Screening of "Port Triumph," Q&A with Director/Professor Jeff Gould
Department: Latin American Studies
Date and Time: March 13, 2018 - February 13, 2018 | 12:00 PM-2:00 PMEvent Location: McCormick Screening Room
Event Details
During the 1970s, a military regime ruled El Salvador, violently repressing worker and peasant demands for basic rights. Despite the adversity, the 1500 shrimp packinghouse workers of Puerto el Triunfo – mostly women – organized unions and successfully fought for decent wages and working conditions. At the start of a 12-year civil war, security officials executed or drove into exile the union leaders. When the unions reemerged several years later, the largely female plant workers union entered into a debilitating conflict with the fishermen’s union, while management attempted to eliminate the fishermen’s union. By 1991, the industry had collapsed. Port Triumph provides a window onto this landscape of tropical industrialization and offers insight into the global defeat of labor and the transition to neoliberalism
Jeffrey L. Gould is Rudy Professor in the Department of History of Indiana University and former Director (1995-2008), of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.