Minor Omissions Living in Latin America Robert M. Levine Series Editor Minor Omissions Children in Latin American History and Society Edited by Tobias Hecht THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street Madison, Wisconsin 53711 www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/ 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 2002 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System "The Children's Rebellion" copyright © 1980 by Cristina Peri Rossi Translation copyright © 2002 by Tobias Hecht All rights reserved 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Minor omissions : children in Latin American history and society I edited by Tobias Hecht. p. cm. - (Living in Latin America) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-299-18030-1 (cloth: alk. paper) - ISBN 0-299-18034-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Children-Latin America-History. I. Hecht, Tobias, 1964- II. Series. HQ792.L3 M56 2002 305.23'098-dc21 2002003993 For Irene Hecht Table of Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction Tobias Hecht 3 1. Sketches of Childhood: Children in Colonial Andean Art and Society Carolyn Dean 21 2. Model Children and Models for Children in Early Mexico Sonya Lipsett-Rivera 52 3. Historical Perspectives on Illegitimacy and Illegitimates in Latin America Nara Milanich 72 4. Down and Out in Havana: Foundlings in Eighteenth-Century Cuba Ondina E. Gonzalez 102 5. Minor Offenses: Youth, Crime, and Law in Eighteenth-Century Lima Bianca Prerrw 114 6. The State, the Family, and Marginal Children in Latin America Donna]. Guy 139 7. The Child-Saving Movement in Brazil: Ideology in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Irene Rizzini 165 viii Table of Contents 8. How Haitian Artists Disclose Childhood of All Ages LeGrace Benson 181 9. Victims, Heroes, Enemies: Children in Central American Wars Anna L. Peterson and Kay Almere Read 215 10. August Bruna Verissinw 232 11. Children and Contemporary Latin America Tobias Hecht 242 The Children's Rebellion Cristina Peri Rossi 251 Glossary 273 Contributors 275 Acknowledgments This book would never have come into being without the encourage- ment of Robert M. Levine. My thanks go first to him. Isabel Balseiro and Keith Hart, my toughest critics, were spot on, as usual. Anonymous readers for the press offered helpful suggestions on the first draft, and Paul Wise made the final manuscript a better read. Nara Milanich gave invaluable advice at every stage. I am very grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which supported my work on this book through a one-year research fellowship for independent scholars. Although I am just one among many contributors to this volume, I think it is fair to say that we all have an intellectual debt to scholars of childhood and the family in Latin America whose work is not rep- resented here. In particular, I wish to thank Lewis Aptekar, Claudia Fonseca, Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, Asuncion Lavrin, Maria Emma Mannarelli, Maria Luiza Marcilio, Patricia Mar- quez, Mary Del Priore, Mark Szuchman, and Ann Twinam. Readers are encouraged to turn to the work of these authors to find some of the treasures regrettably omitted here.