User:Ronismith9/Cornell-Peru Project

The Cornell-Peru Project or the CPP was a development project conducted by anthropology graduate students and professor Allan Holmberg from Cornell University from 1952-1966 at the Hacienda in Vicos Mountain in the Andes Highlands that housed members of the indigenous community of Peru. It was one among several applied social science programs focused on agrarian and social reform at Cornell, and an early modernization experiment of the Cold War era. With the help of advisors from the Peruvian government, CPP provided indigenas with modernized healthcare, nutrition, education, language, farming techniques and agricultural methods that controversially eliminated their traditional culture.

Background
Social scientists considered Vicos to be culturally isolated, uninfluenced by Western Civilization, and politics in the urban areas of the country. Nonetheless, they believed that the region was vulnerable to communist and socialist political ideologies. Latin America had already faced the Bolivian revolution and the initiation of Árbenz’s land reform program in 1952, while the Cuban Revolution began in 1953. Cornell crafted their social reform plan to be a cheap and viable replacement for a seemingly imminent socialist program.

Concept and Organization
The project began when newly-hired professor at Cornell, Allan Holmberg, spoke at the first congress of the Instituto Indigenista Peruano (IIP) in 1951 about his idea of planned social change for the region. Holmberg saw Vicos as a center of social injustice and abusive, exploitative behavior against indigenas, and believed it was his moral duty to intervene. Group member Carlos Monge and previous member and Minister of Education, Luis Valcárcel, were on board and later became advisors to the project. Valcárcel got in contact with the country's Minister of Labor and Indigenous Affairs, General Armando Atola, and Chief of Indigenous Affairs in the Ministry of Labor and Indigenous Affairs, Dr. Julio Pereya, who all approved of the project. Word eventually got out to president Manuel A. Odría who, according to Holmberg, took credit for initiating the collaboration with Cornell in a radio address. The CPP officially got under way in 1952 and began seeking funding.

Program Development
Holmberg described the methodology of the project as "participant intervention".