"Disney Health Films in Mexico" Topic

"President Franklin D. Roosevelt, concerned with Nazi infiltration in the American continents, created the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) in August of 1940. Its purpose was to coordinate US government activity with regard to commercial and cultural affairs in Latin America, or "the other Americas," as the region's southern countries were then known. The OIAA's publications were as important tool in strengthening the unity of the continents, including returning to the old Bolivarian ideal of unifying the republics. Continental defense was a US political priority, and the OIAA took on a specifically propagandistic role in Latin America against the Axis powers and in favor of US interests. Roosevelt appointed Nelson Rockefeller coordinator of the OIAA; Rockefeller, aware of the need to strengthen diplomatic ties between his country and Latin American nations, encouraged cooperative projects in education, health, and agriculture to promote US views through educational films. He invited John Hay Whitney to serve as director of the film section of the OIAA, and, later, Francis Alstock.

Upon its formation, the OIAA held two important meetings, both in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to discuss both the health conditions of Latin America in the context of World War II, and the position that the Americas should take in the event of an invasion. The first of these meetings was the 3a Reunión de Ministros de Relaciones Exteriores de Latinoamérica (Third Meeting of Secretaries of Foreign Affairs of Latin America; January 1942), and the second, the XI Conferencia Sanitaria Panamericana (September 1942). The association of health and war, and especially the defense of the hemisphere, were central topics. At the secretaries' meeting, they established that the Western Hemisphere's health and hygiene problems should be resolved through bilateral or multilateral agreements. The concept of collaboration was laid out as the most effective method to solve problems of common interest. At the Sanitaria Panamericana meeting, continental defense and public health were the central themes. Participants in both meetings concluded that defense of the hemisphere in matters of health was a priority for Latin American countries. In this fusion of politics and public health, the United States, through the OIAA, directed cultural programs in Latin America and promoted educational films in order to disseminate them.1

In this context, programs titled "Health for the Americas" and "Literacy for the Americas" were designed and implemented in Mexico and other Latin American countries throughout the 1940s. Themes of health and literacy were Rockefeller's priority, and he chose film produced by Walt Disney to promote them because, as he said, "we had to take advantage of his worldwide prestige." The combination of these two themes was a base for short educational films designed to combine health care and personal hygiene with agricultural work as something inherent in the population's daily life; thus, the protagonists were rural inhabitants. The goal of both programs was to "improve the quality of life," teaching Latin Americans to care for their health and to read and write in Spanish…"
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