Oral History Association

Methods and Approaches in Oral History: Interviewing Latin American Elites

Author(s): Lyle Brown
Source: The Oral History Review, Vol. 1 (1973), pp. 77-86
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oral History Association
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 METHODS AND APPROACHES IN ORAL HISTORY:

INTERVIEWING LATIN AMERICAN ELITES*

LYLE BROWN

One of the earliest and most widely known uses of an

oral history approach in Latin America was by the late
Oscar Lewis, a professor of anthropology at the University
of Illinois. During the course of his studies in what he
termed "the culture of poverty," Lewis tape-recorded inter-
views with low income, low social status, Mexican people;
and he used these recordings to reconstruct their life
histories.1 He conducted a similar study of impoverished
Puert9 Ricans in the slums of New York City and greater San
Juan. In his published works Lewis omitted the inter-
viewer's participation and printed only the responses, thus
presenting autobiographical narratives rather than dia-
logues.

A somewhat different approach has been taken by

James W. Wilkie, Professor of Latin American History and
Associate Director of the Latin American Center, University
of California, Los Angeles. Wilkie has focused his atten-
tion on Latin American elites, especially political leaders;
furthermore, Wilkie's published oral history materials have
included his own questions and comments (along with those
of his Guatemalan wife and collaborator, Edna Monz6n de
Wilkie).

My first experience in oral history came in December,

1964, when I accompanied James and Edna Wilkie on a trip to
Acapulco to interview General Juan Andreu AlmazAn. At that
time Professor Wilkie was serving as Director of the Latin
American Oral History Center at Ohio State University, and
I was teaching my second year at Baylor University. A few
years earlier we had both been at Mexico City College (now
University of the Americas), where he was an undergraduate
student and I was an instructor in history and political

*Mr. Brown read an earlier version of this paper on

November 11, 1972 at the Annual Oral History Colloquium
(Austin Texas).
Oscar Lewis' most famous work is The Children of
Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (New York:
Random ?ouse, 1964).
La Vida, A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of
Poverty---San Juan and New York (New York: Random House,
1966). For a detailed account of this project, see Oscar
Lewis and Douglas Butterworth, A Study of SZum Culture:
Backgrounds for "La Vida" (New York: Random House, 1968).

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78 INTERVIEWING LATIN AMERICAN ELITES

science. So it was that during a Christmas vacation I was

introduced to oral history by one of my former students.

Although at first somewhat skeptical of the oral

history technique, the experience of participating in three
lengthy interviews with General Almazin converted me to its
cause. I had done extensive research on the Mexican Revolu-
tion, the administration of President Lizaro C~rdenas, and
the national election of 1940; but these tape-recorded
sessions with this old revolucionario, who had waged a
losing presidential campaign against Manuel Avila Camacho
in 1940, gave me a new feeling for Mexico's revolutionary
politics. A later interview with Licenciado Silvano Barba
GonzAlez in Mexico City increased my appreciation of oral
history as a technique for obtaining a better understanding
of Mexico's twentieth-century political development.

Not content with merely accumulating mountains of

oral history typescript, the Wilkies have published the
first significant Latin American oral history volume:
M&xico visto en el siglo XX.3 This elaborately indexed
book is composed of interviews with seven prominent

3James W. Wilkie and Edna Monz6n de Wilkie, M~xico

visto en el sigZo XX: entrevistas de historia oral (M6xico,
D.F.: Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Econ6micas,
1969). An oral history interview with Luis ChAvez Orozco
will be published in the near future. Other Mexicans who
have participated in oral history interviews with the
Wilkies are Salvador Abascal, Aurelio R. Acevedo, Juan
Andreu AlmazAn, Silvano Barba GonzAlez, Clementina Ba
de Bassols, Juan de Dios Boj6rquez, Alfonso Caso, Daniel
Cosio Villegas, Carlos Fuentes, Francisco Javier Gaxiola,
Martin Luis Guzmdn, Luis L. Leon, GermAn List Arzub
Aurelio Manrique, Jos6 Munoz Cota, Melchor Ortega, Ezquiel
Padilla, Manuel J. Sierra, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and
Jacinto B. Trevino. Prominent Bolivians interviewed
include Augusto Cuadros Sanchez, Joaquin Espada, Josd Fell-
man Velarde, Walter Guevara Arze, Enrique Herzog, Edwin
M6ller and Lydia Gueiler de M11ler, Victor Paz Estenssoro,
Hugo Roberts Barragdn, Carlos Serrate Reich, and David Toro.
Costa Rican leaders who have participated in oral history
interviews with the Wilkies are Padre Benjamin Nunez, Pre-
sident Jos6 Figueres, Luis Alberto Monge, Manuel Mora,
Francisco Orlich, Jorge Rossi, and Otilio Ulate.
For a brief description of an oral history project
involving Professor Donald R. McCoy and other personnel
from the University of Kansas and the University of Costa
Rica, see "University of Kansas Oral History Project in
Costa Rica," Latin American Studies Association Newsletter,
IV (March, 1973), pp. 36-37.

