65 pages • 2 hours read
Eduardo GaleanoOpen Veins of Latin America
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Present-Day Economic Ramifications of Colonization
Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America opens with the arrival of European settlers in the early period of colonialism in Latin America and concludes with a discussion of Latin America’s present-day economic structure, which bares the same or worse conditions for the most marginalized people. By drawing this extended history, Galeano intends to show the relationship between the colonial past and the neocolonial present of Latin America. The past and the present share in the different forms of enslavement of marginalized people, growing poverty and unemployment, and political repression. In his descriptions of foreign exploitation of Central American lands, for instance, Galeano points to the ways in which peasants had to give up their land to the wealthy class who carried out the agenda of foreign enterprises. Meanwhile, Indians endured working the land until they died of ill treatment. Galeano remarks, “The colonial order was revived with the forcible recruitment of labor and with laws against vagrancy, while fugitive workers were pursued with guns” (124). The time period which Galeano describes takes place well after the early period of colonialism, yet the violence had persisted through the years.
While Latin America abolished slavery, the harsh conditions and exploitative practices of modern-day labor appear to be an extension of the brutal system. In the early colonial period, those in power sold black and native slaves like merchandise. In the present, the prevalence of US and European multinational corporate activities in Latin America limits job opportunities to these foreign operations. When the US and Europe increase their consumption, these multinational corporations increase production, but their low-wage workers do not see these profits reflected through higher wages. Rather, advanced machinery replaces them. Those in power view their labor as non-essential, rendering them as “surplus people” (269). Galeano refers to the term “surplus people” to indicate that present-day means of capitalist production render humans into economic terms, dehumanizing them in the process. The surplus people lose their jobs and suffer the poverty of unemployment. Just as the early colonial order causes such suffering for the marginalized class, so does present circumstances for the economically dependent Latin America.
The Power of Memory and Historical Amnesia
In Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America, the act of writing becomes an essential part of generating a collective memory of Latin America’s political and economic history. For Galeano, the privileged elite possess the power of memory, which it often uses to manipulate the facts of history to obfuscate stated history for those less privileged. He writes of these manipulative tactics of the wealthy: “They lie to us about the past as they lie to us about the present” (284). In Galeano’s retelling of Latin American history, he highlights not only the exploitative practices of US and European countries and the Latin American ruling classes, but also brings to light the many resistance activities countering those in power. The privileged classes may try to erase knowledge of resistance activities from public memory in the effort to prevent future opposition. In present-day Latin America, “The ghosts of all the revolutions that have been strangled or betrayed through Latin America’s tortured history emerge in the new experiments, as if the past had been foreseen and begotten by the contradictions of the past (24).” It becomes an important duty for the writer then to uplift the revolutions to draw attention to the persisting inequities of the present time and to show people that there is a historical basis for this mistreatment.
The ability to narrate the past is an empowered position that dictates the circumstances of the present. Understanding this power, Galeano commits to creating a comprehensive history of Latin America from the perspective of those most marginalized in the region. For him, the writing of this history returns the power of memory back to the people. He argues, “A search for keys in past history to help explain our time—a time that also makes history—on the basis that the first condition for changing reality is to understand it” (284).
The Call for Social Revolution
In Galeano’s conclusion to Open Veins of Latin America, he argues that “the rebirth of Latin America must start with the overthrow of its masters, country by country” (281). He calls for a social revolution led by the most marginalized groups in Latin America against its ruling class, and the US and European interests in the region. This call, however, is cognizant of the pace of social change, which must happen country by country. In his depictions of resistance activities in the book, Galeano highlights different occasions of failure and successes to offer a realistic sense of the challenges ahead as well as hope. For instance, he describes the handful of women and children who led a hunger strike to demand amnesty for prisoners in Bolivia during the rule of its dictator, General Hugo Banzer. While there was deep concern about the dangers of protest, the women and children’s bravery galvanized thousands of people who stood in solidarity, eventually forcing the authoritarian government to change its policy about amnesty for prisoners.
Galeano believes that this revolution will not happen peacefully but must happen with anticipation of violent resistance by those in power. In his concluding statement for the book, he writes that “every act of destruction meets its response, sooner or later, in an act of creation” (303). While the statement appears ominous, it seems to suggest Galeano’s belief that a violent social revolution must take place to truly dismantle the structures of inequality that have taken root since Latin America’s early colonial period. The only means of starting anew is to take apart the capitalist infrastructure that governs each Latin American country.
