Open Veins of Latin America Chapter Three

1.) "Che Guevara said that underdevelopment was a dwarf with an enormous head and bloated stomach: its spindly legs and stubby arms do not fit with the rest of the body." (page 78). Galeano speaks about underdevelopment of Brazil due to the rubber trade in pages 87-91, the underdevelopment of Venezuela due to the caco trade in pages 91-94, the underdevelopment of El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Haiti, and Columbia due to the coffee trade in pages 97-99. Pick one of those sections and write an analogy like Che did that will describe how that industry affected the population. For example the coffee trade in Guatemala was like... Support your analogy with three examples from the text.

Brazil was way too dependent on Coffee. Nearly half of their income came from it. Meaning, if the prices rose, the country will do better off during that time. But if the prices were to drop, they would lose mass amounts of money and have no alternative way of getting it back. The coffee plantations affected the people in Brazil very similarly to what went on in Guatemala. They were paid next to nothing ($.07 to $.15 per day) which led to a high amount of avitaminosis victims. The coffee plant also exhausts the land of its nutrients, making it hard to replant anything on the land it's been on.

2. This chapter really focuses on how a country's dependence on a single crop deforms the economy. How does producing only one crop really distort trade relationships?

Being a single crop economy makes the country have to rely on others for nearly everything. They may be making a lot of money with the crop they're supplying for everyone, but all of that can easily disappear in a matter of days if another large competitor comes in. Being a single crop country, your relationships with other countries are a lot weaker then that of a competitor that supplies them with much more then just a crop like coffee.

3. On page 104 there is an extremely provocative quote for a brutal official of the Columbian war described in the preceding pages. When confronted after the war Galeano quotes him saying that he did not feel individually guilty for the atrocities he committed since the horror of the violence was merely the horror of the system. Respond.

You can't place the blame on a situation like this. Galeano was placed into the environment and he was bound to break under the pressure and follow what everyone else there was doing. But you can't really pardon him because of this. He did it and that will follow him for the rest of his life no matter whose "fault" it was.