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 LYLE BROWN 79

Mexicans: Treasury Minister and Ambassador Ram6n Beteta;

Minister of Agriculture Marte R. G6mez; founder of the
Partido Acci6n National, Manuel G6mez Morin; leftwing labor
leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano; prominent Catholic layman
and civilian leader in the Cristero Rebellion, Miguel Palo-
mar y Vizcarra; Provisional President Emilio Portes Gil;
and intellectual leader Jes6s Silva Herzog, the historian
and economist who figured prominently in the nationaliza-
tion of Mexico's oil industry in 1938. Professor Wilkie
insists, however, that "Oral history is no substitute for
investigation of archive materials, newspapers, or statis-
tical data, for example: it is built upon these types of
research and is only one more approac which can help us to
understand the past and the present." Thus, in his Bolton
Prize volume, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure
and Social Change Since 1910, he supplements his impressive
compilation of historical statistics with the following
"honesty in government" quotation from an oral history
interview with former Treatury Minister Ram6n Beteta:

It is not, as people are apt to believe, that the

minister of the treasury or the president of the repub-
lic or some other minister can one day say, "Well from
such and such appropriations of the budget, send one
half to my home." There are some people who believe
this, mind you. . . . [Upon resignation as treasury
minister in 1952] I personally was accused, for example,
of having taken the gold reserves of the Bank of Mexico
with me to Europe when I went there as ambassador [to
Italy from 1952-1958]. I say it is absurd, but there
are people who believe it. As you say, that is not
necessarily the only way to take advantage of the
government. There are many less vulgar ways, unethical
but legal, in which a public official can acquire
wealth.

Let us say that a public official knows that a high-

way is to be constructed, and that he also knows the
person in charge of building or directing the work. He
can buy, directly or indirectly, the land that will be
affected by such a highway and thus obtain an advan-
tageous position. This is not ethically right, but
legally it is not a crime. And this kind of thing is
quite common, much more so than people think.

4Wilkie, "Postulates of the Oral History Center for

Latin America," Journal of Library History, II (January,
1967), . 49.
Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expendi-
ture and Social Change Since 1910 (2d ed.: Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970),

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80 INTERVIEWING LATIN AMERICAN ELITES

In taping oral history interviews with Latin Ameri-

can political elites, Wilkie has questioned them concerning
their life, thought, and role in history:

Our purpose is to talk with elites about role and their

concepts of role. In terms of social science we wish
to ask comparative questions which are normally not
posed and recorded for history; in terms of humanistic
studies, we want to record the lives of great leaders
in order to understand the detail which makes man's
life unique. In this manner, we may identify groups
which have common heroes and enemies as well as views
which are held in greater or lesser degrees; also, we
may compare how leaders grow up and become involved in
politics in twenty countries of Latin America. The
position of elites in Latin America has obviously been
paramount, if the scholarly literature from the United
States is to be believed, but Latin Americans insist
that they live by ideology. Our purpose is at once to
examine the interplay of personalism and ideology. We
are interested in finding out how leaders think as well
as in assessing their concept of personal, national,
and world history.

