(Photo by Liza Lagman via Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Few things in the grocery store are cheaper than a banana. Rich in potassium, vitamin C, and plenty of antioxidants, the banana is a clear kitchen staple for households worldwide. In the U.S. specifically, bananas are commonly $0.23 each and lower—a price most Americans will be hard-pressed to find elsewhere in their grocery store. Unfortunately, much of the cost of a banana is not reflected in the price. It is paid in the labour and suffering of the people living in countries commonly referred to as ‘banana republics’.
Guatemala is perhaps one of the clearest examples of a banana republic. Hundreds of years of exploitation, in part committed by the U.S. government and U.S.-owned companies, have left Guatemalans helpless. They face the choice to either send their families (including children) to work for large, abusive, U.S.-owned corporations or seek refuge in the very country responsible for their suffering.
How Guatemala Became the U.S.’s Banana Factory
It is not an exaggeration to say that the U.S. toppled the Guatemalan government over bananas. The American United Fruit Company—since rebranded to Chiquita—sided with dictatorships during World War II. They culled rainforests, built a complex railroad system for moving bananas, and purchased over 40% of Guatemala’s arable land.
Some time after World War II, Guatemala established a democracy and elected President Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz attempted to redistribute land directly to local farmers. Despite the fact that this land was mostly unused, the United Fruit Company was not happy. It lobbied the U.S. government through a massive propaganda campaign against Arbenz, until eventually the U.S. CIA stepped in to arm and fund a coup to overthrow him, claiming that the U.S. was fighting communism. This coup sparked a civil war that went on for several decades, with the support of the U.S., and involved a genocide of over 200,000 indigenous Mayan peoples.
Today, it is not just United Fruit rebranded as Chiquita that dominates Guatemala. There are other agricultural companies at play, such as Dole and Del Monte, which are headquartered in other countries but still U.S.-owned. They cut costs by placing their headquarters abroad. Dole, for example, is headquartered in Ireland, where corporate taxes are famously low. U.S. companies have a clear monopoly on food production in Latin America. Yet one of the largest of these companies, Chiquita, still acts as if it does not have enough resources by carrying out forced evictions in Guatemala and refusing to compromise with union leaders in nearby Panama.
Poor Working Conditions & Climate Change Fuel Migration
Although most banana companies are U.S.-owned, there is no expectation that they will follow U.S. labour laws while operating in other countries. In fact, U.S. banana companies expect Guatemalans to work well below a livable wage and wage theft is a known issue. A large majority of banana farms are monoculture farms, which hasten the effects of climate change by degrading soil and facilitating the spread of disease. Labourers are expected to work long hours in fields filled with harmful pesticides that cause infertility, respiratory problems, and pollute local air and water supplies.
“The fields were bad,” says José, a Guatemalan-American immigrant anonymized here for his own safety due to rising ICE tensions in his community. “But what was worse was not being able to work at all. The fields get sick, and we get sick, so we have to work… But when the field gets too sick, there is nothing and [the company] just looks somewhere else. That’s why I came here [to the United States].”
As agricultural exploitation continues, more and more Guatemalans like José will need to seek refuge elsewhere. Guatemalans account for over 1.5 million migrants in the U.S. Given the state of the U.S.-dominated agricultural industry in Guatemala, U.S. companies may well be among the main factors pressuring them to migrate.
A Legacy of Fear in Guatemala Props Up the Banana Giants
Guatemala specifically has a history of fear of speaking out, so evidence is hard to come by. However, every few years, someone speaks out. Most recently, the textile industry was shown to be abysmal, firing anyone who dared to speak out. This same culture of fear was seen during COVID and in the forced labour that occurs on coffee plantations.
This fear is completely justified. Not only do people fear losing the ability to feed and house their families, but Chiquita has gone as far as massacring banana farmers who protested for basic rights in Colombia.
“It wasn’t us [in Guatemala] that they killed, but we talk about it,” says José when asked about the Colombian banana massacre. “Everyone knows that they’ve killed people. And everyone knows, even here, a cousin or someone who said something they should not have. They’re not working there anymore.”
What to Do with all that Cancelled USAID Funding? Answer: ICE Raids
Until recently, the U.S. government was throwing at least some money at the problem. Over the past few years, the government agency responsible for humanitarian assistance abroad, USAID, has spent well over $100M to support farming and address food scarcity. Although USAID itself is arguably a modern tool of colonialism, the sudden Trump administration cuts to USAID have been catastrophic. In a nation dominated by large U.S. agribusiness companies, small farmers can hardly compete. With the loss of USAID, the few small farmers able to function and feed their local populations have been left with nothing in the middle of a heavy growing season.
“They will have to go somewhere else,” José says of this change. “It’s that simple. Where will they get the money?” As people struggle to find work in Guatemala, they turn to banana plantations that do not pay them enough to afford healthy, ethically grown food produced by local farmers. Farmers will no longer have USAID’s support to offer affordable prices to local families while still paying their workers a livable wage.
The Trump administration knows that cutting USAID only fuels migration. To combat this, they have ramped up deportations within their borders, going as far as offering $50,ooo sign-on bonuses to new ICE agents in order to accomplish their goals. While the exact allocation of former USAID funds in Trump’s White House is unclear, the priority has shifted significantly to an ICE-forward budget. Some deportation campaigns have even targeted Guatemalan children specifically.
With Guatemala stretched so thin, it has now joined the list of countries that have agreed to accept third-country deportations from the U.S. Deportees face endless challenges regardless of where they are sent, whether it is their home country or elsewhere, ranging from food insecurity to active threats to their safety due to their LGBTQ+ identities. Third-country deportees, though, are often at an increased risk. As most countries with robust human rights laws are against this form of deportation, the U.S. government turns to nations with histories of human rights violations.
Home is the Place where Basic Human Rights are Met
The U.S. continues to not answer for its massacre, exploitation, and continued abuse of people with less power. While grassroots movements to change farming practices in Guatemala and lawsuits against the banana giants are important, these initiatives are not meaningfully backed by the U.S. government. The only thing they have done in response to their own mess is conduct mass deportations, and this cannot be an acceptable response.
With the U.S. in the midst of an anti-immigrant, authoritarian regime, not all hope is lost. There is already a culture of resisting ICE in major U.S. cities, and this must be sustained. Morale amongst ICE agents is at an all-time low due to negative public pressure and pressure from the White House. It is our responsibility as humans everywhere to keep the pressure on when basic human rights are being violated. We can see the momentum building in real time. ICE recruiters have grown so desperate that they are pouring money into advertisements offering high sign-on bonuses and college tuition.
Immigrants come to the US.. from all over the world to escape very real threats, many of which are the fault of the U.S. and its fellow wealthy nations. U.S. banana plantations are only one of the many forms of exploitation imposed upon Guatemala. Companies from wealthy nations are increasingly outsourcing to Guatemala, and gentrification by tourists is taking a heavy toll as the cost of living plummets from the perspective of the growing number of “digital nomads”. The only solution to the so-called U.S. immigration crisis is to improve the lives that people must flee from, to begin with.
“I would rather stay there [in Guatemala],” says José. “That’s my home. I just wasn’t able to anymore.”
Edited by Lubaba Mahmud
