Projects and Policy

Most readers know bananas as shorthand for Central America’s long and destructive history of foreign intervention—land seizures, company towns, and governments bent to corporate will. Yet beneath the violence of extraction lay an equally potent force
In the 1930s, Guatemala staged a vision of Indigeneity designed to entice foreign tourists, investors, and cultural arbiters. From the Guatemala Pavilion at the 1938 Pan-American Exposition to the filming of Tarzan and the Green Goddess, Lisa L. Munr
Quiriguá was never just an archaeological site; it was a staged encounter with Indigeneity and empire. Managed by the United Fruit Company and interpreted by U.S. archaeologists, the site became a curated showcase for international visitors arriving
At the 1938 Pan-American Exposition in San Diego, Guatemala curated a carefully choreographed vision of itself for North American audiences. The Guatemala Pavilion combined archaeological displays with live performance, including a marimba band whose
Ruth Reeves, a U.S. textile designer and curator, helped translate Guatemala’s living cultures into consumable aesthetics. During the 1930s she traveled through Indigenous communities collecting textiles, patterns, and stories, then recontextualized
International adoption from Guatemala represents the logical endpoint of boutique imperialism. By the early 2000s, the same forces that once packaged Indigenous ruins, textiles, and music for foreign consumption had turned children themselves into a
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Pan-American Strategic Advisors