ENTRE LA GUERRA DE CASTAS Y LA LADINIZACIÓN. LA IMAGEN DEL INDÍGENA EN LA CENTROAMÉRICA LIBERAL, 1870-1944

This article analyzes how politicians, newspapers, and intellectuals represented indigenous people of Central America during the so-called Liberal Era (1870-1944). They portrayed “Indians” as barbarous, rebellious, manipulable and, therefore, a driving force behind the caste wars of Central America. Based on these images, Central American liberal elites confronted the “Indian problem” in three different ways: hiding their indigenous heritage by labeling their imagined communities as “white” (Costa Rica); integrating Indian communities within the new nation-states but rejecting their cultures, traditions, and identities (El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras); and fi nally by continuing with the colonial model of exclusion (Guatemala).