The U.S. political and military intervention in Honduras can be accounted from the United Fruit company and the exploitation of resources in the “bananeras” or plantations; to the use of the Honduran territory for military purposes: to maintain control of the region, to overthrow a democratic elected president in Guatemala in the 1950’s; and to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua during the 1980’s. Most recently, in 2009 the U.S. was involved in the ousting of elected President Manuel Zelaya, a development that can be accounted as one of the major factors in the increase of Honduran migration to the U.S. in the last few years.
Guest: Dana Frank is Professor of History Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of several books including Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America, most recently,The Long Honduran Night: Resistance , Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup.