This Day In Latino History

On June 8, 1901, Harper’s Weekly published this cartoon announcing the Pan American Exposition–America’s World’s Fair-type attempt to show Germany that everyone in the Western Hemisphere was all united. Or at least that Latin America was underneath the frying pan of the United States. And there they would stay until two-thousand and hum-hum-hum. According to historians at the New York Times:

This Harper’s Weekly cartoon by Albert Levering presents the Pan-American Exhibition of 1901 as a cooking pan collectively held aloft by happy personifications of Latin American nations. Symbolically atop the pan is a gigantic Uncle Sam who uses the Monroe Doctrine for stability in his delicate balancing act. The lighthearted verse (to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel”) describes the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II as an unpredictable threat of European intervention in the Western Hemisphere.

 

And on this day in 1950, Brazilian actress and Kim Catrall’s girlfriend on Sex & The City, Sonia Braga, was born to Maria José “Zeze” Braga, a seamstress, and a realtor father who died when she was eight. Sonia would grow, in the hot, sultry, Brazilian jungles, to be a fine looking specimen with an ability to act. In the 1970’s she landed a role with a soap opera in Brazil called Gabriela. It made her a star and led to a film by the same name and finally, in 1985, her English-speaking debut in America with Kiss Of The Spider Woman. Yada yada yada, romance with Robert Redford. Etc, etc, Milagro Beanfield War, and then, unfortunately, Angel Eyes. And then we really don’t hear from her publicly again until she makes out with Samantha Jones. But she will always be “The Brazilian Bombshell” from back when it was acceptable to be named such things. We love her.