Open Veins of Latin America

“The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing.”

In this introductory statement, Eduardo Galeano shares his sentiments about the ways in which capitalism creates a division between those countries with power and those without. The countries with power subjugate the ones that do not. The US and Europe have historically disempowered Latin America, which places it consistently on the losing side.

“Latin America is the region of open veins.”

The description of Latin America’s open veins inspires the book’s title. It refers to the ways in which Latin America operates like a human body’s set of veins, which European colonialism split open. As a result, the contents of the veins, which are Latin America’s wealth of resources, flows outward to benefit US and European interests. 

“In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.”

Using the metaphor of alchemy to describe the impacts of European colonialism, Galeano illustrates how gold did not just turn into currency used for luxury items for the European rich. For the slaves who had to mine the gold and who lost their lives in the process, gold had a toxic value that led to their impoverishment and death.