Customer Reviews

Gringos in Honduras: The good, the bad, and the ugly

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Guillermo Yuscarán, an American expat living in Honduras, has produced an odd little book in GRINGOS IN HONDURAS. The book is essentially a series of biographical sketches, roughly 20 pages each, of seven North American gringos who have influenced Honduras over the past couple centuries. Arranged chronologically, Yuscarán attempts to use these biographies -- of explorer John Lloyd Stephens (1805-1852), adventurer William Walker (1824-1860), writer William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry (1862-1910), mercenary Lee Christmas (1863-1924), agriculturalist Wilson Popenoe (1892-1975), ecologist Archie Carr (1909-1987), and humanitarian Chet Thomas (b. 1944) -- to illustrate the changing nature of cultural and environmental awareness and interest of North Americans in Honduras, from the colonial, Manifest Destiny-driven expansionism of the nineteenth century to the natural and community development toward the end of the twentieth. Unfortunately, his biographical sketches lack sufficient context, especially the final three in which he explores the lives and work of educators and community developers without any mention of the many challenges such work faces, both locally and globally. The final line in the book, about the crucial necessity of preserving "what precious little" remains of the environment, states that theme much more powerfully than anything preceding it would suggest. Yuscarán also frequently attempts to link his subjects thematically, only sometimes convincingly.

For the most part the biographies don't offer much of significance; the information about the first six subjects seems largely drawn from existing biographies, though Yuscarán does occasionally interpret his subjects' motives and actions differently than other biographers. GRINGOS IN HONDURAS is most useful for the biography of Chet Thomas, founder and director of Proyecto Aldea Global (PAG) (which, in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, three years after this book was published, would become the largest, most efficient development agency in Honduras) and Mercy Corps' representative in Honduras, about whom little has been written. Thomas' biography seems to have been drawn from extensive personal interviews; while its contribution to the literature of humanitarian aid and community development is modest at best, it may be of interest to those who wish to know more about his background and the path he took through life that led him to Honduras.

This book, while easily readable, could also definitely have benefited from better copy-editing and proofing; occasionally bizarre grammatical, spelling and typological errors abound.

Overall, this book is an interesting curio that may be a good starting point if you're interested in any of the people discussed in it, but if you're already knowledgeable about their lives it's unlikely you'll discover much new. That said, it's a short and easy read that it can't hurt to check out.

This book was reissued in a second edition in 2000, five years after its initial publication. I don't know if this was a direct reissue or whether the book was revised or updated; if anyone knows please leave a note in the comments!