Bananas

A man named Sam Zemurray would die in 1961. I never heard of him. They wouldn't mention this in school. What's that got to do with bananas, you ask?
I like bananas. I would put them on my cereal in the morning before going to school to make stuff like Cheerios and Rice Krispies a little more palatable, a little sweeter on the tongue. I was learning about bananas in school. I didn't know how much bananas cost, but they must have been inexpensive, because we could have all the bananas we could eat. Bananas came from Central America, that group of small countries between Mexico and South America. They were our Latin American neighbors to the south, a land of happy people who wore colorful clothes while they danced and sang rousing folk songs in Spanish in the warmth of a tropical sun. Central Americans had thrown off their Spanish rulers just like we had gotten rid of the British, and now everyone down there was happy and free.
The people of Central America grew bananas and sugar and chocolate. Hardwood forests provided lumber and their mines gave the world metals it so desperately needed. The people of Central America must have been especially proud of their bananas; they were even referred to as Banana Republics, so they must have been proud indeed.
I and my classmates had no idea how much a banana cost. We just peeled them and ate them and put them on cereal along with sugar to make those oats and corn flakes and crispy rice taste a little sweeter.
As we studied the countries of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and all the rest, they seemed like such tranquil places, filled with jungles and exotic animals and the rich heritage of the Mayas. Truly, our happy Latin-American neighbors to the south.
We never really learned much about what happened there; who the leaders were or how the governments worked. Not much in our schoolbooks, really.
No one would tell us about Honduras. How an American, Sam Zemurray, hired gangs of mercenaries in 1910 and overthrew the government so he could get his way, so his reputation as "Sam the Banana Man" could grow and prosper. Fruit was big business, and American companies owned most of the land and the railroads and the telephone companies, and they didn't like governments that tried to tell them what to do. Hondurans would be free to do what the "Banana Man" told their new government what they could do. Sam Zemurray and his Cuyamel Fruit Company and its rival The United Fruit Company would vie for control of the bananas and the governments of Central America. Later on Sam Zemurray would control United Fruit, becoming one of the most powerful men in all of Latin America. American businessmen owned almost all of the land, and they controlled the economic lives of the people. The wealthy American companies could squash labor unions, set the wages and tell the governments how to function. The jungles would be destroyed, the exotic animals would die off so more and more bananas could be planted, and people like Sam Zemurray could reap more and more profits.
The American businessmen could set up dictators in these small nations to do as they pleased as long as "American Interests" were left undisturbed. Reformers were frowned upon, and when one popped up, they were quickly put down. It would happen in Nicaragua, and again in 1954 in Guatemala. The CIA-here they are again-would be involved in Guatemala. They would help get rid of President Jacobo Arbenz, another nationalist reformer who was trying to wrest control of his country from the hands of the American fruit companies. He would be labeled a Communist, and eventually his government would come tumbling down, paving the way for more dictators willing to listen to the demands of the United States and United Fruit. The people of Central America would writhe in an endless cycle of poverty, unrest and revolutions as they danced in colorful costumes singing rousing folk songs in Spanish in the warmth of a tropical sun.
So I sliced my bananas in the morning to eat with Cheerios and milk, to make it all a bit more palatable, a little sweeter on the tongue.
I knew where bananas came from.
I didn't know how much they cost.