Letters and Politics

The Role of the U.S. in the Current Honduran Crisis

We are in conversation about the history of the U.S. involvement in Honduras and how that history helps explain why Hondurans are fleeing their country and seeking asylum in United States.  We talk about how the U.S. has spend more than a century using the Honduran territory to exploit its land and people in the Banana plantations with the United Fruit Company and mining companies, to using military bases for both, to overthrow a democratic elected president in Guatemala in the 1950’s and to counter the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980’s. And more recently, to oust Honduran president Manuel Zelaya.

Guest: Dana Frank is Professor of History Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  She is the author of Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America. Her latest is The Long Honduran Night. 

About the Long Honduran Night

The book directly counters mainstream media coverage that portrays Honduras as a pit of unrelenting awfulness, in which powerless people sob in the face of unexplained violence. Rather, it’s about sobering challenges with roots in historical and political processes, and the inspiring collective strength with which people face them.  An important piece of information that explains why currently Hondurans are fleeing their country.

 

 

 

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BOOK The Long Honduran Night by Dana Frank $100

DVD When Banana Ruled by Mathilde Damoisel $150

MP3 CD Best of Letters & Politics 2018 Pack $100

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