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From: Marco Caceres
Category: Other
Date: 1/26/99
Time: 3:26:41 PM
Remote Name: 38.181.64.6
Use Your Power as a Consumer to Buy Honduran There is a local clothing store whose motto goes something like "An educated consumer is our best customer". It's a great motto, and one that I think we lovers of Honduras can use to help the country nearly every day of the year. As George Vallejo recently reminded me, we should just make a habit of buying Honduran products whenever we can.
I know, I know...I may be treading on delicate ground here. I am aware of the moral dilemma of buying Honduran-grown fruit from US companies which pay "poverty wages" to their Honduran employees in Honduras. I am aware of the even greater moral dilemma of buying Honduran-sewn clothing from US companies who have been linked to sweatshop factories in Honduras.
However, I also know that right now what most Hondurans need are jobs that provide at least enough of wage to feed their families. If through my buying habits I can help gain one additional job for a Honduran worker, I will be grudgingly happy with that even if the conditions of his or her employment are not pleasant. Until Honduras' government and business community are able to offer better job options to its people, I do believe that a "bad job is better than no job at all" . In my opinion, this is the sad reality.
I will leave it to others whose primary concern is to ensure the rights of workers to take the lead on that issue. My primary concern is to ensure that Hondurans have access to any and all opportunities for earning a wage. The next step, I grant you, would be to ensure "quality opportunities" . But we're so far away from that right now.
With that said, I think it's important for everyone to make an informed choice before purchasing something from Honduras or made or assembled in Honduras. Each one of us has certain sensitivities with regard to Honduras. One of mine is the depletion of our natural resources such as our minerals and our forests.
Consequently, it is likely that I will avoid purchasing products made from Honduran wood. As much as I love the look and smell of Honduran cedar and mahogany, I cannot easily disassociate these pleasures from my image of smoke rising from the forests around Tegucigalpa as our plane makes its final approach to Toncontin airport. I cannot disassociate these pleasures from the image of Tegucigalpa's scalped hillsides.
Honduran silver and gold? These are easier. I have no great passion for jewelry and other adornments to begin with, and so especially not for anything made from these minerals. I also have no great love for reptiles. So it's a safe bet I will not be purchasing any Honduran milk snakes any time in the foreseeable future.
My big contributions to the Honduran economy have regularly been cigars, beer, bananas, and cotton clothes. I've done this without even thinking about it. Whenever I buy a cigar, it's definitely a Honduran brand...Don Melo, Hoyo de Monterrey, Santa Rosa. Whenever I buy beer, I look for Salva Vida first and Port Royal second. If there's only Nacional, fine. In their absence, I'm off to Ireland.
Whenever I buy bananas, I push aside the Del Monte stuff and look for the Chiquita. Remember, Del Monte gets its bananas from Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Mexico, and the Philippines. Not Honduras. Same thing with Pineapples. Del Monte gets its pineapples from Costa Rica, Hawaii, and the Philippines. Not Honduras. Melon? You got it. Del Monte melons come from Costa Rica. Not Honduras.
Lastly, let me say that I do not own GAP stock. I simply like the clothes the company produces. The fact that so much of it has a "Made in Honduras" label on it is coincidental. I confess that I feel good that 90% of my wardrobe originated from my homeland. It's the kind of high I get whenever I smoke a cigar. The "connection" is made and I am momentarily transported back to La Ceiba, where my soul resides.
I am continually searching for hard information about the GAP's operations in Honduras that would make me change my mind about buying its products. Something that will convince me that my clothes are the end-result of inhumane conditions, rather than simply what we in the developed world consider poor conditions. I've not yet found this information. I will keep looking.
In the final analysis, you are free to make up your own minds about products from Honduras. I merely plant the idea in your head that you use the tremendous power you have as a US consumer for a constructive purpose. Educate yourself and be conscious of how you can adjust your buying habits to help Honduras.
Marco Cáceres www.holyrosarychurch.org/projecthonduras.htm