On the world map, Honduras, like most Latin American countries, has long been in a relatively marginal position, and has rarely attracted widespread attention from the international community.
However, tracing the history of Honduras has a tortuous and complicated past.
As early as the 4th to 7th centuries, the western part of Honduras was the core of the Mayan civilization.
Despite the Mayan civilization's remarkable achievements in architecture, astronomy, and calendars, it is surprising that this ancient civilization did not invent the wheel until it was conquered by the Spaniards.
In 1524, the arrival of just a few hundred Spanish colonists put an end to the rule of the Mayan civilization in the land. When the Spanish occupied Honduras, they imposed a brutal policy of slavery on the indigenous people, driving them to do heavy labor such as mining, as well as commercial plundering of the land.
At that time, the gold and silver mines of Honduras were heavily mined, and these precious resources were transported to the distant Ming Empire through Spanish caravans in exchange for luxury goods such as silk, tea, and porcelain.
It was by virtue of this trade plunder that the Spanish crown amassed great wealth, and in its heyday, a large number of silver dollars flowed into the Ming Dynasty, which on the one hand stimulated the prosperity of commerce in the Jiangnan region, and on the other hand, inevitably triggered inflation.
Later, the Queen of England encouraged the gentlemen to plunder the Spanish fleet, and Spain's maritime supremacy was gradually weakened, and the silver import of the Ming Dynasty was sharply reduced, and it quickly fell into severe deflation.
In response to the financial crisis, the Ming government had to cut back on spending, including the abolition of post stations, which led to the loss of a job for a former civil servant named Li Zicheng, who eventually became an important force in overthrowing Ming rule.
Li Zicheng
After nearly 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, Honduras finally gained its independence on September 15, 1821.
However, Honduras was ill-fated after independence and was soon incorporated into the First Mexican Empire. Twenty years later, a dictatorship came to power, and Honduras has been trapped in a cycle of frequent coups ever since.
From 1821 to 1978, the country experienced 139 coups d'état, an average of one political upheaval every year, even more so than during the Beiyang government in modern China.
After World War I, American influence began to penetrate the political and economic spheres of Honduras.
By propping up a pro-American puppet regime, the United States has firmly controlled the political direction of Honduras, and has even sent troops to intervene many times to teach disobedient governments a lesson.
Economically, U.S. companies have acquired the rights to mine silver in Honduras while monopolizing most of the country's rail, shipping, and power industries. In this context, the people of Honduras are dependent on plantations for their livelihoods.
With the help of the United States, Honduras has become an important banana exporter in the world, but its economic structure is homogeneous and almost entirely dependent on the banana industry. To make matters worse, 80 percent of Honduras' banana exports are controlled by U.S. companies.
In 1929, the Great Depression broke out, and Honduras' banana exports were hit hard, and unsalable bananas made people's lives difficult. Angry people began to revolt, demanding that the American monopolies raise workers' wages and improve working conditions.
In order to continue to extract benefits from Honduras, the United States has made some concessions on the one hand, giving up some of its benefits to appease the people; On the other hand, they secretly supported the military leaders in carrying out a coup d'état.
As a result of this political manipulation, the situation in Honduras has become increasingly chaotic, with frequent coups d'état, severe economic damage, and a gradual disorientation of the population in the turmoil.
Today's Honduras has a land area of about 110,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of China's Jiangsu Province, and has a population of only about 9 million. Judging from economic data, Honduras' GDP in 2018 was only 23.803 billion US dollars, which is only equivalent to a fourth-tier city in China.
In terms of education and health care, Honduras faces serious challenges, with the highest rates of tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS among Central American countries.
The public order situation is also not optimistic, and it is very Latin American.
A Chinese couple once went to Honduras to record a show, and the first thing they did after getting off the plane was to find bodyguards to ensure their safety.
Gangs and drug trafficking are extremely problematic in Honduras, with 2 to 3 per cent of the country's population being gang members or drug dealers.
Honduras is on an important route for Colombian drugs to the United States, which pass through Honduras, Guatemala and then through clandestine passages of Mexican drug cartels.
Honduras has become a part of this huge drug trafficking chain.
Drugs are transported to the route
Local gangs have also developed a revenue-generating program, the War Tax, which collects $10 every Friday from the people in their jurisdiction. If people fail to pay on time, they may be at risk of being killed or even their entire families killed.
Corruption in the government and police system is also rampant, with former Honduran President Lovo being arrested and jailed for corruption in 2018 for embezzling more than $700,000 in international aid and public funds during his administration, as well as transferring government and poverty alleviation funds to her own account.
The wife of former President Lovo was arrested and imprisoned
Lowo's eldest son was also sentenced to 24 years in prison for drug smuggling.
Lowo's eldest son was also sentenced to 24 years in prison for drug smuggling
Lovo's successor, Hernandez, is also mired in corruption and collusion scandals with drug dealers, and Honduras's largest drug smuggling syndicate has revealed that he accepted $1.5 million from drug dealers to canvass votes during his presidential campaign, and Lovo also took a commission of 1 million from it, and Hernández's brother has also been accused of direct involvement in drug trafficking.
Hernandez
In such a political environment, collusion between police and bandits has become the norm, and ordinary people are faced with the difficult choice of either joining a criminal gang or fleeing the country.
In 2020, Honduras was hit by a once-in-200-year hurricane, leveling everything in its path.
The heavy Caribbean sea vapor brought by the hurricane caused Honduras to receive half a year of precipitation in just four days, and the floods were devastating.
According to statistics, one-third of the buildings in Honduras were destroyed, 70% of the crops were damaged, tens of thousands of livestock died, more than 7,000 people unfortunately died, more than 1.5 million people were homeless, and the direct economic loss was as high as 3.8 billion US dollars, and the indirect loss reached 16 billion US dollars, accounting for 70% of the annual GDP of Honduras.
At a time when the Honduran people are in despair, US President Joe Biden has thrown an olive branch, declaring that the United States has freedom and democracy, and that there is a sweet air, and that Hondurans and other Latinos are welcome to the United States.
This commitment attracted a large number of Hondurans, and a new army of immigrants was formed.
In the U.S., legal citizens earn at least $7.50 per hour, pay no less than $300 per week based on a five-day, eight-hour workweek, and employers are required to pay full insurance and taxes for employees. Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, are able to accept lower wages, are not picky about their working conditions, and their employers do not have to pay social security or taxes for them, and can even allow them to work long hours without paying overtime or worrying about union intervention. In fact, the U.S. government and capital are well aware that illegal immigrants have brought a large number of cheap labor to the United States, and they are engaged in the dirtiest and most tiring work, but they cannot enjoy the social benefits of the United States.
As a result, successive U.S. administrations have tended to be acquiescing in their attitude toward illegal immigration.
Before 2016, nearly a million Mexicans were smuggled into the United States every year, and even in 2017, when Trump built the border wall, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States.
According to media statistics, in the past decade, illegal immigrants in the United States have created more than $500 billion worth of money every year, and they are basically tax-free.
However, the influx of illegal immigrants is not good for the people at the bottom of the United States, and their existence has lowered the salary level and bargaining power of ordinary Americans, and reduced the employment opportunities of white people at the bottom.
Today, with the influx of immigrants, the demographics of the United States are changing profoundly.
At the time of American independence in 1776, white people made up 80 percent of the population, and after World War I the proportion exceeded 90 percent, but after World War II, the proportion of white people began to decline.
By 2018, the percentage of the white population had fallen to about 60 percent, while the Hispanic population had surpassed 18 percent of the total U.S. population in 2020, and more than half of young people under the age of 18 were people of color.
Latinos are expected to surpass whites as the number one race in the United States by 2060. Perhaps, in the near future, the United States will really usher in a Hispanic president, and what will the United States look like at that time?
The story of Honduras is a microcosm of a country full of suffering and struggle, and the wave of immigration from the United States is reshaping the country's future.
#涨知识##国际##西方##美国##历史##移民#
The text is based on the video content of @UnseriousQuestionsLab
![Just today, the Chinese women's volleyball team was announced, and Zhu Ting and other three world champions were defeated[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)