Oil In Latin America

The materials on oil in Latin America continued to shed light on a common theme I have noticed throughout our exploration of resources in Latin America: the United States and Europe have continuously exploited Latin American resources for the monetary gain of big businesses. This has left the people of Latin America without access to the benefits of the resources on their land and has actually led to abuse of the local peoples due to the infiltration of foreign powers.

I found the Neruda poem, “Standard Oil” very powerful. Neruda uses surgical imagery, using words like fissures and tubes and body imagery like, intestine and arteries. This imagery portrays the oil companies performing surgery on the land of Latin America. The contrast presented is fascinating. We usually see surgery as something that helps the body, but in this poem Neruda is using the imagery to express the harm being done to the land of Latin America. Further, this imagery connects to Galeano’s metaphor of foreign powers sucking blood from the veins of Latin America. Both Neruda and Galeano use bodily images to show the damage foreign intervention has caused the land and the people of Latin America.

I was struck most in the Galeano reading, by the continuity of the storyline where large corporations from the United States take advantage of Latin American resources and go to horrifying lengths to maintain the monetary benefits these resources provide. Galeano discussed events like the Chaco War where the United States companies used Bolivia and Paraguay to fight a proxy war. Further, Galeano discussed many examples where Latin American governments cut deals with big corporations, paying no mind to the consequences to the people. This example reminded me of the documentary and readings on bananas. Chiquita paid off terrorist groups and used practices that harmed workers. A big company took advantage of the Latin American people and used them to exploit their own resources. The connection between banana companies and oil companies shows the continuity of the theme of United States abusing Latin American people and their resources.

Finally, the documentary When Two Worlds Collide humanized the issue of oil exploitation. I appreciated how the documentary was clearly biased towards the native populations, but still made an effort to portray the police with empathy. The funeral scene for the police commander that was killed was particularly moving to me because it allowed me to remember that despite the intense political implications that the violence had, good people on both sides were killed and left grieving families behind. I felt the same towards the father who was simply looking for his son’s body. Both of these parties, the commander’s wife, and the police officer’s father were willing to work with the opposition to commemorate their family members. The son’s father was willing to seek out the leadership of the native populations to get help in finding his son’s body while maintaining peace. The commander’s wife spoke at his funeral about how she desires peace to end the conflict and that she wished the natives knew her husband better because they would have seen how good of a man he was. It was scenes like these in the documentary that reminded me of the horrific human consequences the political actions of the Peruvian government and the United States government. Sometimes when reading the facts and figures in an article we forget of the real-life implications of actions. Watching this documentary allowed me to humanize the consequences of the oil dealings in Peru.