Bananas: conflicting representations in Central America and the United States

Abstract

This essay analyzes the conflicting representations of the banana production in a Nicaraguan novel and in anAmerican cinematographic sequence published soon thereafter. To demonstratemy thesis, I first explore theeconomic relevance of the banana in Central America and review the historical context on how the bananaproduction led the US multinational United Fruit Company to gain both an exclusive monopoly on bananatrade, and an excessive influence on the governments of the region. I then propose a critical reading of Bananos(1942) by the Nicaraguan writer Emilio Quintana that highlights the thematic and stylistic features ofthe banana exploitation narrative as a tool of denunciation. I contrast representations of banana productionin Quintana’s novel with that of The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat, a sequence in the movie The Gang’s All Here(1943)which associates banana productionwith the so-called Latin American exoticism. By analyzing culturalrepresentations of banana production in these texts, this essay puts forth a comparative model of the bananaas cultural signifier.While in Central America, bananas come to symbolize the oppression and povertyof local peoples, in the United States that same fruit represents consumerism and abundance.