"The time of freedom" was the name that plantation
workers-campesinos-gave to Guatemala's national revolution of 1944-1954.
Cindy Forster reveals the critical role played by the poor in organizing
and sustaining this period of reform.
Through court records, labor and agrarian ministry archives, and oral
histories, Forster demonstrates how labor conflict on the plantations
prepared the ground for national reforms that are usually credited to
urban politicians. She focuses on two plantation zones that generated
exceptional momentum: the coffee belt in the highlands around San Marcos
and the United Fruit Company's banana groves near Tiquisate. Although
these regions were unlike in size and complexity, language and race,
popular culture and work patterns, both erupted with demands for
workers' rights and economic justice shortly after the fall of Castañeda
in 1944.
A welcome balance to the standard "top-down" histories of the
revolution, Forster's sophisticated analysis demonstrates how campesinos
changed the course of the urban revolution. By establishing the context
of grassroots mobilization, she substantially alters the conventional
view of the entire revolution, and particularly the reforms enacted
under President Albenz.