i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

they provide a personal view of the trajectory of shifting political and ideological
approaches to land tenure and productivity in light of the current mode that claims to
fortify small farmer co-ops while protecting the delicate ecosystems of Las Segovias.
Personal Accounts of Samarkanda Confiscation
This section provides two perspectives on the coffee industry in San Juan prior to and
after the revolution. One narrative is from the owner of the Bar Amigo, David Saenz. His
account depicts his family’s decision to seek work in San Juan and the appeal that
working for the latifundios had for them. The other account is from Walter Delgado, the
son of Reimundo Delgado, a prominent landowner and very large-scale coffee producer
whose land had been expropriated. These two completely different experiences
underscore the same trend: the FSLN Agrarian Reform Policy was intended to rearrange
traditional power imbalances, but in the end it left the landscape and populace of San
Juan in disarray.
David Saenz was a soft-spoken man 40 years of age in 2005. We had known each
other since my first visits to the area in 2001 and 2002. He is portly and taller than the
average Nicaraguan. I stopped at the Bar Amigo for lunch one afternoon in March of
2005. David had been the owner of the bar for nearly 14 years. His family is originally
from Condega, a town along the Panamerican Highway that is renowned for its ceramics.
He arrived at the age of 9. Today, his parents and children live with him in San Juan. We
talked at the bar about when he came to San Juan, before the revolution; it was a very
different place.
As we spoke, I realized that the more people got to know me and my research
interests, the more they were willing to volunteer their stories and experiences. We began
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