La Paz's Colonial Specters

In this study Luis Sierra examines how Indigenous residents of La Paz, Bolivia, built and modernized the city and defended their rights as citizens at a time when the intellectual and political elite was mostly trying to keep them out of the city or to isolate them in strictly controlled Indigenous areas. Through mutual aid societies, lay confraternities, neighborhood organizations, and militant labor federations, Indigenous people and other working-class paceños demanded infrastructure for their neighborhoods and pushed for full social and political rights. In the process of telling this story, Sierra seconds other historians who contend that the disastrous Chaco War with Paraguay (1932–35) was a watershed that radicalized Bolivian political culture, but he also argues that many labor unions and other organizations had used earlier political openings to advance their rights.Sierra begins his history of La Paz's Indigenous residents with a discussion of the elite's belief that all Aymara people lived, or should live, beyond the city's walls, in the extramuro, although these walls were a colonial urban fixture that had long since ceased to exist. The extramuro was also thought the center of disease and prostitution that could infect the health and morals of non-Indigenous city dwellers. In any event, these supposedly separated areas soon became La Paz's fastest-growing neighborhoods that, as Sierra frequently emphasizes, were home to people of diverse ethnicities and class backgrounds.In reality, the city's creole elite could not exist without the Indigenous and mixed-race working class who cared for their children, did their laundry, constructed their homes and public buildings, and tended their gardens. This undeniable reality was certainly part of why elite intellectuals and politicians formulated often-tortuous schema by which Indigenous people could be educated and modernized but preferably still be isolated in agricultural areas. In chapter 2 Sierra discusses the proposals of Daniel Sanchez Bustamante, Manuel Rigoberto Paredes, Luis Terán Gómez, and Vicente Donoso Torres, among others. While the “separatist incorporation” favored by these men is perhaps representative of elite thought on the “Indian problem,” it is striking that Sierra does not discuss the ideas of more radical writers and political activists like Tristán Marof (the public name of Gustavo Navarro), José Aguirre Gainsborg, or Guillermo Lora (p. 55).The strongest sections in La Paz's Colonial Specters discuss the organization of the labor movement and the strategies of neighborhood associations to bring modern infrastructure to their areas and to gain respect as both Indigenous people and Bolivian citizens from the national and city governments. These sections demonstrate that workers took advantage of every political opening to create unions and push their demands. For instance, President Juan Bautista Saavedra (1920–25) initially sought an alliance with unions, and workers took him at his word and struck for better wages and working conditions. Although when these ties no longer benefited Saavedra he suppressed the working class, the opening gave various unions time to organize and form important coalitions. The early labor struggles by Indigenous and working-class people illustrate Sierra's point that one should not trace all progressive change and class consciousness to the post-Chaco reformist period.Neighborhood associations that advocated for physical improvements and residents' rights had various origins. Some evolved out of mutual aid societies or religious lay confraternities; others were built by union militants. Often neighborhood association leaders would petition the city or national government (sometimes playing them off against each other) for infrastructure improvements like running water, electricity, and schools. In return for materials and expertise, local residents would provide the needed labor. Interestingly, when negotiating with politicians, association leaders often used elite rhetoric to their advantage. If the ruling class wanted a civilized, modern city, neighborhood leaders argued, they needed to provide the basic physical and cultural amenities for Indigenous people to lead decent, honorable lives.In the last chapter Sierra builds on the work of historian Mario Murillo to question the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario's official history of their 1952 triumph. Sierra argues that the movement's success depended on La Paz's Indigenous residents who used their organizations and knowledge of the city's terrain to help defeat the military junta.La Paz's Colonial Specters will be important to Bolivianists of many disciplines and to scholars of urbanization generally. It is also a significant contribution to the literature on the various ways that Latin American politicians and intellectuals, including those in Mexico and Peru, conceptualized and integrated their Indigenous populations. Unfortunately the book contains a few infelicities. The maps on pages 21 and 22 do not allow for an adequate understanding of where important events took place. As someone who knows La Paz well, I found myself confused by references to neighborhoods that do not appear on those two maps. Also, the text is often repetitive. At least three of the chapters were previously published as articles and do not seem to have been revised to blend into the narrative and to eliminate already presented material

Colonialism · Elite · Ethnology · Geography · Indigenous · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Working class · Gender Studies · Indigenous Cultures and History · Latin American history and culture · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America