For the fruit companies, these daunting accomplishments were “improvements” wrought by the civilizing influence of the United States. In the early 1900s, U.S.-based banana companies such as United Fruit transformed vast stretches of rainforest into monoculture plantations, while laying railroads and creating settlements that attracted a polyglot mix of workers. Nor is it possible to overstate the impact of bananas in Central America, where no other commodity has so altered the region's ecology, ethnic relations, and power dynamics. domination over “banana republics,” the meanings we impute to the banana speak volumes about the ambiguities of hemispheric interactions. At once an emblem of carefree sensuality in 1940s musicals and of U.S. Among the commodities that symbolize Latin America to those outside the region, few are as multivocal as the banana.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |