on march 23, 1998, four birdwatchers were traveling at dawn along the winding mountain road outside the colombian town of monterredondo. their sights were set on the cundinamarca antpitta, one of the rarest birds in the world, discovered just a decade prior by famous birder peter kaestner. they encountered sweeping vistas and forests teeming with birdlife as they snaked up the east slope of the colombian andes—flocks of glistening tanagers, the chittering calls of furtive furnariids, and kettles hosting some of the world’s rarest raptors.
but as they ascended, they ran into a truckful of guerillas from the revolutionary armed forces of colombia—farc—who controlled the area. supposedly worried that the international birding group with their big cameras were spies (and famous for funding activities by kidnapping locals for ransom) the guerillas summarily took the birders hostage and held them captive in the mountains, setting a $5,000,000 price tag for their return. one birder was able to escape and find his way to help, while the other three were eventually released physically unharmed.
26 years later, i and my guide camilo navigated the same road. colombia has since negotiated with farc to end the civil war, and birders can spend the day on monterredondo road with only bird stories to share. lots of tourists hear about latin america’s bloody history, but i’m not sure how many are aware that much of the violence stems from united states foreign policy. i thought a lot about that history in colombia, and i think about it every time i go on vacation. these days, i think about it every time i read the news. as we enter pride month, i’m thinking about it again, and the connection between the violence that america perpetuates at home and abroad. below is what i think about.
stories of our hemisphere’s modern history often start with european countries sending people abroad to settle land, drain its resources, and subjugate (or genocide) the inhabitants. we call it colonialism, and beginning in the 15th century, spain, portugal, the netherlands, france, and the united kingdom competed to divide north and south america among themselves.
the balance of power in the western hemisphere shifted as the united states declared independence from the united kingdom in 1776, and our monroe doctrine in 1823 asserted that the united states would stay out of european business if european countries stayed out of our “sphere of influence.” colonialism became imperialism in the 19th century as countries used military force and diplomacy to expand their influence across the world and build empires—subjugating, rather than colonizing them, and america too became an imperial power. roosevelt’s 1904 corollary to the monroe doctrine basically said that if america thought any of the nations in its sphere of influence were being naughty, then it was free to meddle.
through the 19th and 20th century, we influenced politics and sent troops to support strategic causes across the caribbean and latin america. the united states military occupied nicaragua from 1909 to 1933, haiti from 1915 to 1934, and the dominican republic from 1916 to 1924. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, american corporations purchased vast tracts of land in countries like guatemala and honduras, and then used graft in order to instill corrupt governments that favored the corporations and created extremely unequal societies. thus was born the concept of the “banana republic,” a country whose economy is mainly reliant on just a few exports controlled by foreign corporations.
then came the cold war. out of fear that communism would spread throughout the western hemisphere, the united states—often via the cia—meddled in central and south american affairs to bolster right-wing governments. in guatemala in 1954, the united states backed a coup that installed carlos castillo armas as military dictator, leading to the country’s 46-year civil war which resulted in the deaths of over 200,000 people, including the systematic genocide of mayan people. that coup began in part thanks to the lobbying of chiquita, formerly the united fruit company. in el salvador, the united states supported a military dictatorship in 1962, kicking off a wave of instability that resulted in a civil war that left 75,000 people dead. the united states—and chiquita—helped fund and organize right-wing paramilitary groups during the colombian conflict which left over 175,000 civilians dead.
our legacy still scars the land and people of latin america. we searched for striped owls along miles of chiquita banana plantations in costa rica where tropical rainforest existed prior. a lodge we stayed at in guatemala sits at the base of a volcano that was inhabited by guerillas during a civil war, our guide josue full of stories of death and disappearance during his upbringing. camilo recounted his fear of living in bogotá during the late 90s and 2000s. in some places, the violence has receded from populated areas—but elsewhere it rages on. ecuador, which i visited in 2023, is currently gripped by gang violence as part of the wider war on drugs, which you could trace back to the war on drugs we’re waging back home.
even as conscientious, nature-loving tourists, this is the legacy we carry as americans.
and a week into pride month, i’m reminded of the continued pain that america inflicts on people here and abroad as we attempt to mold the world to fit our image, from the laws that disenfranchise and delegitimize transgender people or prevent them from accessing healthcare to the weapons we send to places like israel, which they’ve used to kill nearly 40,000 people in gaza, including 15,000 children. even today, we continue using violence to spread our values.
usually after all of this thinking i feel pretty tired and like everything is my fault. and then i remind myself that i’m not the one responsible for all of america’s atrocities, that it’s the us government and major corporations responsible for the situation we’re in. but things don’t change unless we do something. and they change more if we organize and do them together.
focusing on this post’s myopic premise, birdwatching in the tropics, it’s a bit of a catch 22. in the modern era, a lot of these countries now rely on us redistributing our hoarded wealth to stay afloat. at the same time, some people would say you shouldn’t even get on a plane in the first place because of the carbon emissions contributing to climate change.
at the very least, i try to give back as much back as i can. on one trip to puerto rico, i brought a checked bag full of goods to donate to maria relief efforts. i publicize and support efforts that help folks independently rebuild their lives and natural areas. i also try hard just to listen. social media makes it easy to learn the local language, make real friends, get their perspectives, check in on then, ask them what they and their neighbors need. i hire local guides—camilo lamented that foreigners will sometimes visit colombia on their own and stumble into narco and guerilla areas to see rare birds, and it only takes one dicey situation to ruin the ecotourism reputation that some of these countries are attempting to rebuild following periods of violence.
but these are problems that require change here in the usa. they require protesting, calling elected officials, organizing, participating in actions to fight injustice here and abroad. they require we not just acknowledge and fix the harm we’ve caused, but work to fix the root causes here, too.
postscript
i’ve been writing and rewriting this post for several months and i’m still not totally happy with it since i’m not that confident writing about the subject matter. but there are a lot of other posts i’m hoping to write so i’m just ripping the band-aid off. i’m open to earnest feedback, corrections, whatever, just respond to the email, though i’ll ignore bad-faith attempts to start an argument.
the past week has been pretty amazing from a nature perspective. i saw what could be new york states’s first ever flamingo and saw a pod of ultra-rare whales on a pelagic trip, which i’ll write about in an upcoming post. but one of my favorite things was finding a mourning warbler in bryant park last week. this uncommon migrant is extremely skulky and hard to see in the rest of the city, but they can be much easier to see and find in midtown manhattan which concentrates migrating birds and doesn’t have many places to hide. after seeing them a two days in a row, i alerted a birding discord and soon, hundreds of birders came to visit the park where up to four mourning warblers were being seen at once. there were three there yesterday.
