John Ripton

Las Terrenas, a town in the Samana province of the Dominican Republic, has experienced phenomenal growth of its tourist industry. Electricity only arrived in Las Terrenas in the late 1990s, yet today, more than 70 hotels and other establishments offer thousands of rooms in tourist accommodations. In little more than two decades, the population of Las Terrenas has mushroomed from a few hundred to nearly 20,000. While the forces of commercial development integrate Las Terrenas into the global economy, its municipal infrastructure simply has not kept pace. The national government finances the construction of roads and other projects to promote the region's tourism industry, but critical public health and environmental issues receive inadequate attention. This research highlights the challenges tourism and globalization present to the economic development of an impoverished community.

In June 2003 the author travelled with students to Mexico to explore pre‐Columbian culture and traditional artisanal work in the Valley of Oaxaca. They arrived in the midst of a massive teachers' strike and their education really began. When they were not visiting the Zapotec ceremonial city of Monte Alban or the communities of artisans in the valley beyond, these American high school students were in the streets outside their hotel where thousands of teachers were quartering. The teachers had gathered in the state capital to protest government indifference to the dearth of school supplies, their meagre wages and the general poverty throughout the state of Oaxaca. The politics of rebellion reverberated in the hotel as peasants from distant communities gathered in political rallies demonstrating against government duplicity concerning a massacre of indigenous villagers a year earlier. The American teacher arranged an opportunity for his students to speak with Zapotec and Mixtec students of a bilingual school who were in the city to support the teachers. Within this narrative an analysis of globalization and the politics of education takes shape.