Race, nation, and West Indian immigration to Honduras, 1890-1940 / Glenn A. Chambers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chambers, Glenn Anthony.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Black people--Honduras--History--19th century.

Black people.

Black people--Honduras--History--20th century.

West Indians--Honduras--History.

West Indians.

West Indians--Honduras--Ethnic identity--History.

Emigration and immigration.

History.

Race relations.

Nationalism.

Immigrants.

Honduras.

Ethnicity.

Immigrants--Honduras--History.

Nationalism--Honduras--History.

Honduras--Race relations--History--19th century.

Honduras--Race relations--History--20th century.

Honduras--Emigration and immigration--History.

West Indies--Emigration and immigration--History.

West Indies.

Physical Description:

xii, 202 pages : map ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2010]

Summary:

At the turn of the twentieth century, Honduras witnessed the expansion of its banana industry and the development of the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit into multinational corporations with significant political and economic influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. These companies relied heavily on an imported labor force, thousands of West Indian workers, whose arrival in Honduras immediately sparked anti-black and anti-immigrant sentiment throughout the country. Glenn A. Chambers examines the West Indian immigrant community in Honduras through the development of the country's fruit industry, revealing that West Indians fought to maintain their identities as workers, Protestants, blacks, and English speakers in the midst of popular Latin American nationalistic notions of mestizaje, or mixed-race identity. West Indians lived as outsiders in Honduran society owing to the many racially motivated initiatives of the Honduran government that defined acceptable immigration as "white only." As Chambers shows, one unintended, though perhaps predictable, consequence of this political stance was the emergence of a clearly defined and separate West Indian enclave that proved to be antagonistic toward native Hondurans. This conflict ultimately led to animosity between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking Hondurans, as well as between West Indians and non--West Indian peoples of African descent. An all-inclusive Afro-Honduran identity never emerged in Honduras, Chambers reveals. Rather, black identity developed through West Indians' culture, language, and history. Chambers moves beyond treatments of West Indian labor as an accessory to U.S. capitalist interests to explore the ethnic and racial dynamic of the interactions of the West Indian community with locals. In Race, Nation, and West Indian Immigration to Honduras, 1890--1940, Chambers demonstrates the importance of racial identity in Honduran society as a whole and reveals the roles that culture, language, ethnicity, and history played in the establishment of regional identities within the broader African diaspora.

Contents:

The Honduran liberal reforms and the rise of West Indian migration

Honduran immigration legislation and the rise of anti-West Indian sentiment

Countering the "Black invasion" : the intellectual response to West Indian immigration

West Indian cultural retention and community formation on the north coast

An imagined citizenry : the racial realities of British identity among West Indians in Honduras

Eradicating the Black peril : the deportation of West Indian workers from Tela and Trujillo, Honduras, 1930-1939

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780807135570

0807135577

OCLC:

396179574