Black Labor Migration in Caribbean Guatemala, 1882–1923

Bibliographic Data

ID19971622
AuthorsFrederick Douglass Opie (corresponding author)
Year2009
Pages145
Publication date2009-07-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueBlack labor migration in Caribbean Guatemala, 1882-1923 (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity Press of Florida (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5744/florida/9780813033716.001.0001
OpenAlexW627735647
Open LibraryOL23054138M
ISBN9780813033716
LanguageEN
Citations received13

In the late 19th century, many Central American governments and countries sought to fill low-paying jobs and develop their economies by recruiting black American and West Indian laborers. This book offers a revisionist interpretation of these workers, who were often depicted as simple victims with little, if any, enduring legacy. The Guatemalan government sought to build an extensive railroad system in the 1880s, and actively recruited foreign labor. For poor workers of African descent, immigrating to Guatemala was seen as an opportunity to improve their lives and escape from the racism of the Jim Crow U.S. South and the French and British colonial Caribbean. Using primary and secondary sources as well as ethnographic data, the author details the struggles of these workers who were ultimately inspired to organize by the ideas of Marcus Garvey. Regularly suffering class- and race-based attacks and persecution, black laborers frequently met such attacks with resistance. Their leverage — being able to shut down the railroad — was crucially important to the revolutionary movements in 1897 and 1920

Colonialism · Development economics · Ethnography · Government (linguistics) · Immigration · Persecution · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Racism · Sociology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · African americans · Alien labor · Caribbean area · Central america · Foreign workers · guatemala · Labor · race relations

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