Our frontier in History and Chicago

Our Frontier in History (Theme): The theme this year is frontiers in history: people, places, ideas. The coup in Guatemala relates to this theme because it is the idea of taking land away from major corporations. This has been a struggle throughout history of the common man fighting off the rich, the elite, and the corporations that control the world. In Guatemala, president Jacobo Arbenz was taking land away from the United Fruit Company and giving it to the poor people of Guatemala. This started a struggle in Guatemala which was the battle between them and United Fruit. This idea could not prosper at the time due to United Fruit bringing in the United States, their ally, to create a coup d’etat ending democracy in Guatemala. The United States government is also partially controlled by big corporations as it relies on corporations to design its army, also many wealthy people are sent by corporations to give them more control in government. Corporations will likely always make the government biased and always control a part of it. Jacobo Arbenz had very basic ideas like giving Guatemala economic independence and allowing them not to rely on banana companies for all their money. He tried to free the countryside from the corporations that controlled them. Arbenz also wanted to raise the nation's health and prosperity. The big corporations along with the U.S. government try to shut down ideas like those of Jacobo Arbenz which they could successfully do. Some more of his ideas included big corporations not interfering with social and political life, an idea which still isn’t common in the U.S. due to many politicians being controlled by big corporations.

Our impact on Chicago (Chicago Relation): The corporation of United Fruit Company sold bananas in Chicago and Illinois and likely used the railroads in Chicago to transport their bananas throughout the Midwest. You can still find United Fruit Company bananas in Chicago but no longer under the name United Fruit, under the name Chiquita.

Above is a photo of the Chiquita Logo                    Above a photo of Miss Chiquita

(Chiquita is United Fruit with a different name)   who was used in United Fruit adds and

                                                                           is where Chiquita got its name.