Wilkie does not agree with those who insist the oral

pp. 8-9. For other examples of use of oral history inter-

views as sources, see his "The Meaning of the Cristero
Religious War Against the Mexican Revolution," Journal of
Church and State, VIII (Spring, 1966), pp. 214-236; and
"Recent United States-Mexican Relations: Problems Old and
NeW' (co-authored with Lyle C. Brown), in Twentieth Century
American Foreign Policy, ed. by John Braeman, Robert H.
Bremner, and David Brody (Columbus: Ohio State University
Press, 1971), pp. 378-419. Portions of Oral History inter-
views have been translated and printed in James W. Wilkie
and Albert L. Michaels (eds.), Revolution in Mexico: Years
of Upheaval, 1910-1940 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969).
Professor Albert Michaels (SUNY, Buffalo) has also utilized
these oral history materials in his writings on the Cdrdenas
era; for example, see his "Las elecciones de 1940," Historia
Mexicana, XXI (July-September, 1971), pp. 80-134.
6See Wilkie's "Oral History of 'Biographical Elit
lore' in Latin America," a paper presented at the Social
Science Research Council's Conference on Folklore and
Social Science, Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research, New York City, November 10, 1967. This study has
been revised and published in an expanded form as EZitelore
(Los Angeles: Latin American Center, University of Cali-
fornia, 1973). EZitelore is a provocative study that
should be of interest to all oral historians.

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 LYLE BROWN 81

historian should refrain from giving direction to the

interview in order to minimize influencing a narration. On
the contrary, he insists:

The role of the historian is to stimulate a histori-

cal conscience in his subject and to prod his man into
talking about a number of concepts which generally are
of more interest to academicians than to men of action.
He must ask, for example, does a leader change psycho-
logically as he gains more and more power? What prompt-
ed his great success in such fields as politics or
business? Does he have a vision of his country's past
and future or is he acting in a series of accidental
circumstances? What were the turning points in his
personal history and in his country's history? Who are
his heroes and his villains? What, in his view, is the
basis of social organization? What motivates man?

The historian must also go into detail about

specific actions concerning a particular historical
event. Often, questions are self-generating as men of
opposing or allied groups tell their views. One person
attributes an action to another, and we can question
the latter personage later. The oral historian can
move between groups to discuss issues where the partici-
pant in history, caught up in the passion o5 the past,
is limited as to whom he can or will speak.

Commenting on the difficulties of asking the right

questions and helping the person who is being interviewed
to cover a maximum amount of important autobiographical de-
tails, Wilkie notes:

As hard as he tries, the historian can never cover all

of the material which should be developed analytically.
The best he can do is to try to ask sophisticated ques-
tions, knowing full well that a student of the future
will lament that he missed many key elements. Never-
theless, the recorded sessions offer more to history
than does either autobiography or biography alone; and
we can look upon the oral history confrontation as an
improvement in method, got as any final answer to
understanding the past.

What is expected to result from so much questioning

and answering? Interviews are conducted, reels of tape
accumulate, reams of typing paper are filled with

7Wilkie, "Postulates of the Oral History Center for

Latin America," p. 50.
8Ibid., p. 51.

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82 INTERVIEWING LATIN AMERICAN ELITES

transcriptions of dialogue, and large amounts of time and

money are expended; but to what purpose? Professor Wilkie
states:

A sociology of knowledge will emerge as the historian

asks similar questions of leaders who represent ideo-
logies composing the whole political spectrum.
While we must recognize that we shall never find the
whole truth, we are able to record knowledge upon which
representatives of major groups in society have acted
to determine which leaders have worked with the most
accurate information at a given moment in time. Essen-
tially, we are interested in comparing men's lives to
see how the process of national history develops, and
we must remember that what men think happens is often
as important as what actually happens.9

According to Mexico's two most prominent oral his-

torians, Eugenia Meyer and Alicia Olivera de Bonfil,10 oral
history in that country originated in 1959 when Professor
Wigberto Jim6nez Moreno, then head of the Departmento de
Investigaciones Hist6ricas, Instituto Nacional de Antro-
poligia e Historia, organized the Archivo Sonoro [Audio
Archives] to collect the testimony of persons who had
figured prominently in the Mexican Revolution. It was not
until 1968, however, that an extensive interviewing program
was organized.11 Two years later the first in a series of

9Ibid., p. 48. See also Wilkie's "Alternative Views

in History: Historical Statistics and Oral History," in
Research in Mexican History: Topics, Methodology, Sources,
and a Practical Guide to Field Research, comp. and ed. by
Richard E. Greenleaf and Michael C. Meyer (Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press, 1973).
10Eugenia Meyer is author of an excellent histor
graphical work that should be read by all students of Ameri-
can as well as Mexican history: Conciencia hist6rica
norteamericana sobre la Revolucion de 1910 (M6xico, D.F.:
Instituto Nacional de Antropologla e Historia, 1970). Her
most recent book is Luis Cabrera: te6rico y critico de la
Revoluci6n, "Sep-Setentas" No. 48 (M6xico, D.F.: Secre-
tarla de Educaci6n Ptblica, 1972). Alicia Olivera de Bon-
fil has published the best scholarly treatment to date of
the Cristero Rebellion: Aspectos del Conflicto Religioso
de 1926 a 1929 (M6xico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antro-
pologla e Historia, 1966).
11Eugenia Meyer and Alicia Olivera de Bonfil,
historia oral: origen, metodologla, desarrollo y perspec-
tivas," Historia Mexicana, XXI (October-December, 1971),
pp. 373-374; idem, "Oral History in Mexico," Journal of
Library History, VII (October, 1972), pp. 360-361.

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 LYLE BROWN 83

interviews from the Archivo Sonoro of the Instituto

Nacional de Antropologia e Historia were published in
inexpensive booklets. These oral history publications
feature interviews with Dr. Ernest Gruening12 (autho
the well-known Mexico and Its Heritage [New York: Century,
1928], former governor and U.S. senator for Alaska); Miguel
Palomar y Vizcarral3 (a Catholic leader who figured p
minently in Mexico's church-state conflicts of this century
and who was interviewed more extensively by the Wilkies);
Professor Jesis Sotelo Inclfn14 (teacher and zapatista
author of Raiz y Raz6n de Zapata [Ixico, D.F.: Editorial
Etnos, 1943]); and Dr. Gustavo Baz (physician, politician,
and twice governor of the state of Mexico). All four of
these oral history publications provide valuable source
materials for the student of modern Mexican histo

12Ernest Gruening, experiencias y comentario

el Mexico post-revolucionario, interview by Eugenia Meyer
(1970).
13Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra y su interpretaci6n
conflicto religioso de 1926, interview by Alicia Olivera de
Bonfil ( 970).
"4Jesrs Sotelo IncZln y sus conceptos sobre el
movimiento zapatista, interview by Alicia Olivera de Bonfil
and Eugenia Meyer (1970).
15Gustavo Baz y sus juicios como revolucionario,
medico y politico, interview by Alicia Olivera de Bonfil
and Eugenia Meyer (1971).
160ther recently published oral histories in Mexico
includes Pindaro Uri6stegui Miranda, Testimonio del proceso
revolucionario de Mexico (M6xico, D.F.: Argrin, 1970); and
Elena Poniatowska's tape-recorded accounts of the violence
that shook the national capital in October, 1968: La noche
de TZateZolco: testimonios de historia oral (M6xico, D.F.:
Ediciones Era, 1971). Also of special value is a unique
oral history volume by Mexico's noted anthropologist and
linguist, Professor Fernando Horcasitas, Del Porfirio Dtaz
a Zapata: memoria n6huatl de Milpa Alta (Mexico, D.F.:
Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Historicas, Universi-
dad Nacional Autdnoma de M6xico, 1968). This book contains
the transcript of the tape-recorded memoirs of Ndhuatl-
speaking Luz Jimenez, a native of Milpa Alta, which is a
mountain village located on the outskirts of Mexico City.
Dofa Luz's testimony tells us much about the suffering of
Mexico's common people during the bloody years of the
Mexican Revolution. Both the original Nghuatl text and
Professor Horcasitas' Spanish translation are printed on
facing pages. For an English-Ndhuatl edition, see Life and
Death in Milpa Alta: A Nahuatl Chronicle of Diaz and
Zapata, trans. and ed. by Fernando Horcasitas, "The Civili-
zation of the American Indians Series," Vol. 107 (Norman:

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84 INTERVIEWING LATIN AMERICAN ELITES

Recently the Archivo Sonoro has been reorganized as

the Programa de Historia Oral, with offices in the inter-
nationally famous Museum of Anthropology. Under the co-
directorship of Dr. Meyer and Professor Olivera de Bonfil,
this oral history program has continued to interview par-
ticipants in the Mexican Revolution. It has also trained
interviewers and has formulated projects in areas of educa-
tion, the movie industry, and presidential administrations.
One of the potentially most significant projects, which has
been titled "The Historical Task," involves interviewing
senior Mexican historians concerning their work and
thought.17
I am especially interested in "The Historical Task"
because in the summer of 1972 I began an oral history pro-
ject that involves recording the life histories of some of
this country's historians and political scientists who have
published and taught in the fields of Mexican history and
government. This undertaking was suggested by John A.
Garraty's interviews, which have been published in his
Interpreting American History.18 As far as I know,
else has undertaken a similar oral history project for
Mexicanists. I have begun my project by interviewing two
renowned scholars at the University of Texas: Dr. J. Lloyd
Mecham, Professor Emeritus of Government; and Dr. Nettie
Lee Benson, Professor of History and Library Science and
Librarian of the famed Latin American Collection.

