In the West Indies, a centuries-old system of international trade was ruined by European colonial powers when they established the plantocracy (Andreatta 1998:415). The growing demand for chile has created a culture of chileros, or chile entrepreneurs, who form groups called equipos in order to supply chiles to the world market (Alvarez 1994:255). There are seven primary chile markets in Tijuana alone (Alvarez 1994:257). In Central America in the 1960s, The Alliance for Progress and United Fruit, "the direct beneficiary of the [C.I.A.-backed] Guatemala coup," gave the region's rich and powerful even more wealth and power over the peasantry, causing severe impoverishment. Many of these peasants were subsequently evicted, and the only work they could find was short-term cotton picking (Faber 1993a:48).
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