bananas

Week Nine: America

I learned a lot about the United States presence in Guatemala growing up. I think there is something especially consumable about a war waged based on fruit. While I appreciate Dawson’s use of this example, I think that it obscures and takes place of ot…

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Week Nine: America

I learned a lot about the United States presence in Guatemala growing up. I think there is something especially consumable about a war waged based on fruit. While I appreciate Dawson’s use of this example, I think that it obscures and takes place of other extremely violent forms of United States interventionism. The Cold War resulted in some of the most despicable maneuvers that are often left untouched in Latin American history courses such as the heavy involvement in the Sandanista movement. I wish that textbooks and more accessible literature widened their scope of example. Nicaragua is one of the most compelling revolutions in my opinion just from the massive female involvement in creating a new government. In reading about the United Fruit Company, I remembered a Pablo Neruda poem titled “United Fruit Co.”

When the trumpet sounded
everything was prepared on earth,
and Jehovah gave the world
to Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, and other corporations.
The United Fruit Company
reserved for itself the most juicy
piece, the central coast of my world,
the delicate waist of America.
It rebaptized these countries
Banana Republics,
and over the sleeping dead,
over the unquiet heroes
who won greatness,
liberty, and banners,
it established an opera buffa:
it abolished free will,
gave out imperial crowns, encouraged envy, attracted
the dictatorship of flies:
Trujillo flies, Tachos flies
Carias flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico flies, flies sticky with
submissive blood and marmalade,
drunken flies that buzz over
the tombs of the people,
circus flies, wise flies
expert at tyranny.
With the bloodthirsty flies
came the Fruit Company,
amassed coffee and fruit
in ships which put to sea like
overloaded trays with the treasures
from our sunken lands.
Meanwhile, the Indians fall
into the sugared depths of the
harbors and are buried in the
morning mists;
a corpse rolls, a thing without
name, a discarded number,
a bunch of rotten fruit
thrown on the garbage heap.
I think Neruda’s poem is extremely powerful and effective at communicating the issues with United States interventionism. He manages to address multiple layered issues, specifically how entire countries were rebranded as Banana Republics. At the same time, the indigenous were on the receiving end of violence that exploited their labor for fruit. Bodies become synonymous with rotten fruit being discarded without much thought. The poem reminds me a bit about the struggle surrounding the Panama Canal where so many lives were lost for material gain. Neruda captivates by eloquently capturing the greed of these companies in imagery of the rich fruit and “sunken lands.”
It is really interesting to see how Latin American artists use surrounding political issues to form their art. I hope that we get to look into magical realism and poetry as an aspect of Latin American culture.

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Week Nine: America

I learned a lot about the United States presence in Guatemala growing up. I think there is something especially consumable about a war waged based on fruit. While I appreciate Dawson’s use of this example, I think that it obscures and takes place of ot…

Posted in Blogs, Week 9 | Tagged with , ,

Week 9 – Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

My favourite quote in this week’s readings is from “From the Noble Savage to the Third World.” Dorfmann and Mattelart write: “There are two forms of killing: by machine guns and saccharine.” The United States was not only a military … Continue reading →

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Week Nine

We’ve already seen glimpses throughout past chapters but in this week’s topic, we take a more focused look at the…

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Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

I had always known that Latin America and the United States have had a tumultuous relationship, but I have never thought about how truly complex it was. Just by reading Chapter 6 in the textbook, I got a fair idea of how truly damaging yet necessary this relationship was. I really enjoyed reading about the …

Continue reading “Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire”

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Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

I had always known that Latin America and the United States have had a tumultuous relationship, but I have never thought about how truly complex it was. Just by reading Chapter 6 in the textbook, I got a fair idea of how truly damaging yet necessary this relationship was. I really enjoyed reading about the …

Continue reading “Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire”

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Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

This was an extremely interesting topic to read on. It was basically about the ideas of Roosevelt and how the pictures of Latin America were depicted towards the rest of the world. Such could be cartoons and live action documentary series with Walt’s Disney. These shows described Latin America as beautiful, friendly and lively. Until today I didn’t realise the amount of Latin American influence on television. There had been in shows like Donald Duck and a few others which show and illustrate Latin America’s ideals and the country as a whole. One such instance of Latin American influence in cartoons is when Donald dances to Samba music. Even though this is minor it still shows a lot about the country itself and portrayed how Latin America had been associated with things like dance and music at the time, and even now.

 These shows were mostly used to provide propaganda and the interactions between Latin America and USA in order to provide some sense of stability in the eyes of the Europeans. 

The lecture also talks about the drug cartels and how the US was not doing enough in order to prevent such situations. I was shocked to discover that US had invaded Latin America over 20 times in the 20th century and it makes me question what they wanted from them as they kept coming back to invade.

Moreover, the lectures explore the dominance of the USA on the rest of the world and how they have huge involvements and interventions with regard to South America and other countries in the world.  

The topic of imperialism is also explored: It is associated with a ton of other words such as globalization. The country used the “divide and conquer” method for its own selfish interests. The second video done by students was very interesting. Over 4 minutes of the start of the video was about Banana’s and their adverts and how it had become a monopoly.  Some countries like Guatemala relied on such goods and because the US was a monopoly at the time other countries suffered while the US thrived.

I can now see and relate to certain perspectives that have been explored within the student video and the lecture videos as it is evident how US controlled such a huge part of the world and kept wanting more dominance from other countries for their own selfish reasons.

For a fact I know that the US is still one of the most powerful territories in the world, but do events such as these still happen today? Are there any current situations like US and Latin America but with other countries instead?  

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Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

This was an extremely interesting topic to read on. It was basically about the ideas of Roosevelt and how the pictures of Latin America were depicted towards the rest of the world. Such could be cartoons and live action documentary series with Walt’s Disney. These shows described Latin America as beautiful, friendly and lively. Until today I didn’t realise the amount of Latin American influence on television. There had been in shows like Donald Duck and a few others which show and illustrate Latin America’s ideals and the country as a whole. One such instance of Latin American influence in cartoons is when Donald dances to Samba music. Even though this is minor it still shows a lot about the country itself and portrayed how Latin America had been associated with things like dance and music at the time, and even now.

 These shows were mostly used to provide propaganda and the interactions between Latin America and USA in order to provide some sense of stability in the eyes of the Europeans. 

The lecture also talks about the drug cartels and how the US was not doing enough in order to prevent such situations. I was shocked to discover that US had invaded Latin America over 20 times in the 20th century and it makes me question what they wanted from them as they kept coming back to invade.

Moreover, the lectures explore the dominance of the USA on the rest of the world and how they have huge involvements and interventions with regard to South America and other countries in the world.  

The topic of imperialism is also explored: It is associated with a ton of other words such as globalization. The country used the “divide and conquer” method for its own selfish interests. The second video done by students was very interesting. Over 4 minutes of the start of the video was about Banana’s and their adverts and how it had become a monopoly.  Some countries like Guatemala relied on such goods and because the US was a monopoly at the time other countries suffered while the US thrived.

I can now see and relate to certain perspectives that have been explored within the student video and the lecture videos as it is evident how US controlled such a huge part of the world and kept wanting more dominance from other countries for their own selfish reasons.

For a fact I know that the US is still one of the most powerful territories in the world, but do events such as these still happen today? Are there any current situations like US and Latin America but with other countries instead?  

Posted in Blogs | Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Week 9: Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

This was an extremely interesting topic to read on. It was basically about the ideas of Roosevelt and how the pictures of Latin America were depicted towards the rest of the world. Such could be cartoons and live action documentary series with Walt’s Disney. These shows described Latin America as beautiful, friendly and lively. Until today I didn’t realise the amount of Latin American influence on television. There had been in shows like Donald Duck and a few others which show and illustrate Latin America’s ideals and the country as a whole. One such instance of Latin American influence in cartoons is when Donald dances to Samba music. Even though this is minor it still shows a lot about the country itself and portrayed how Latin America had been associated with things like dance and music at the time, and even now.

 These shows were mostly used to provide propaganda and the interactions between Latin America and USA in order to provide some sense of stability in the eyes of the Europeans. 

The lecture also talks about the drug cartels and how the US was not doing enough in order to prevent such situations. I was shocked to discover that US had invaded Latin America over 20 times in the 20th century and it makes me question what they wanted from them as they kept coming back to invade.

Moreover, the lectures explore the dominance of the USA on the rest of the world and how they have huge involvements and interventions with regard to South America and other countries in the world.  

The topic of imperialism is also explored: It is associated with a ton of other words such as globalization. The country used the “divide and conquer” method for its own selfish interests. The second video done by students was very interesting. Over 4 minutes of the start of the video was about Banana’s and their adverts and how it had become a monopoly.  Some countries like Guatemala relied on such goods and because the US was a monopoly at the time other countries suffered while the US thrived.

I can now see and relate to certain perspectives that have been explored within the student video and the lecture videos as it is evident how US controlled such a huge part of the world and kept wanting more dominance from other countries for their own selfish reasons.

For a fact I know that the US is still one of the most powerful territories in the world, but do events such as these still happen today? Are there any current situations like US and Latin America but with other countries instead?  

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