In late July I was invited to speak on some aspect of U.S. culture to a group of Latin American university student leaders. I chose to speak on the lobstering industry in Maine.
As a summer resident of Friendship for the past 47 years, I know something about lobstering, especially since my husband Jim and I organized a seminar on lobstering for our local Learning in Retirement organization. A former professor of Spanish, I could speak to the students directly, and via Power Point showed photos Jim had taken of our local lobstermen at work. My ace-in-the hole was arranging for the students to sample lobster salad after the lecture, which took place in Amherst, Mass.
This was the third time I lectured on lobstering to these student groups, funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.
The credentials of this particular group of 20 were truly impressive. Most came from rural southern Mexico and Guatemala, were of indigenous background, and had travelled little outside their respective countries. Most were studying education, law and business, and expressed a strong interest in maintaining and furthering their culture, which the women students manifested by wearing their beautiful native clothing. As one stated, “Preserving indigenous heritage, such as the language, the clothes, the traditions, is important to me because I consider it a treasure our ancestors passed on to us and we cannot let it go extinct.”
As my lectures focus greatly on the economics of the lobstering industry, now heavily impacted by rising fuel prices, I needed to speak with some local lobstermen to get my talk up to date. Grandfather Wayne Havener, 78, father Greg Havener, 54, and son Andy Havener, 28, represent a lobstering family which has fished in and around Friendship for six generations, and generously filled me in on how they and others are responding to the increased cost of fishing, but without much increase in what they are paid for their catch.
As many other fishermen are doing, the Haveners go out later in the season and run their boats more slowly in order to conserve fuel. We also spoke of the jostling for trap territory, a result of so many newcomers, and of the subsequent reduction in the granting of new fishing licenses-in Friendship five lobstermen have to retire before a new license is issued.
The Haveners have direct ties to Central America: Andy’s sister Emily has done missionary work in Honduras. When I photographed the three men so for inclusion in the presentation, Greg asked a favor in return: would I photograph the students for him, so that he could see to whom his remarks would go?
I found this group to be the most responsive to my lobstering lecture. When I spoke of the highly perishable nature of the catch, and the lobstermen’s squeeze by wholesalers who know this, one student said, “But why don’t the fishermen organize?”
A student who lives on the shores Guatemala’s Lake Atitlán stated that there the fishermen also put down boundaries as to where each one may fish, so she understood perfectly about the territoriality of lobstering. Anticipating their snack, they asked how one prepared a lobster. When I explained, they asked, “But isn’t it a cruel death to boil them alive?” Several were intensely interested in the state of scientific research into the lobster industry, and all liked the lobster salad.
So now these students from “very away” have had a taste of Maine, along with many other impressions of the U.S. “It was a very powerful trip for them,” observed Professor Javier Corrales of Amherst College, who heads up these Latin American visits. “You should have seen how much crying there was the night before they left the United States.”
Contact between cultures is still the best diplomacy of all.