The Crowd at the Door: Memories of the Early Days of Television in Nicaragua

Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to react. You don't have to remember. You don't miss your brain because you don't need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet. You are in nirvana. And if some poor nasty minded person comes along and says you look like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn't got the price of a television set.
Raymond Chandler


I’m a child of the television era. Although television was still in its infancy, the year of my birth—1954—coincides with the advent of the set into every American household. In Los Angeles, then the capital of television programming, there were seven stations: the three networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—and four local ones. Black and white images of the world now invaded our homes, for color television was barely imaginable.

Primitive by today’s standards, the moving pictures on the screen still managed to mesmerize household audiences. A leap beyond the world of radio that had held sway over the previous generation, television opened a window, and the universe entered like a bright ray of sunlight. It has become a light we now take for granted.

Programs of that era—Bonanza, Leave it to Beaver, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Lone Ranger, and the list goes on—have become essential American cultural markers, often referenced, nearly fifty years after their demise, in films and television programs being produced today.

For baby-boomers, like me, television was a live display of sorrow, as evidenced by the coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; a dosage of shock so perverse we still find it difficult to believe: the live execution of Lee Harvey Oswald; and an inspiring glimpse into the creation of a myth when The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan.

Television made the world spin faster than my peers and I could keep up.

And then, my parents returned to Nicaragua, their homeland.

Time retreated, in my eyes, about a century. But the experience wasn’t completely disagreeable. Before long I was enjoying the giddy sensation that progress had come to a standstill. In Nicaragua, everything around me was steeped in history and tradition, beginning with the walls of my new home—a vast colonial dwelling that was at least 120 years old at the time, and continues to stand today.

I admit that at the beginning I missed the excitement of American television. But the tranquility of the house and the liveliness of the streets gave me two alternatives regarding how to spend my time: in familial conversations or quiet reflection, or wandering the streets as an eager observer of life in my new country.

Television hadn’t entirely disappeared from my life, however. The technology arrived about the same time my family moved there. An uncle, married to my mother’s sister and whose family also lived in the vast colonial compound, had brought back a large-screen set from the United States (back then anything larger than 19” was considered enormous) and placed it in the living-room.

Doors in colonial Granada open directly to the sidewalks, and when they’re open—to allow the air of the cooling tropical evening to flow through the house—anyone from the street could easily stroll in. But the doorframe was a respected cultural threshold, and every person in the city knew not to cross the invisible line unless invited.

In my home, as was the custom throughout Granada, the doors opened at four in the afternoon. And in those days, the nation’s sole television station, owned by the Somoza family, began transmitting cartoons at that hour as well. As soon as our doors opened, a crowd of children assembled at the entrance, ready to watch.

Before long, a working-class crowd of Granadinos of all ages had formed a human wall—sometimes three or four rows deep—across the five-foot wide entry. My family, out of politeness, left a gap in the middle so that those gathered at the entrance could also watch. For two hours my home became a theater, of sorts, where children and grown-ups laughed at the antics of Felix the Cat and other “muñequitos” (little play figures) dubbed into Spanish.

Then, promptly at six, the traditional hour for Granadinos to have dinner, my great-aunts would rise from their seats—a signal the crowd soon learned to recognize—and the gathering dispersed as the set was turned off, the doors were closed, and my family proceeded to the dining room. Afterward, the doors would be opened again and another cluster of viewers would congregate, but the numbers never matched those of the late afternoons.

I recall that I could only endure a couple of such events. I couldn’t tolerate the amateurish breakdowns in programming (the station technicians were learning on the job, I am sure), nor could I stand my once favorite shows dubbed into Spanish. But, most of all, the human barrier at the door brought out the claustrophobic in me. Instead, then, I’d usually beg the pardon of the wall, which would slowly part to let me out—not a single member missing a second of what was taking place on the screen—and I’d take to the streets to find something more interesting to observe.

As I look back upon those first days of television in Nicaragua, the experience has acquired a metaphoric quality: as the privileged sat comfortably in their homes to watch the rapidly changing world, the poor stood outside, looking in. And then, within a few years, an angry revolution replaced the gentle and centuries-long separation of the social classes. A new leadership would urge the working-class to claim—and in many cases, expropriate—what belonged to those of greater means.

These changes, I believe, where inevitable, given Nicaragua’s social conditions, but did the advent of television accelerate the process?

Over the years, this is a question I’ve often asked myself. Did programs imported from the United States, programs that portrayed characters who lived in a far more comfortable and contented world, create a groundswell of dissatisfaction among the Nicaraguan poor? Did the illusion of a world in which people’s basic needs are easily met undermine centuries-worth of tradition?

Before long the crowds at the doors disappeared. Sets became affordable and every household, even families who lived in shacks, had an antenna on the roof. And it was also around this time—when the world entered every Nicaraguan home—that the status quo started to crumble.