Negotiating Paradise

In this beautifully researched book, Dennis Merrill shows that Mexicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans were deeply concerned that not enough gringos were coming their way. The Cuban Institute of Tourism, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Puerto Rican Tourist Bureau all mounted campaigns to “lure those Yankees across the sea,” away from rival destinations in Hawaii, Florida, the Bahamas, and Europe (pp. 113, 116, 186). Eager for dollars, ambitious bureaucrats spotlighted national history, instructed hotel workers in English, and even taught cab drivers to obey traffic laws. When a rival faltered, the others pressed their advantage, as when Puerto Rico “used its well-groomed image to cash in on Cuba's tourism meltdown” (p. 215). European-owned establishments often outnumbered North American ones, and local promoters held control in many others (p. 248). The labor force was local. All this shows, the author contends, how these countries “negotiated” breathing room within a U.S. empire that denied self-determination to “subordinate societies” and empowered “elites at the expense of the masses” (p. 5

Art history · Christian ministry · Colonialism · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Latin Americans · Ministry of Foreign Affairs · Negotiation · Paradise · Political science · Tourism · Cuban History and Society · History · Law