Publisher Description

Buying into the Regime is a transnational history of how Chilean grapes created new forms of consumption and labor politics in both the United States and Chile. After seizing power in 1973, Augusto Pinochet embraced neoliberalism, transforming Chile's economy. The country became the world's leading grape exporter. Heidi Tinsman traces the rise of Chile's fruit industry, examining how income from grape production enabled fruit workers, many of whom were women, to buy the commodities-appliances, clothing, cosmetics-flowing into Chile, and how this new consumerism influenced gender relations, as well as pro-democracy movements. Back in the United States, Chilean and U.S. businessmen aggressively marketed grapes as a wholesome snack. At the same time, the United Farm Workers and Chilean solidarity activists led parallel boycotts highlighting the use of pesticides and exploitation of labor in grape production. By the early-twenty-first century, Americans may have been better informed, but they were eating more grapes than ever.

Author Biography

Heidi Tinsman is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Sexuality, Gender, and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950–1973 and a coeditor of Imagining Our Americas: Toward a Transnational Frame, both also published by Duke University Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. The Long Miracle: Collaborations in the Chilean Fruit Industry, 1900–1990 25
2. Fables of Abundance: Grape Workers and Consumption in Chile 64
3. The Fresh Sell: Marketing Grapes in the United States 103
4. Boycott Grapes! Challenges by the United Farm Workers and the Chile Solidarity Movement 146
5. Not Buying It: Democracy Struggles in Chile 207
Epilogue 255
Notes 267
Bibliography 331
Index

Review

"Buying into the Regime is a path breaking study of gender, labor, and consumption in Chile and the United States. Heidi Tinsman masterfully integrates U.S. and Latin American history. Her book is not only a major contribution to Chilean history; it should also be required reading for U.S. historians and their graduate students. I anticipate that it will work beautifully in undergraduate courses as well." - Julie Greene, author of The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal "Linking production, consumption, and social conflict in grape production in California and Chile, Heidi Tinsman traces historical connections and interesting disconnects between the industries and social movements in both countries. United Farm Worker support for undocumented workers in California did not expand into an internationalist consciousness, while the anti-consumerism of anti-Pinochet activists overlooked the contradictory combination of empowerment and exploitation experienced by female fruit workers. A fascinating example of the benefits of a transnational approach." - Florencia E. Mallon, editor of Decolonizing Native Histories: Collaboration, Knowledge, and Language in the Americas

Promotional

Heidi Tinsman offers a transnational history of how Chilean grapes created new forms of consumption and labor politics in both Chile and the United States during the late twentieth century and early twenty-first.

Review Quote

"With grapes as her medium, Tinsman sheds new light on two complex relationships: that between the United States and Chile, and that between consumerism and social justice in both nations....Scholars of Chile, the United States, food, gender, and consumption will each learn a great deal from Buying into the Regime ."

Promotional "Headline"

Heidi Tinsman offers a transnational history of how Chilean grapes created new forms of consumption and labor politics in both Chile and the United States during the late twentieth century and early twenty-first.

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