3102. History of U.S. Involvement in Honduras and Why Hondurans Are Seeking Asylum in the U.S. Today

By Dana Frank, Letters and Politics/KPFA, November 15, 2018

Thousands of migrants from Central America walk toward Tapachula from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, en route to the U.S. One of the caravan's organizers estimated the group had swelled to more than 5,000. Photo: Adrees Latif/Reuters

The U.S. political and military intervention in Honduras can be accounted from the United Fruit company and the exploitation of resources in the “bananeras” or plantations; to the use of the Honduran territory for military purposes: to maintain control of the region, to overthrow a democratic elected president in Guatemala in the 1950’s; and to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua during the 1980’s.  Most recently, in 2009 the U.S. was involved in the ousting of elected President Manuel Zelaya, a development that can be accounted as one of the major factors in the increase of Honduran migration to the U.S. in the last few years.

To listen to the interview please click here. 

Dana rank is Professor of History Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of several books including Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America, most recently,The Long Honduran Night: Resistance , Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup.