150 YEARS OF BANANAS AND PEOPLE

150 Years of Bananas and People is an illustrated timeline book highlighting an invasive presence of the banana industry in Central and South America, as well its grip on North American consumers, throughout the last century and a half.

This creative research project was inspired by my time in Costa Rica, where I learned about how U.S. intervention and the construction of a simple railroad have spun into an unfortunately true and twisted horror story for Costa Rican people and people in surrounding countries.

With the linguistic help of tico, Jose Arturo Medrano D'Elía, I created a Spanish translated version of the work.

Most of us can agree that bananas are a little bit funny. If I put one up to my ear and pretended like it was a telephone, smooshed one in my hand at the lunch table, or pretended to slip on a peel, you might let out a chuckle. But what if I told you the banana is one of the most powerful weapons to have ever existed on the planet? The banana has touched, infected, controlled, and destroyed a disturbingly high number of individual lives as well as national governments and economies throughout history, but not without the human hand holding it. 150 Years of Bananas and People is an illustrated interpretation of banana-human history with two parallel timelines - the story of those who grow them and those who consume them.

La mayoría de nosotros podemos estar de acuerdo en que los bananos son un poco divertidos. Si me pongo uno en la oreja y finjo que es un teléfono, estripo uno con la mano en la mesa almorzando o si pretendo resbalarme, podría soltar una risita. Pero, ¿y si te dijera que el banano es una de las armas más poderosas que haya existido en el planeta? El banano ha tocado, infectado, controlado y destruido un número conmovedoramente alto de vidas individuales, así como gobiernos nacionales y economías a lo largo de la historia, pero no sin la ayuda de la mano humana que lo sostiene. 150 Años de Bananos y la Gente es una interpretación ilustrada de la historia del banano-humano con dos líneas de tiempo paralelas: la historia de quienes las cultivan y quienes las consumen.

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