This week’s readings started by mentioning an issue that Latin America has faced for a long time; describing the US role in Latin America. Coming from a Latin American country, and having learned history there, I can totally say that the US is 95% of the time protraid as a violent opressor, and the other 5% as an investor and cultural influence in the countries.

It was very interesting to read about the business of bananas in diverse countries of Latin America. Reading about Guatemala’s situation made me found another connection between Latin American countries, in Colombia, the huge influence of the United Fruit Company was also present. I can honestly say that when I read about the “Masacre de las Bananeras” in Colombia, performed by the United Fruit Company, I found the US companies repulsive, and all I felt angry and sad about what had happened. For the ones that dont know, this masacre occured in 1928, in Magdalena Colombia, when the Colombian armed forces opened fire against an undetermined number of  workers of the United friut Company that were protesting for the poor working conditions. The number of deaths is believe to be more than 1000. How can a country forget about the death of 1000 workers? how to forget that they were working for the US Company? and even worse, how to forget that was the local government who killed his own people under the influence of the US? Even today, when you visit Ciénaga, Magdalena, you can see banana plantations and some signs in rememberance of the masacre: as street grafity, or even publicity for some political parties. As a Colombian, I can’t take this memory lightly.  Colombian people dont forget those huge things easily. It is very hard to see the possitive impact of the US on Latin American countries when there is a very violent past.

The silent was video was one that balanced the negativeness of the US intervention on Colombia. The US provided aid to the friendly countries (as they are denoted in the book), in this case it was the Yellow Fever Vaccine. I consider that the help of the US in this case was much needed, a lot of people are exposed to Yellow Fever every day in Colombia, and if it wasnt for the vaccines, we would have had a lot of life losses.

I found very intersting the document by the Nicaraguan guerrilla leader, Augusto Sandino. The Political Manifesto has a very anti-imperialist view. In the Journey to the Banana Land video, I felt the whole story was told for an US American audience, and portrayed as a very benefical process. The last document was surprising, I really enjoyed the connections that Dorfman makes with the cartoons as a imperialist tools.