An Aymara-language poster, No. 67, printed by El Condor in Lima and filed with U.S. Information Agency posters, dated 1958. A family eats outside a stone hut beside sacks of barley and maize, for a Peru-United States cooperative program to aid victims of drought (NAID 6948890).
What it shows
The scene is a stone hut with a thatched roof. Outside it, the archive records, a family eats from a pot, beside sacks marked for barley and maize and an open crate. A llama and a walker are on the hillside beyond. The printed words are few, and most of them are in Aymara.
Llakisinsta ukapachaqa ampara churistuwa
CEBADA
MAIZ
WAÑAMARANXA PERU-ESTADOS UNIDOS JUNTASIWSINQA
YANAPIWA HAQENAKARUXA
IMP. "EL CONDOR" AMARGURA 983 LIMA-PERU
The archive's English version, which it labels a machine translation by Claude not verified by a fluent reader, gives the first line as "A hand was given to us in that time of sorrow." The sack labels are Spanish for barley and maize. For the last two lines it gives "The Peru-United States joint program helps the people [stricken by drought]," and says the Aymara reading is approximate and follows two English notes pencilled on the sheet, which are not part of the print: "A Helping Hand in Time of Crisis (Aymara)" and "Peruvian-United States Cooperative Program to Aid Victims of the Drought."
Who made it
A U.S. Information Agency post is the maker of record, filing it in the series of posters distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, printed by El Condor at Amargura 983, Lima. The catalog title places it with USIS Lima. FRAME classes the source as openly identified. Artist and print run go unrecorded. The archive's purpose field is "Reassure."
How to read it
FRAME tags it plain folks and glittering generalities: a fed rural family and the phrase "helping hand" stand for the aid program. The design is quiet. There is no enemy, no slogan about communism, and no American flag in the description.
Two things are worth a reader's attention. The first is the language. A poster in Aymara, rather than Spanish, was made for Aymara readers in their own tongue; the Spanish on it is limited to the sack labels, the country names and the printer's imprint. The second is the credit line. The program is named as joint, Peru and the United States together, so the credit is shared rather than claimed. The poster gives no figures, so there is nothing on it to check. Compare a more detailed aid sheet from the same file, the 1953 American wheat photo poster for Jordan, and the U.S. Information Agency hub.
Sources
- FRAME object record, A Helping Hand in Time of Crisis poster, No. 67 (Aymara, USIS Lima), 1958. U.S. Information Agency (USIS post), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East series; printed by El Condor, Lima.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 306, NAID 6948890 (306-PPB-67), retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
