity were wildly diverse on the local level. In conclusion Little dem onstrated the implications of his findings of such radical diversity for our study of ethnicity and identity in Latin America.

Sandra Mathews-Lamb of Nebraska Wesleyan U. continued the discussion with her paper entitled "Colonial Spanish Land Law v. Reality: The Case of New Mexico's Indians." To understand the land rights of New Mexico's Pueblo Indian and Hispanic population s it is necessary to grasp the many changes which these peoples faced during the Spanish colonial period. Mathews-Lamb traces the development of Spanish land law in the early years of New Mexico following the conquest by Oñate. The greatest event disrupting the steady development of land tenure was the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. This gave rise to yet additional complexities in evaluating colonial land titles, with the reputed emergence of Cruzate grants. Tracing the formal appearance of these grants in legal disputes and analysis of their content, Matthews-Lamb cast doubt over their authenticity, and illuminated an otherwise dark corner of colonial New Mexican history.

A brisk discussion followed the presentation of the research results.

John Frederick Schwaller, U. of Montana

The Gran Colombian Committee met Thursday evening with 18 members in attendance. The first order of business was the introduction of the committee's new Chair, Micheal Tarver, and Secretary, Jim Henderson.

This year's panel was another outstanding gathering of the grancolombianistas, with Ronald Young, Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, and Stuart McCook presenting papers. In brief:

Ron (UCLA) analyzed the effects the adoption of urban transportation technologies had on Caracas by tracing its history from 1881-- the year in which the caraqueños implemented their first horse- and mule-drawn streetcars-- until 1947 the last y ear in which electric streetcars functioned in the Venezuelan capital.

Ann (U. of Pennsylvania) discussed the various strike demands of the Medellin textile workers, in the context of the general Colombian political culture in the mid-1930s. She utilized excerpts of interviews conducted for the paper as illustrations of h er major points concerning the culture of the times.

Stuart (U. of Minnesota) examined the Venezuelan coffee industry, focusing on Henri Pittier, the first person to study the nation's coffee production from an ecological perspective. Utilizing his findings, Pittier advanced new explanations for the prob lems in the Venezuelan coffee industry, which in spite of the general prosperity of the 1920s, faced significant problems in production.

Following the presentations, Jane Rausch, U. of Massachusetts, offered comments and posed a number of questions for each of the presenters concerning his/her paper. The presenters then addressed the issues raised by Rausch, as well as questions from t he audience.

Members were urged to send announcements and comments for the committee newsletter, to Micheal as soon as possible (mtarver@acc.mcneese.edu).

H. Micheal Tarver, Chair

International Scholarly Relations Committee - Lyman Johnson (CLAH President), Linda Salvucci (Committee Chair), Josefina Vázquez (Committee Member), Vince Peloso, Sherry Johnson, and Eloise Linger were in attendance. Wants to continue the p rocess of "internationalizing" CLAH, by moving beyond previous efforts to lobby for archival preservation projects and to forge links with other related associations (such as AHILA). Several new names were suggested as "corresponding members" from variou s foreign countries: Johnson and Salvucci will write to these scholars in the spring to invite them to send information regarding upcoming conferences, actual presentations at such meetings, tables of content from local publi-cations and the like. As CLA H moves further onto the Internet, the ISR Committee could serve as a clearinghouse, filing such information on our homepage and eventually even publishing paper abstracts electronically. Volunteers interested in such service should contact Linda K. Salv ucci (lsalvucc@trinity.edu).

Linger urged the Committee to encourage U.S. scholars to design collaborative research projects with colleagues abroad, to enhance possibilities for funding. Johnson will look into organizing a session for the Seattle meeting to update scholars on con ditions for researchers in Cuba.

The Committee also discussed the development of formal affiliations with other groups, particularly in Latin America, implementation of a system of textbook exchanges, and the larger CLAH effort to reduce subscription costs for journals.

Linda Salvucci, Trinity U.

Mexican Studies Committee - The session on "Trends and Transformations in Mexican History: The New Cultural History" was extremely well attended (standing room only by the end of the session) and was chaired by Susan Deans-Smith. Four scholars reflected on the problems and possibilities presented by the "New Cul-tural History" for advancing our understanding of Mexican history from the colonial period to the present time. The papers shared a common concern with key categories such as agency, su bjectivity, space, and power, and with the methodological issues raised by cultural history. While all the presenters agreed that the study of culture is important, there was less consensus as to the achievements of the New

Cultural History to date.

