How the School of the Americas Cultivated Images of Manly Men

SOA graduates cultivated images of themselves as manly men upon their return to Bolivia by regaling peers and academy students with accounts of sexual exploits. Part of the allure of going abroad was the opportunity to play out sexist and racist stereotypes away from the constraints of their own society. In Panama, single men had disposable income that was unencumbered by alternative claims that would shape its use in Bolivia. It also enabled them to enter a transnational world of power and pleasure that no one at home, except for a select few, knew.