First of all, I am posting a link to a "New Yorker" article that Julia Nick found and is a great example of some of the contemporary implications of the material we have been considering. If you have problems with the link, I have also posted the article by Mike Peed, entitled "We Have No Bananas," on blackboard. Thanks Julia!
http://www.newyorker.com/
Per Amy's question in class about the pathology of Panama disease, I thought it would be useful if I offered a better explanation for how the disease spreads through banana crops. Below is historian John Soluri's summary of how the disease operates:
"The soil-borne fusaria fungi associated with Panama disease entered banana plants via root structures and traveled up vascular tissues to the leaves. Infected foliage turned yellow-brown before wilting. Severely diseases plants seldom produced healthy fruit, if they produced any at all. Spores released into the soil from decaying plant tissues germinated when they came into contact with the roots of neighboring plants, thereby spreading the disease in a radical pattern throughout fields. The expansion of continuously cropped Gros Michel monocultures accelerated the pathogen's advance by sharply increasing host density on a microlevel. In addition, the movements of irrigation and drainage waters, trains, migrant workers, and roving animals all facilitated the farm-to-farm spread of the fungi."
As Erin brought up the issue of flooding and Australian agriculture, I would probably add flooding as another lethal ingredient in the spread of the disease.
Now, just to provide a few examples of how United Fruit utilized Jim Crow "Negro Management" on its banana biofactories:
- Many of United Fruit's managers, who hailed from New England, held their own firm convictions about race, labor, and the tropical world: They assumed that West Indian black workers had the physical attributes and constitutions to withstand the diseases and climate of the tropics
- There was strict labor segmentation—whites held managerial positions while blacks were pressed into heavy plantation and stevedore labor
- Whites received monthly salaries while workers of color were paid by the task--a point of constant tension about the laborers
- Medical attention and mosquito control was uneven, as ailments plaguing black workers were rarely addressed by United Fruit medical staff—diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis were common, but were not attributed to poor housing or nutrition, but the misguided belief that blacks were more racially susceptible to respiratory diseases
- All social and working spaces were constructed along the color line, which was reflective of racial segregation patterns that were becoming common in the American public sphere
- Many observers feared that Jim Crow labor actually encouraged racial violence, as murders and reprisals were common across the color line--the occasional lynching was favored by United Fruit managers (which they incited through economically dislocated "Ladinos") to keep West Indian laborers in line
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