Mark Moberg, Myths of Ethnicity and Nation: Immigration, Work, and Identity in the Belize Banana Industry. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997. xi + 218 pp. $38.00 cloth.

Abstract

On May 3, 1998, the Cincinnati Enquirer ran, then later retracted, a story alleging that in Central America Chiquita Banana secretly controlled “dozens of supposedly independent banana companies to avoid restrictions on land ownership and limit unions.” The article also criticized the company's indiscriminate use of pesticides on its workers, “and other questionable practices” (New York Times July 17, 1998, A1 and A16). A labor history and brief for human rights, Myths of Ethnicity and Nation lends distressing credence to that newspaper's coverage, arguing that the banana industry routinely violates labor laws and fundamental human rights. Analyzing labor practices, immigration policies, nationalist ideology, regional realpolitik, and transnational capitalism, Mark Moberg demonstrates the complex links among labor, capital, ideology, and justice.