Eric Van Young (U. of California-San Diego) in his paper "Culture as Text and Text as Culture: Some Re-flections on the New Cultural History of Colonial Mexico" focused his discussion on a paraphrase of Clifford Geertz "Culture is to text as text is to culture" to explore the problems of accepting it uncritically as a research agenda for the "new cultural history." He traced out the connections between history and anthro-pology and reflected on some methodological problems peculiar to the study of cul tural history. He argued that there was a widespread tendency in discussions of culture to rectify and commodify it and called for a more inclusive conceptualization of culture which would necessitate historians revisiting economic history as cultural his tory and a reassessment of the notion of agency. He concluded by making clear that although his remarks were mainly critical of the possibilities for working in the cultural history of colonial Mexico, they were offered as caveats not objections and that the cultural approach is rich in potential and accomplishment to date and promises more in the future.

William French (U. of British Colombia) in "Imagining Nineteenth-Century Mexico" discussed the insights gained by historians concerned with "imagining" nineteenth-century Mexico (exploring how the nation has been imagined, and how subjectivity has bee n imagined and constructed). The conceptualization of "culture" as a relatively coherent system of norms and values has largely been rejected and replaced by more discrete and conflicted cultures subject to negotiation. This has resulted in a focus on the local, on agency, identity, gender, subjectivity; and on the question of agency of the historian and ways in which they become impli-cated in the text. Prof. French concluded that current research points to a growing interest in probing the meaning of "m odernity" (not modernization or development, but the aesthetic, philosophical, artistic, and other expressions associated with life at the end of the nineteenth-century) and an emphasis on form and the discursive construction of space and on "space" gener ally.

Mary Kay Vaughn (U. of Illinois-Chicago) in "New Cultural Approaches to Mexican Revolutionary Studies" examined the place of the new cultural history in Mexican revolutionary historiography, useful working cate-gories it brings to the latter, and the problems and challenges of methodology and source materials, in order to explore the broader question of how it can help scholars move beyond revisionist interpretations of the revolution. Prof. Vaughn argued that cultural approaches can help to recupera te popular agency, advance our understanding of subject/state relations and of one of this century's most enduring authoritarian regimes. She commented on the emphasis in recent studies on subjectivity, decentering, representation (language, dis-course, s ymbolic action and ritual) and on cultural causation, not necessarily as a substitute for economic causation but at least as autonomous and complementary. One of big challenges for cultural history is to see under what conditions and experiences local dis course changed as a result of revolutionary participation and processes.

In his comments, "The Emperor's New Clothes: Dependency Theory and the New Cultural History of Latin America" Stephen Haber (Stanford U.), rather then providing specific commentary on the individual papers, examined the New Cultural History from an eco nomic historian's perspective. He emphasized that his comments focused more on the modern than on the colonial literature and were directed at a highly cited corpus of the New Cultural History, not the field in its entirety. Professor Haber argued that th e origins of the New Cultural History could be found in the collapse of Dependency Theory and that there were similarities in terms of its rules of evidence and argumentation, its method of making truth claims, and its ultimate goals. He suggested that gi ven the ways of defining categories of analysis and sloppiness of interpretation of evidence it would be difficult to persuade anyone other than those already predisposed to agree with practitioners of the New Cultural History. Despite these concerns, Pro f. Haber concluded that Latin American historians should not abandon the study of culture; indeed, they have important contributions to make and that there are ways of studying culture that are based on a falsificationist epistemology and methodology such as the studies by James Lockhart and his students on the cultural and material world of Mexico's indigenous populations. He also commented on the importance of the study of culture and its implications for other social science fields such as the overlap between what historians call culture and what sociologists, economists, and political scientists call informal institutions.

A lively discussion followed which focused on just how "new" the New Cultural History is, on the possi-bilities of combining cultural and economic history, and on the question of "verifiability" in historical analysis.

Susan Deans-Smith, U. of Texas at Austin

Population and Quantitative History Committee (ComPAQH) - Approximately thirty Latin Americanists attended the annual meeting. During the brief business portion of the meeting the committee chair, Donald Stevens reported on the continuing activi ties of the committee.

Robert McCaa (U. of Minnesota) editor of The Latin American Population History Bulletin expects to have the next issue completed soon. Those interested in nagging the editor should note that he has a new e-mail address: <rmccaa@maroon.tc.umn. edu>. McCaa also sent word of a demographic history conference to be held next year in Cordoba. Richard Garner (Penn State), editor of The Latin American Economic History Newsletter, has retired. Suggestions were invited for anyone with the des ire and resources, either to continue the newsletter as a web site or reconvert it to a printed medium.

Our invited speaker this year was Kenneth Andrien (The Ohio State U.) whose paper was entitled "Facts, Figments, and Fantasies: Colonial Fiscal Documents as Historical Texts." Since Professor Andrien was un-able to attend due to illness, his paper was read by the committee chair. Andrien began with three epigrams which demonstrated changing attitudes toward statistics and stories over the last twenty-five years, and continued with of a review of critiques of the use of fiscal documents as sources for social and economic history.

