West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870–1940 (ISBN 0-8071-1979-2) is a 1996 book written by Aviva Chomsky. It details the history of the U.S.-based United Fruit Company, formed in 1899 from previous railroads and banana-growing interests in Costa Rica. It also describes how the local workers developed their own parallel socio-economic system. The book was awarded the 1997 Best Book Prize by the New England Council of Latin American Studies. It also assists in telling the story of how indins suffered in the plantations they worked in and connnects to Rigoberta Menchu, who has won a Nobel Prize, and once worked in plantations similar to the ones owned by the United Fruit Company.
Famous quotes containing the words west, indian, workers, united, fruit and/or company:
“It is queer how it is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They can not tell me.”
—Chief Joseph (c. 1840–1904)
“In former times and in less complex societies, children could find their way into the adult world by watching workers and perhaps giving them a hand; by lingering at the general store long enough to chat with, and overhear conversations of, adults...; by sharing and participating in the tasks of family and community that were necessary to survival. They were in, and of, the adult world while yet sensing themselves apart as children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens. As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Song of Solomon 2:1-3.
“If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)