CHAPTER 8 NATIVE MESOAMERICANS IN THE MODERN ERA 323them. Whenever you sell them anything, they do the same thing to you. Be careful not to
make them angry when you ask them for something because they are violent when some-
one says anything to them that they don’t like. What they pay you is not enough for you
to feed your family. A salary of hunger is what they give you, and they are always poor-
mouthing, saying that they have nothing to give.Development in Central America
The Central American countries paralleled Mexico in their attempts to modernize
through development after the 1940s, but they differed early on in not yet having ex-
perienced major revolutionary changes. To some extent, then, they more closely fol-
lowed Paz’s model of revolution that takes place as a result of (faulty) development
rather than the lack of it. Growth and economic development became important
goals in all the Central American countries beginning in the 1940s, spurred on by the
Alliance for Progress and the Central American Common Market (CACM). Never-
theless, by mid–twentieth century, only in two countries were serious efforts made to
institute lasting developmental reforms in Central America, the first in Guatemala
(1944–1954) and the second in Costa Rica (1948 and thereafter).
Guatemala’s major effort to modernize through development began in 1944,
when students, professionals, merchants, and young military officers from the emerg-
ing urban middle class seized the reins of power from the dictator Jorge Ubico and
formed their own reformist government. During the next ten years, the reformers at-
tempted to change Guatemala from a dependent, racist country typical of the nine-
teenth century, to a developing, capitalist state. Under presidents Juan José Arévalo
and Jacobo Arbenz, the government challenged U.S. hegemony over Guatemala, the
large landowners’ control of land, and the Church’s hold on the people’s conscience.
Much effort went into developing the economy, as forced labor was eliminated,
a fair labor code enacted, and in 1952 an agrarian reform instituted. The land reform
led to the expropriation of around one million acres of land from the largest plan-
tation owners, and these lands were turned over to 100,000 landless peasant families.
The Indian communities were strongly affected by the reforms, as newly formed pro-
gressive Indian leaders were pitted against traditional caciques and elders. Concur-
rently, the peasant leagues and agrarian councils provided opposition to the
traditional authorities responsible for order within and between the Indian com-
munities. Modernization through development was beginning to make headway in
the countryside of Guatemala.
The government and its modernizing reforms were sharply contested by for-
eigners and ladino groups who had benefited from the past dictatorial system: large
landowners, led by the United Fruit Company owners, who had lost about one-half
million acres of idle lands; an older generation of army officers, who opposed the ero-
sion of their influence in the countryside; the Church, which saw in the government
a communist threat; and the U.S. State Department, which feared that its domina-
tion of the Guatemalan state was being weakened and so denounced Guatemala’s
leaders as Communists.
In an illegal action that had virtually nothing to do with the Indians, the U.S. Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency (CIA) organized, trained, and led a clandestine band of