Andrien proposed that fiscal documents "are nothing more or less than historical `texts'," and that "Like all texts, the figures drawn from fiscal documents do in fact represent a mixture of `facts', figments, and fantasies. No quantitative historian in this post-modern age is likely to argue that numbers produced by an early-modern bureaucracy reflect an unvarnished `objective' or `scientific' picture of the past."

Using examples from his own experience and research with fiscal data and tithes collected in cash, Andrien concluded by examining the ways in which our attitudes toward historical statistics have changed over the last thirty years. Denying that there was "a progression from the strident positivism of Vicens Vives to Mig-nolo's introspective postmodernism," Andrien confessed to being both an "unrepentant" quantifier and a believer in a "naive notion" of quality that transcends quantitative, qualitative , or postmodern history.

The discussion that followed was notable for its subtlety, thoughtfulness, and absence of rancor.

Donald Stevens (Drexel U.), Chair

Teaching and Teaching Materials Committee - Languages across the Curriculum and Latin American Historians

The various Languages across the Curriculum projects now operating at universities across the United States offer exciting possibilities for historians who are committed to teaching. Language across the Curriculum programs are designed to give student s the chance to study different academic disciplines in a second language. Typically, a course taught in English, such as a history survey, is paired with a one-hour section taught entirely in a target language. Many of the Language across the Curriculum programs developed out of departments of Languages and Literatures with the aim of enriching the students’ study of language; such programs have great benefits for those of us teaching in fields in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

In most American universities, the institutional structure of distinct departments (History, Art History, Economics, Modern Languages and Literatures, etc.) has the unfortunate effect of creating an artificial gulf between language study and the many and varied disciplines in which languages are used. This compart-mentalization sends the message to students that languages are studied in some departments and subjects are studied in others. Yet, language study needs to be vital and imper ative to all students and not simply to language majors. In an effort to break down the artificial barriers separating subject study from language study and to explicitly integrate the two, Languages across the Curriculum programs were born .

Trinity is an institution that focuses almost exclusively on undergraduate education and that values creative, sustained, and focused teaching. As we asked ourselves how can we prepare our students for the uncer-tainties of the next century, and how c an we respond to our students' motivations, aspirations, and expectations, we came to the conclusion that we must provide our students with a first-rate education that is both pragmatic and personally enriching. An interdisciplinary group of faculty co mmitted to the premise that language learning is essential to our students' education developed an interdisciplinary Languages across the Curriculum program for Trinity.

At Trinity, Spanish across the Curriculum is the first fruit of the Languages across the Curriculum initiative. It exposes students to professional and academic Spanish in a variety of academic disciplines. Over three summers, faculty developed eight courses in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences. These are not full three credit hour courses, as is the norm, but one-hour courses that meet once per week for one hour. Some of the one-hour courses are taught by faculty from the Spanish depar tment and are paired with courses taught in English in departments such as History. For example, students may enroll in my Latin American Perspectives history course as well as in Pablo Martínez's Perspectivas contemporáneas de Am érica Latina. Other Spanish across the Curriculum courses are taught by native speakers, or faculty fluent in Spanish, as independent courses. The topics of these courses range from La economía mexicana, taught by Jorge Gonz&aac ute;lez in the Economics Department to La telenovela en América Latina taught Robert Huesca in the Communications Department to Ecología en América Latina, taught by Roberto Hasfura of the Math Department. Studen ts learn in Spanish the vocabulary, terminology, and concepts used in academic or professional disciplines and read from scholarly or professional works published in Spanish. Students may earn certification by completing two courses offered by the Spanis h Language and Literature faculty (Advanced Grammar and an upper division elective) and four Spanish across the Curriculum courses. This certification not only encourages students to take advantage of the courses, but may be used as preparation for gradu ate study as well as professional work in Spanish-speaking countries.

The advantages of Spanish across the Curriculum for students are clear. The courses offer students an opportunity to learn and use Spanish outside of traditional language and literature classes. The courses are particularly helpful for students retu rning from study abroad and who wish to maintain their Spanish. Spanish across the Curriculum certification sends a message to students that their language skills are valued and necessary. But most importantly, students who speak and read Spanish well a re far more likely to fully appreciate the complexities of Latin American history. Such students will leave the university with a richer understanding of Latin America that will quite possibly affect the rest of their professional lives.

Languages across the Curriculum courses also benefit faculty. The interdisciplinary interaction between faculty teaching paired courses can generate new ideas that can be incorporated into subsequent teaching and research. Languages across the Curricu lum visibly reminds faculty and administrators of the crucial need for language learning at all levels of American education.

Trinity received help in conceptualizing its Languages across the Curriculum program by participating in the Spreading the Word II project coordinated by the American Council on Education. The implementation of the program was supported by a Na tional Endowment for the Humanities Focus Grant (1996-1997) and Trinity's own Office of Academic Affairs. For more information on Languages across the Curriculum, see the website at Brown University: http://www/language.brown.edu/LAC.