Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean

This text presents an examination of the social history of Central America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The book demonstrates how the actions of rural workers, peasants, migrants and women formed an integral part of the growth of the export economies of the era and examines the impact such groups had on the shaping of national histories. The text explores how marginalized working peoples of the Hispanic Caribbean basin managed to remain centred on not only class-based issues, but on a sense of community, a desire for dignity and a struggle for access to resources. Individual essays include discussions of plantation justice in Guatemala, highland Indians in Nicaragua, the efforts of foreign corporations in Costa Rica, coffee production in El Salvador and sexuality and working-class feminism in Puerto Rico.