In addition to research and teaching in the field of

Latin American politics, for many years I have devoted much
of my academic labor to Texas politics.19 One of the most
recent developments in this area has been the political
mobilization of Mexican-American voters and the founding of
La Raza Unida, a party which has elected a few candidates
for local government offices and which fielded some can-
didates at the state level in 1972. I have been especially

University of Oklahoma Press, 1972). See also Mary Lindsay

Elmendorf, The Maya Woman and Change (Cuernavaca: CIDOC,
1972); a Spanish translation is scheduled for publication
in 1973: La mujer Maya en el cambio, "Sep-Setentas"
(M6xico D.F.: Secretaria de Educaci6n Pbblica).
17Meyer and Olivera de Bonfil, "Oral History in
Mexico," pp. 362-365.
18See Garraty, Interpreting American History; Con-
versations with Historians (2 vols.; New York: Macmillan,
1970).
19See my Practicing Texas Politics, co-authored wit
Eugene W. Jones, Joe E. Ericson, and Robert S. Trotter, Jr.
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1971; 2d edition to be
published in 1974).

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 LYLE BROWN 85

concerned with following Chicano political activities in

Zavala County, where Crystal City is located. Thus in the
summer of 1971 I went to Crystal City, accompanied by
graduate student Tom South and Professor Thomas Charlton,
who is Director of the Baylor University Program for Oral
History. We spent three days there and taped about nine
hours of interviews with Jos6 Angel Gutidrrez, a founder of
La Raza Unida who serves as President of the School Board
for the Crystal City Independent School District. One year
later I returned to tape interviews with School superinten-
dent Angel Noah Gonzalez and with Father Sherrill Smith,
pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Also, I inter-
viewed Cy Tate, Superintendent of the Community School,
which has been founded by opponents of La Raza Unida in
Crystal City; and in Uvalde I recorded Wayne Hamilton, who
was a member of the Crystal City school board at the time
it came under the control of a Raza Unida majority. These
interviews, and others conducted in that area of South
Texas,20 have been of great help in following the birth a
growth of a significant political movement that has come to
have regional, if not national, significance. Hopefully,
tomorrow's historians of Bolton's "Spanish Borderlands"
will find them of special value for interpreting contem-
porary Chicano history.

Since having been converted to the cause of oral

history, one of my goals is to encourage oral history
theses by graduate students. The.plan is simple: after
necessary background research the student should conduct
one or more extensive oral history interviews. Next, he
edits the typescript, translates it (if necessary) into
English, and provides annotations so that people, places,
and events mentioned in an interview can be identified and
their significance understood. The student must also pre-
pare one or more introductory chapters on the life and
times of the person interviewed. In 1971 I directed a
master's thesis in which, instead of conducting her own
interviews, the student used portions of the Wilkies'
interview with Emilio Portes Gil. Her thesis involved
research, writing, translating, editing and annotating; and
in the course of her work the student consulted 127 books,
articles, public documents, and newspapers which are listed
in the bibliography. As it stands, the thesis constitutes
an especially useful source for persons unable to read

20Under my direction, graduate students Tom So

and Joyce Langenegger have completed several oral history
interviews with La Raza Unida politicians and Crystal City
Independent School District teachers and administrators.
When completed, these oral history transcripts will be
deposited with the Texas Collection at Baylor University.

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86 INTERVIEWING LATIN AMERICAN ELITES

Spanish.21
Historians, political scientists, anthropologists,
and scholars in other disciplines continue to be attracted
to the study of Latin America in ever increasing numbers.
My observations and experiences suggest that many of them
can profit from oral history. I also suspect that oral
historians, including those with no special interest in
Latin America, can discover useful methodological approaches
in techniques pioneered by Latin Americanists.

21
See Barbara Morrison, "Provisional President
Emilio Portes Gil Discusses Mexican Revolutionary Politics,
1928-1930: An Oral History Study" (unpublished M.A. thesis,
Baylor University, 1971).

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