I used to believe that the world was like the movies; the good guys battled the bad guys, and they were distinguished as good or evil by the color of horse they rode.

For me, the United States always rode the white horse. “When I was a child, I thought like a child.” Now, I an a college student studying abroad in Mexico, and I’ve had to put such thinking behind me.

The United Sates is regularly mentioned in my Latin American history textbooks, often followed by phrases such as, “CIA organized military coup,” and “overthrow of democratically elected government.” And no, these mainstream texts cannot be discounted as leftist propaganda. The historical reality is that our nation’s foreign policy has borne mixed fruit.

For all of its good, our policies have also produced some of Latin America’s worst human rights abusers. U.S. funds and military aid helped to bring into power and keep in power the regimes of General Pinochet, in Chile, Rios Mont in Guatemala and countless others across Central and South America. The results were state sponsored rape, torture and slaughter of the civilian population — terrorism.

I don’t write this to defame the United States. We have much for which to be proud. Rather, I write this to defame, debunk and criticize the ideology that the United States is infallible. The blind faith that our country can do no harm is a bastardization of religion and a bad reading of history. Moreover, believing that we are always the white knight is dangerous, for it stops the very self-criticism that checks against abuse of power. Whether or not America lives up to its ideals, of spreading justice and democracy in the world, depends on whether or not we hold our government accountable to those ideals.

The current administration couldn’t be further from the truth in labeling those critical of its politics as unpatriotic. On the contrary, it is the critical citizen who ensures that America’s actions are worthy of our pride.

So far, Latin America has taught me to more fully appreciate the United States, but at the same time to remove my rose colored glasses.

Ryan Richards

Puebla, Mexico