Import Export

Why is fruit expensive in South America, home of the most fertile land in the world?

Because it all comes here, to your local supermarket, in the desert where nothing grows.

Without Latin America, we would have nothing.

And according to Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan historian and author, without Latin America we would also be nothing.

"Underdevelopment in Latin America is a consequence of development elsewhere, that we Latin Americans are poor because the ground we tread is rich, and that places privileged by nature have been cursed by history."

~Eduardo Galeano,

excerpt from Open Veins of Latin America: 5 Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

The Spaniards first graced Latin America's region in 1492. From that point on, Europe had gold in their eyes and soon money in their pockets. The invaders saw a land rich in minerals: gold, silver, iron, copper, aluminum, bauxite, nickel, and manganese, (and later on, petroleum). But they also saw a land dripping with money from the abundance of produce that simply drips off the trees and oozes out of the lush landscape. And from that point on, Galeano claims, Latin America was not a land to be lived in or to be settled, but rather one to be dominated.

Galeano asks: why is North America so rich and South America so poor when they were both founded by the same culture? And he answers: because North America's soil is infertile, dry, nutrient poor. Europeans sailed to North America to make a carbon copy image of Europe. They came to live. South America's soil is rich, lush, and perfect. They came to Latin America to pillage, to take without giving back. For if you're not going to live somewhere, why is it necessary to take care of it?

I suppose this proves that selfishness over sustainability has been around for longer than we realize.

And now? "Most Latin American countries are identified in the world market with a single raw material or foodstuff." Guatemala: coffee. Argentina: meat. Ecuador: bananas.

But what's the harm of exporting if the countries have so much?

When in Guatemala, I never once drank a cup of coffee other than Nescafe Instant (imported from the States). And where are the rich, dark, delicious beans grown in the country's valleys surrounded by volcanos (the perfect climate for growing coffee trees)? In the coffee pots of North America. In Starbucks. Or in other words, exported. In Costa Rica, a country practically littered with bananas, one piece of the yellow fruit costs US$1. How does this make sense?

Potosi, Bolivia used to be the wealthiest city in South America. Now, it is a slum and little more. Haiti, once a rich and beautiful country is now the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Galeano describes Haiti in the 70's: "it has more foot-washers than shoeshiners: little boys who, for a penny, will wash the feet of customers lacking shoes to shine." Now decades later not much as changed; people build their homes of cardboard on the growing landfill.

Examples of cities that have fallen from riches to rags could fill a whole book. In fact Galeano did just that if you're interested in some (not so light) reading that will leave you scratching your head and hating the world. But to save you some time, in an attempt to summarize just one section of his dense pages to a few thoughts: although Europe has stopped it's colonizing voyages to Latin America to pillage the land and massacre the natives, has the violence and exploitation of Latin America actually stopped? He says no. While his pages drip with anger and pride for his continent, when you look closer, his arguments may not be that extreme. For today, instead of Spanish conquistadors, we're talking about U.S. government involvement. "U.S. capital is more tightly concentrated in Latin America than in the U.S. itself." While the U.S. has shifted some of its interest towards the Middle East these days, without Central and South America, the U.S. would crumble. And not just because we wouldn't have year round fruit. But because we are more dependent on all the countries south of the Mexican border than we will ever realize; a dependence that is largely hidden under layers of politics and tucked away out of sight. The U.S. relies on Latin America for reasons that take a great deal of searching to uncover; reasons I'm not claiming to fully understand.