George Priestley

ANTILLEAN-PANAMANIANS OR AFRO-PANAMANIANS?:
POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY
DURING THE CARTER-TORRIJOS TREATY NEGOTIATIONS
This is an essay about Panamanians of Antillean descent in Panama and in the United States, particularly in Brooklyn,
New York. It is concerned with two major themes: recent patterns of Antillean political participation in Panamanian
politics and issues of cultural and national identity. These are examined in the decades of the 1970s through the 1990s,
a period of political change in Panama and one of major shift in U.S.-Panama relations. During this period Antillean-
Panamanians, historically represented as anti-nationalists and pro-United States by exclusionary nationalist and racist
forces, organized in Panama and in the United States to support the nationalist treaty negotiated by General Omar
Torrijos in 1977. At the same time, they challenged the Panamanian racial and national model. Since the heyday of
Antillean-Panamanian activism in Panamanian politics in the 1970s and 1980s much has changed in Panama: Omar
Torrijos died mysteriously in a plane crash in 1981; General Manuel Noriega, his successor, embraced the politics of
neo-liberalism to the detriment of the vast majority of Panamanians, including Afro-Panamanians (a concept that
embraces both Antillean and Hispanic Blacks), and in its wake, the U.S. invasion, accompanied by fundamental
changes in the world order, brought new economic, political and social woes to the oppressed majority, and fueled the
resurgence of, racism and ethnic conflicts on the Isthmus.
KEYWORDS: Afro-Panamanians, Antillean-Panamanians, Congress of Black Panamanians, George Westerman,
identity politics, National Conference of Panamanians, race

INTRODUCTION isthmus from Jamaica in the 1850s to work on the

This is an essay about Panamanians of Antillean descent
in Panama and in the United States, particularly in
Brooklyn, New York. It is concerned with two major
themes: recent patterns of Antillean 1 political
participation in Panamanian politics, and issues of
cultural and national identity (Schiller, Basch and Blanc-
Stanton 1992, Gilroy 1993, Basch, Glick-Schiller,
Szanton-Blanc 1994). These themes will be examined
in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, a period of
political change in Panama and one of major shift in
U.S.-Panama relations (Downer-Marcel 1997).
Antilleans first came in significant numbers to the
George Priestley is Professor of Political Science and
Director of Latin American and Latino Studies, Queens
College, CUNY; he also is a senior researcher at the
Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Justo Aroseme-
na (CELA) in Panama City, Panama, and author and
co-author of several books, monographs, and dozens
of articles, including Ethnicity and Class in Central
America: Military Government and Popular Partici-
pation in Panama: The Torrijos Regime, 1968-1975;
and Panama s Political Crisis: Is There a Democratic
Alternative? His current research focuses on the tran-
snational identities of Panamanians of West Indian de-
scent and the political life of George Washington Wes-
terman, journalist, diplomat and defender of minority
rights in Panama.
Transforming Anthropology, Vol. 12, Numbers 1&2, pp. 50-67, ISSN 1051-0559, online ISSN 1548-7466. © 2004 by the
American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and
5 0 Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center Street, Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223.
Panama Railroad, a project initiated and controlled by
the United States. In the 1880s, thousands more came
from several Caribbean islands to work on the French
canal project. The greatest influx of Antilleans, mainly
from Barbados, arrived during the early 1900s to work
on the Panama Canal, a U.S. project (Newton 1984).
In this later period, Antilleans and their offspring
not only found employment in the U.S.-owned Pana-
ma Canal Company, but also found work on U.S. mil-
itary bases built on a 10-square-mile territory on ei-
ther side of the canal, known as the U.S. Canal Zone.
Many also found employment with U.S. firms in the
cities of Panama and Colon, and with the Chiriqui Land
Company, a major banana firm, in the interior prov-
ince of Bocas del Toro. These predominantly low-paid
jobs in segregated, U.S.-controlled communities were
perceived by native Panamanians as rightfully theirs,
leading nationalist leaders to call for wholesale repa-
triation of Antillean workers. Additionally, because
Antilleans in Panama were concentrated in the "termi-
nal" cities of Panama and Colon and in the province
of Bocas del Toro, their consequent visibility was
viewed as a threat to the Mestizo character of Pana-
manian nationality (Bourgois 1989).
Faced with racial discrimination by Americans in
the U.S. Canal Zone, and cultural and national preju-
dice by Panamanians in the rest of the Republic, Ca-
nal and banana workers built important island-specif-
ic cultural and social institutions on the isthmus to ad-
vance their social and economic interests2 and simulta-
neously began to shed their island-specific identities—
Jamaican, Barbadian, Trinidadian, and Martinican—
for the more encompassing identity of "Antillano." A
century later, their descendants refer to themselves as
"Afro-Panamanians," "Panamanians of West Indian de-
scent," or simply as "Antillanos." Furthermore, until
recently it was common for non-Antillean Panamani-
ans to refer to Antillean-Panamanians as "Jumecos" or
"Chombos," the first a derivative of "Jamaicans," and
the second a label whose origin is unclear. Though these
offensive terms are almost never used now in public
discourse, they are still found in private discourse in
Panama (Russell 1995; Wilson 1981).
While in most Latin American or Caribbean soci-
eties there is a single racial paradigm, in Panama there
were two racial/ethnic hierarchies in operation for most
of the twentieth century. The one in the Canal Zone
was based on the U.S. model, and the other in Panama
proper on the Latin American model. Although Blacks
are at the bottom of the social pyramid in both models,
many scholars assert that the Latin American model is
less rigid with respect to "race" than the U.S. model.
However, Peter Wade (1993:338) warns "that compar-
ison between Latin America (frequently Brazil) and the
United States, while of course valid in principle, can,
by opposing the two in a polar fashion, obscure their
common basis. Thus there is no radical division be-
tween the United States and Latin America—racial
meanings have simply been constructed in rather dif-
ferent ways."
Nevertheless, it is the assumed polarity of the ra-
cial paradigms that led Panamanians to assert that there
was no racism or discrimination against Blacks in Pan-
ama. The consensus was that those at the bottom of the
social pyramid, including Spanish-speaking Blacks of
colonial descent, suffered from class discrimination,
while Blacks from the English- and French-speaking
Antilles were simply incongruent with Panamanian cul-
ture. Besides, these island immigrants were seen as tak-
ing jobs from legitimate Panamanians and supporting
the colonial U.S. presence in the Canal Zone. In other
words, they were seen not only as incompatible with
Panama's national character but also as opposed to its
quest for self-determination and national sovereignty
(Priestley and Maloney 1975).
Complicating their racial/ethnic status in Panama,
Antilleans were historically identified by the White-
Mestizo majority as either anti-national or pro-United
States. And because of a weak "race" consciousness
among Spanish-speaking colonial Blacks, the majority
of whom were part of an ongoing process of cultural
and racial mestizaje, Antilleans and Antillean-Panama-
nians had very few allies in Panama. Thus, the colonial
Blacks or "Negros Coloniales," also had a difficult time
ascending the socioeconomic ladder, because the Pan-
amanian elite had also adopted aspects of the racial
model of the United States. And it was not until the
1970s, during theTorrijos populist/nationalist regime,
that the Panamanian racial model was challenged by
Antillean-Panamanian organizations. Thirty years lat-
er, at the turn of the twenty-first century, Afro-Pana-
manians, both Negros Coloniales and Afro-Antilleans,
formed the Comision Coordinadora de la Conmemo-
racion del Dia de la Etnia Negra Nacional (May 30,
2001) to defend Black rights and challenge the exist-
ing racial paradigm.
For most of the twentieth century Panamanian po-
litical, economic, and cultural elites were locked in a
love/hate and dependent relationship with the United
States; they admired U.S. social and cultural institu-
tions and embraced English as a second—and some-
times even as a first—language. But for cultural and
racial reasons, they were opposed to, and later remained
ambivalent about, the presence and participation of
Antillean-Panamanians in Panama, resenting the cul-
tural impact that the latter had on the major cities of
Panama and Colon. Not unlike the contemporary busi-
ness elite in the United States, who call for the expul-
sion of immigrants while benefiting from their pres-
ence, the Panamanian business elite remained ambiva-
lent about the idea of expulsion and repatriation of An-
tilleans during the period 1920-1941 while benefiting
from their substantial dollar infusion into the local econ-
omy.
Despite the positive economic presence of Anti-
lleans, for over a quarter of a century after the comple-
tion of the canal project, Panamanians called for the
deportation of Antilleans. In addition, the government
approved a series of anti-immigration policies geared
toward the exclusion of Blacks of Caribbean origin,
and other minority populations of Middle and Far East-
ern origin. Dr. Arnulfo Arias, a Harvard-educated med-
ical doctor, posed the greatest threat to members of
minority communities when he reached the presidency
in 1940 on an exclusionary populist/nationalist plat-
form. Arias' proposals for repatriating and excluding
Antilleans and Chinese from political and social life
were well received by large numbers of Panamanians
from across the social and political spectrum, many of
whom saw the proposals as an integral part of Pana-
manian nationalism (Escobar n.d.).
CITIZENSHIP AND CLIENTELISM: ANTI-
LLEAN-PANAMANIANS IN PANAMANIAN
POLITICS, 1945-1960
President Arias was overthrown in 1941 by a U.S.-
PRIESTLEY 51
backed coup, after his nationalist policies clashed with
U.S. war requirements on the isthmus and it became
clear that he would not readily cooperate with U.S.
Canal and hemispheric defense plans. Fortunately for
Antilleans and other excluded minorities in Panama,
his departure eventually led to the organization of a
Constituent Assembly in 1945, which discussed and
reconsidered citizen requirements. In this context,
George Washington Westerman, at the time a tennis
star and a journalist at the Panama Tribune, organized
the National Civic League in order to lobby for citi-
zenship for the offspring of West Indians residing in
Panama.3 As a result of the efforts of the National Civ-
ic League and those in, and outside of, the Assembly,
conditional citizenship was bestowed on offspring of
Antilleans and other previously excluded minorities
(Constituciones 1968).4
Hector Spencer recalled the ordeal and trauma that
the 1941 Constitution caused the West Indian commu-
nity. Spencer, an Antillean-Panamanian, is widely
known as "El Constituyente," although he was only
nominated, and not elected, to that body. When inter-
viewed in the spring of 2001, Spencer, then 88 years
old, was still a successful practicing lawyer and certi-
fied public accountant.5 He recalled that, according to
Arnulfo Arias's 1941 constitution, children born of
West Indian, Jewish, Hindu, Chinese and Middle East-
ern parents were considered to be of unproven citizen-
ship ("nacionalidad no comprobada"). Spencer assert-
ed that West Indian children born in the Canal Zone
were especially affected. "Since Arnulfo did not con-
sider the Canal Zone under effective Panamanian ju-
risdiction, those born there were not considered Pana-
manians." However, Spencer added, "Some of us were
not affected. For example, my son's mother lived on
the Canal Zone and before he was born, I requested
that she obtain citizenship so that he would be consid-
ered a Panamanian."
Spencer also recalled that although the 1946 Con-
stitution restored citizenship for children born of West
Indian parents it "gave a kind of conditional citizen-
ship by requesting that these people take the proper
papers before the Ministry of Foreign Relations in or-
der to prove that they were qualified to be considered
Panamanians." That requirement notwithstanding, by
the early 1950s thousands had obtained Panamanian
citizenship, leaving behind the period of political ex-
clusion while entering the system of political clien-
telism. For example, Jose Bazan, mayor of Colon, de-
vised an effective clientele network of Antillean-Pana-
manians in the 1950s, and George Westerman, the re-
sourceful associate editor of The Panama Tribune and
recognized leader of the Panamanian Antillean com-
munity, mobilized thousands of Antilleans to support
52 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
the presidential candidacy of Jose Antonio Remon
Cantera, a former police chief and king-maker during
the 1940s. Ironically, a process of relative economic
exclusion and eventual emigration en masse to the
United States accompanied this process of gradual
political inclusion, beginning in the 1950s (Priestley
and Maloney 1975).6 In 1946, the National Constitu-
tional Convention had overturned President Arnulfo
Arias' exclusionary 1941 constitution, replacing it with
a more progressive charter and opening the door for
Antillean-Panamanian political participation.
Following the electoral successes of Hector Spen-
cer and Fernando Bradley, who had become a member
of the Panama City Council, Alfredo Cragwell, princi-
pal of Rainbow High School in the Canal Zone, was
elected in 1952 to the prestigious unicameral National
Legislature. His election was made possible by the mas-
sive electoral support West Indians gave to the presi-
dential candidacy of Jose Antonio Remon Cantera.
President Remon Cantera (1952-1955), nominated by
the multi-party Coalicion Patriotica Nacional, guaran-
teed the victory of Cragwell, making him the first Pan-
amanian of West Indian descent to occupy such high
elected office (Lawson n.d., Pippin 1964).7
In spite of these political gains, Antilleans and
Antillean-Panamanians were negatively affected by the
1955 Remon-Eisenhower treaty, a partial amendment
to the 1903 treaty between the U.S. and Panama that
set in motion the process of de-colonization of the U.S.-
controlled Canal Zone, which concluded 45 years lat-
er (Los Tratados 1999). It also set in motion popula-
tion expulsion from the Canal Zone and the downsiz-
ing and modernization of the canal work force, pro-
cesses that worked to the detriment of Antillean work-
ers who built and had maintained the canal up until
that time. The expulsion of West Indians from the Ca-
nal Zone may be attributed to two factors: the refusal
of White Zonians to integrate following the pivotal U.S.
desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education,
and the economic incentives the United States provid-
ed to the Panamanian construction industry to build
adequate housing in the cities of Panama and Colon
for non-U.S. citizens, particularly for Antilleans and
their offspring (Maskel 1981).
TREATY AMENDMENT, ECONOMIC TRANS-
FORMATION, AND ANTILLEAN-PANAMANI-
ANS
During the 1950s and 1960s, U.S.-Panamanian rela-
tions underwent significant change, setting in motion
political and economic transformations that adversely
affected Panama's Antillean community. First, as a re-
sult of the 1955 Remon-Eisenhower treaty, thousands
of non-U.S. citizens, mostly Antilleans and their off-
spring, lost their jobs, housing, and commissary-buy-
ing privileges, and were compelled to pay income tax-
es to the government of Panama.8 Second, despite sig-
nificant economic growth in the Panamanian economy
during the 1960s, few Antillean-Panamanians found
jobs in the private sector. Third, public sector jobs were
open only to a few who participated in the 1960-1968
"democratic spring," while the majority joined the ranks
of the socioeconomically and politically excluded. Feel-
ing abandoned by the United States and relatively shut
out of the economic opportunities opening in Panama,
thousands of Antillean-Panamanians began to migrate
to the United States in the 1960s, particularly to Brook-
lyn (George 1984).
Rather than comply with the changing political cli-
mate on the mainland and integrate the White and non-
White communities in the Canal Zone, the U.S. and
Canal Zone authorities began a process of depopula-
tion, causing thousands of Antillean-Panamanians who
resided in communities in the U.S. Canal Zone—La
Boca, Paraiso, Gamboa, Rainbow City/Arco Iris—to
move into low- and middle-income communities in Pan-
ama. Ironically many of these working class non-White
communities—Guachapali, Calidonia, San Miguel,
Maranon, and El Chorrillo—were at the time targeted
for urban renewal. As a result of the high economic
growth in the 1960s that precipitated urban renewal
programs continuing through the 1990s, these commu-
nities, populated by Antillean-Panamanians since the
early 1900s, were downsized or disappeared.
The migration of thousands of Antillean-Panama-
nians and their families to the United States was the
direct result of their expulsion from the Canal Zone
and from their traditional neighborhoods in Panama
and Colon during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Thou-
sands of others though, remained in Panama to com-
pete and to participate as best they could in the eco-
nomic and political system, both tightly in the hands of
the "White" Panamanian and foreign-born elite.
When the National Liberal Party returned to of-
fice in 1960-1968, few Blacks or Antillean-Panamani-
ans were elected or appointed to high office. As a re-
sult of demographic and migratory processes, the An-
tillean presence and cultural development in Panama
were significantly altered. Those who remained on the
isthmus, their numbers reduced and their living pat-
terns altered, lost many essential markers of West In-
dian identity, especially language maintenance. Those
who migrated to the United States joined the newly
emerging West Indian communities in Brooklyn, New
York, and, to a lesser extent, the middle class commu-
nities in Queens, and the working class Latino enclaves
in Manhattan and the Bronx. As a consequence, they
developed an explicitly hybrid identity, aligning polit-
ically with African-Americans and developing cultur-
al affinities with other West Indians and Latinos, while
striving to differentiate themselves from these groups
by aggressively asserting a Panamanian national iden-
tity.9
In Panama, the generation of the 1960s eschewed
racial and ethnic representation in favor of nationalist
politic; this stood in contrast to the 1950s, when civic
and political Antillean-Panamanian leaders such as
George Westerman linked racial and ethnic represen-
tation to politics. Westerman, an advocate of Antillean
assimilation into Panamanian culture, had linked eth-
nic representation to national politics as a means of
securing greater national participation for the group.
Given the demographic and migratory patterns that re-
duced the Antillean presence, and the politics of na-
tionalism in the 1960s, it is not surprising that younger
Antillean leaders eschewed such ethnic political mo-
bilization. Fluent in Spanish, they joined nationalist
student groups such as the Panamanian Student Feder-
ation (FEP), Tercer Partido Nacionalista, and Juven-
tud Democristiano, nationalist and ostensibly antioli-
garchical political parties. Among this new leadership
were Enrique Thompson, Raimundo Braithwaite,
Walter "Tito" Chandler, Leroy Husband, and Luis
"Pap" Carter. All but one of these new leaders were
graduates of the Instituto Nacional, the premier sec-
ondary school in Panama at that time, and all played
important roles in the nationalist movement to recover
the Panama Canal from the United States.10 None,
though, gained the stature or influence of Antillean lead-
ers of the 1950s, and none organized or mobilized
Blacks or Antillean-Panamanians to participate in the
political system as a group. At the end of the 1960s,
with so many Antilleans headed north and those at home
seemingly devoid of political clout, some, like Egbert
Wetherborne, secretary-general of a left-oriented stu-
dent-based organization, commented that West Indi-
ans had committed cultural suicide, while others
claimed that the group was an endangered species (Rus-
sell 1995).
The reality, however, is a bit more complex. Un-
doubtedly, both the presence and the position of Anti-
llean-Panamanians in Panama's social structure were
affected by several important sociopolitical and eco-
nomic changes during the period 1955-1970. For ex-
ample, change and rupture in U.S.-Panamanian rela-
tions during the 1950s and 1960s, the economic and
urban transformation of Panama during the 1960s and
1970s, ongoing migration north, and the relatively
closed, clientelistic political system that was in place
prior to the military coup of 1968, all worked to the
disadvantage of the majority of Antillean-Panamani-
ans who remained on the isthmus. But Antillean-Pana-
PRIESTLEY 53
manians had neither committed cultural suicide nor
were they an endangered species; rather, they had re-
grouped in Diasporic communities up north from
whence they would reshape and refashion their lives,
continuing to relate economically, socially, culturally
and politically with their counterparts who remained
at home, and committed to carving a space for them-
selves within a restructured and re-imagined nation
(Anderson 1991 [1983]).
When the military overthrew Arnulfo Arias for the
third time in October 1968, later setting out to orga-
nize a unified national front to force the sovereignty
issue with the United States, its leader, General Omar
Torrijos, reached out across class, race, and ethnic
boundaries with a populist/inclusive nationalist dis-
course. Older leaders such as George Westerman, then
in his 60s and a prominent Antillean-Panamanian in
the governments of Antonio Remon Cantera (1952-
1955) and Ernesto de la Guardia, Jr. (1956-1960), did
not heed the general's call, instead opposing the dis-
ruption of constitutional order. Westerman's opposi-
tion to military rule probably hastened the bankruptcy
of The Panama Tribune, the English weekly under his
ownership. Progressive and nationalist leaders, how-
ever, including many young Antillean-Panamanians,
decided either to join Torrijos' so-called Revolution-
ary process or to work to push it further to the left
(Priestley 1986).
By the mid-1970s, several community and politi-
cal organizations led by Antilleans emerged in Pana-
ma. The Union Nacional de Panamenos (UNDEP),
Accion Reinvindicadora del Negro Panameno (ARE-
NEP), and Los Doce drew their social bases of support
from the predominantly Antillean communities of Rio
Abajo, Parque Lefevre, and Colon, and had a race-first
program (Downer-Marcel 1997). Panamenisima Rei-
na Negra and Congreso del Negro Panameno, two or-
ganizations with some affiliation to GUAYCUCHO-
NIR, a leftist university-based group, linked a race and
class discourse in an attempt to reach out beyond the
Antillean community to establish a dialogue with pop-
ular sectors organizations, particularly those led by
Mestizos and Hispanic Blacks."
Meanwhile, in the Afro-Panamanian migrant com-
munity in Brooklyn, the National Conference of Pana-
manians (NCOP), spawned in 1974 by the Political
Action Cultural Committee, and joined by smaller
groups that later broke away from it, embraced the
Torrijos regime in the hope that the regime would rec-
ognize the organized presence of U.S.-based Antillean-
Panamanians. What was new about the members of
these groups in Panama and in Brooklyn was the fact
that they were all deeply involved in the nationalist
struggle for the recuperation of the Panama Canal and
54 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
Panamanian sovereignty. And unlike Antillean leaders
of the 1960s, they all mobilized their constituency
around ethnic/racial issues. To one extent or another,
they all questioned the traditional concept of the mono-
cultural and monolingual nation-state, proposing in-
stead a more inclusive concept of the nation-state, where
Blacks, Antilleans, and indigenous peoples would have
a place.12
TORRIJISMO, TREATY NEGOTIATIONS AND
ANTILLEAN-PANAMANIANS IN U.S. AND
PANAMA
While initial reaction to the 1968 military coup against
President Arias was generally negative, by 1972 Gen-
eral Torrijos' military government enjoyed widespread
popular support, the result of a series of institutional
and policy changes (Priestley 1986; Vazquez n.d.). In
1970, the general repudiated the 1903 Panama Canal
treaty, calling it a colonial document that denied Pana-
ma its sovereignty. In 1972, the military approved a
new constitution legitimating military rule, suspend-
ing all political parties and replacing the national leg-
islature with a cumbersome quasi-legislative body
known as the Asamblea Nacional de Representantes
de Corregimientos (ANRC). The ANRC was comprised
of 505 representatives of local administrative units
called corregimientos. While the representatives had
minor local responsibilities, they had virtually no leg-
islative powers. The fact is, however, it had the sem-
blance of grassroots political participation, albeit con-
trolled by the military. The general made other politi-
cal deals with labor unions, peasant organizations, stu-
dent groups such as the powerful Federation de Estu-
diantes de Panama (FEP), and the Partido del Pueblo,
Panama's equivalent to a Moscow-oriented communist
party. To the left of the military government were a
number of Marxist student organizations, including
GUAYCUCHO-NIR, whose leadership was dominat-
ed by young, university-educated Antillean-Panama-
nians (Priestley 1986).
Once this nationalist/populist alliance was in place,
it pronounced itself to be anti-oligarchical and anti-
colonialist, meaning it would deny political power to
traditionally powerful families and groups, seek an ab-
rogation of the 1903 treaty, and pressure the United
States to negotiate a new one. It is within this new po-
litical landscape that Panamanians of Antillean descent
sought to assert a group identity, seeking cultural rec-
ognition, political participation, and social justice. Not
only was the group never formally recognized by the
regime, but also, in the initial years of the regime, many
of its members were repressed when expressing sym-
bols of Black identity. In the early 1970s (as also oc-
curred later in the 1990s after the U.S. invasion of
 November 20, 1989), it was not uncommon for the
police to arrest and cut the Afros of Antillean-Pana-
manian men, especially those traveling to Panama from
the United States. However, by 1973 there was not only
greater regime tolerance of Antillean-Panamanian po-
litical and cultural assertions, but even perhaps some
official encouragement. What brought about this
change?
It is my assertion that by this time the military and
its civilian advisers were cognizant that Antillean-Pan-
amanians, especially those in the United States, could
serve as advocates for a new treaty with Washington.
For it was in March 1973 that the Torrijos government
scored a major diplomatic victory over the United
States, when the Security Council of the United Na-
tions met in Panama to discuss the canal question. This
victory was followed by the Tack-Kissinger Agreement,
a treaty framework signed by the United States and
Panama in February 1974 in the midst of the Nixon
political crisis. Obviously, Torrijos was taking advan-
tage of President Nixon's weakness and Secretary Kiss-
inger's desire for a better understanding with Latin
America. It was at this conjuncture that the military
sought to incorporate the participation of Antillean-
Panamanians (in Panama as well as in the United States,
particularly Brooklyn) in the struggle to secure a new
canal treaty.
The general's inclusionary policy facilitated the
emergence of several cultural and political Antillean-
Panamanian groups in Panama. While they advocated
a new deal with the United States, ARENEP, Los Doce,
and Altemativa worked very hard to raise issues of iden-
tity, discrimination, and participation for Panamanians
of Antillean descent. For the first time in twentieth-
century Panama, significant groups outside of the An-
tillean labor movement in the Canal Zone organized
and mobilized on the basis of race, color, and ethnici-
ty. These groups were not separatists; rather, their agen-
da was one of integration, cultural autonomy, and so-
cial justice for Blacks, particularly those of Antillean
descent. What is interesting is that these efforts, while
not necessarily in coordination with similar efforts by
Antillean-Panamanians in New York, resonated in Pan-
amanian communities throughout New York, particu-
larly in Brooklyn (Bryce-Laporte 1987, Sutton 1987).
At least two important groups emerged in Brook-
lyn to lobby on Panama's behalf or to offer solidarity
for Torrijos' Canal Zone de-colonization project. The
National Conference of Panamanians' (NCOP) strength
was in Brooklyn, with weaker chapters in several ma-
jor U.S. cities. The Union Nacional de Panamenos (UN-
DEP/NAPP—because of internal schism the original
organizers changed the name of the organization to
Nueva Altemativa Popular Panamena) also was main-
ly concentrated in Brooklyn, but participated in the
U.S.-Panamanian Solidarity Network, a nationwide
solidarity movement of North American liberals in sup-
port of the treaty process (Wheaton 1976). Regardless
of differences in organizational strategies, however,
both groups focused their efforts in Brooklyn, where
the majority of Antillean-Panamanians were located.13
According to the 1990 U.S. census, there were
32,544 legal Panamanian residents or citizens in New
York City, the greatest concentration of Panamanians
in the United States. Of these, about 30,000 were Blacks
of Antillean descent. The census figures also indicated
that 4,485 (17.2 percent) migrated between 1960-1964,
and another 3,683 (14.1 percent) migrated between
1965-1969. The data also show that this level of mi-
gration continued during the 1970s, tapered off in the
1980s, but increased again between 1987 and 1990,
years of conflict between Panama and the United States.
A quick socioeconomic profile of Antillean-Pan-
amanians in New York City in 1990 shows that over 11
percent had a college degree, while 3.5 percent held
master's degrees or professional titles. Forty-seven per-
cent had become U.S. citizens. Fifty-five percent of
household incomes ranged from $25,000 to $75,000,
while 67 percent of individual respondents reported
income under $20,000. While I have no figures for fer-
tility and morbidity rates that would allow a more sci-
entific projection of population growth rates, it is in-
teresting to note that the census population was very
mature. Nineteen percent were 17 years old or young-
er, 27 percent between 18 and 35 years, and 54 percent
were 36 years and older. Only 5.2 percent received
public assistance.
Although in the 1990s the community was some-
what dispersed throughout the New York metropolitan
area, the majority were still found in the Crown Heights,
Flatbush, and East Flatbush neighborhoods in Brook-
lyn, living in close proximity to a variety of peoples
from the Caribbean. Such residential concentrations in
these Brooklyn communities led demographers and
social scientists to classify them as West Indians; how-
ever, most are culturally and linguistically quite diverse,
embracing a variety of labels ranging from "West Indi-
an" or "Antillean-Panamanian" to "African-American"
to "Afro-Latin" (Kasinitz 1992:30). This diversity of
identity designation is unlike that of their counterparts
in Panama who, over the past 30 years, have moved
toward greater assimilation into Panamanian culture,
with the majority identifying as Afro-Panamanians or
simply as Panamanians. But in the 1970s those in Pan-
ama as well as in the United States came together as
Panamanians of Antillean descent to support the nego-
tiating process, which culminated in the Carter-Torri-
jos treaties of 1977.
PRIESTLEY 55
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NATIONAL
CONFERENCE OF PANAMANIANS-NCOP
(1974-1975)
The National Conference of Panamanians (NCOP), an
umbrella organization of Antillean-Panamanians in the
United States, grew out of a conference in the Poconos
in May of 1974. More than 200 people from several
states participated, the majority from Brooklyn. The
conference was called by the Panamanian Cultural
Action Committee, which itself was organized in De-
cember of 1973 by a group of graduates from the Pan-
American Institute, a bilingual private school connect-
ed to the Methodist Church in Panama (Panamanian
Cultural Action Committee 1973).'" NCOP disintegrat-
ed at its second conference held in Washington, D.C.,
in 1975 as a result of political differences exacerbated
by differences in leadership styles. Notwithstanding its
short life, the organization set in motion a process of
engagement between Panamanians in the United States
and officials of the Torrijos government, and articulat-
ed a series of cultural, economic and political concerns
of Antillean-Panamanians, particularly those residing
in the United States. Moreover, after its disintegration
many former members went on to play key roles in
Antillean-Panamanian organizations that articulated
some of the demands initially raised by NCOP.
At the Poconos Conference, keynote speaker Juan
Antonio Tack, Torrijos' foreign minister, outlined the
general's program, recognizing past divisions in the
Panamanian community but calling for unity in recov-
ering the canal from the United States. To those in at-
tendance he said, "your collective and individual sup-
port could be extremely significant to Panama, espe-
cially at this moment when there are obstructionist ten-
dencies in the United States that are against any revi-
sion of the treaty" (Russell 1975:13). Foreign Minister
Tack went so far as to offer total diplomatic and consu-
lar support to all those who undertook to lobby for
Panama in the United States, and a resolution stated
"that a defense fund be allocated to the Consulate of-
fice for these purposes" (Russell 1975:29). The past
divisions were, of course, caused by racial and ethnic
discrimination against Antilleans and their offspring,
who, historically, were seen as unpatriotic and pro-
United States. Undoubtedly, the conference provided
an opportunity for many to assume Torrijos' national-
ist project and position themselves as patriots, while
others seized the moment to raise the limitations of the
project and raise issues of ongoing racial, ethnic, and
class subordination in Panama.
To demonstrate how important the transnational
group was to his de-colonization project, Torrijos sent
a team of high-level officials to the Poconos along with
Tack. Nicolas Gonzalez Revilla, Panama's ambassa-
56 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
dor to the United States, and Aquilino Boyd, Panama's
ambassador to the United Nations, were also present.
Romulo Escobar Bethancourt, chancellor of the Uni-
versity of Panama and principal adviser to Torrijos on
treaty matters, joined Nander Pitty, Panama's repre-
sentative to the Organization of American States. The
general also dispatched two Panamanians of Antillean
descent: Margot Hutchinson, legal adviser to the Pan-
amanian military, and George Fisher, labor attache to
Panama's embassy in Washington.
While the Poconos conference was successful in
bringing the U.S. Panamanian community face to face
with the Torrijos government and in articulating de-
mands important to that community, some members of
the new organization thought that NCOP's leadership
had simply gone too far in its uncritical stance toward
the military government. They broke away from NCOP
in 1975 at the second conference in Washington, D.C.,
and organized what became UNDEP, a group with sig-
nificant ties to GUAYCUCHO-NIR, the student-based
revolutionary formation in Panama.15 The following
year, UNDEP underwent a crisis of its own, expelling
those members suspected of significant ties to the FEP,
which had recently broken with the Moscow-oriented
Partido del Pueblo to offer total support to the Torrijos
regime. It was then that UNDEP changed its name to
Nueva Alternativa Panamena (NAPP), after it became
evident that the expelled members were refusing to re-
linquish their UNDEP identity.
Although many of the divisions within NCOP and
UNDEP were ideological and political, they were rep-
resented to the community and to the Panamanian mil-
itary government as personal feuds within the leader-
ship. The fact is that prior to the Poconos meeting, and
even afterward, there were different analyses of the
Torrijos regime and different strategies for dealing with
it. While UNDEP/NAPP's leadership thought that the
military government was nationalist and even popu-
list, they also argued that the regime was reformist and
Bonapartist, pretending to stand above class conflicts
with its slogan of "neither with the Left nor the Right."
The organization was also critical of the Torrijos re-
gime for not negotiating better treaty rights for Pana-
manian Canal and military base workers. Hence UN-
DEP/NAPP's strategy was to support the treaty pro-
cess without embracing the regime. This is explained
by the fact that its leaders had fraternal relations with
radical student organizations in Panama, differentiat-
ing them from NCOP leaders, who privileged relations
with government officials and with the FEP, an impor-
tant pillar of support for Torrijos. Because of these
politico-ideological splits and competition for leader-
ship, the impact that Antillean-Panamanians in the
United States had on the treaty process was lessened
and their influence in Panamanian affairs severely af-
fected. Ultimately, the progeny of the canal "diggers,"
both in Panama and in the United States, were deeply
involved in the Torrijos-Carter treaty discussions and
in the larger struggle to refashion the Panamanian na-
tion-state.
CARTER, CANAL NEGOTIATIONS AND
ANTILLEAN-PANAMANIANS (1976-1978)
In this section, my concern is less with the complexi-
ties of canal negotiations under President Carter—am-
ply discussed in Farnsworth (1983), Furlong and Scran-
ton (1984), Jorden (1984), and Hogan (1986)—than
with the participation of Antillean-Panamanians in the
final years of treaty negotiations and ratification under
the new democratic government. Some brief context
is, however, in order. During the transition months af-
ter his November 1976 victory, President Carter's tran-
sition team decided that a quick conclusion of the Pan-
ama Canal negotiations would get a thorny issue out of
the administration's way so as to provide space to deal
with more important issues with China and the Soviet
Union. Furthermore, Carter's advisers thought that
"linking a new Canal treaty to wider hemispheric pol-
icy changes and, more broadly, to a general reorienta-
tion of U.S. foreign policy, strengthened the conceptu-
al and organizational basis for canal policy actions taken
by the Carter administration" (Furlong 1984:85). Al-
though major chunks of the treaty had been put in place
by the Nixon administration, there were still outstand-
ing issues related to duration of treaty, defense, and
canal neutrality. There were also less strategic issues
related to lands and waters, the new administrative
agency, employee rights and guarantees, and econom-
ic benefits. Once these had been agreed to, President
Carter and his administration spent much of 1977 sell-
ing the Canal treaties to the U.S. Congress and the
American people.
It is within this context that I discuss the participa-
tion of three U.S.-based Antillean-Panamanian orga-
nizations in the "selling" of the Carter-Torrijos trea-
ties: Panama-Americans in Action (PAIA), the Pana-
ma Task Force, and UNDEP/NAPP. As Panamanians
with a hybrid identity, the leadership of these groups
worked to educate and mobilize community support
(and sometimes critical support) for the treaties;
reached out to members and leaders of both the Black
and Latino communities; lobbied the Black Congres-
sional Caucus; and formed coalitions with White lib-
erals, particularly in churches. It was not easy for the
leadership of these organizations to gain the active sup-
port of the Panamanian majority in the United States,
for historically these descendants of canal workers,
caught between the politics of nationalism in Panama
and the strategic imperial interest of the United States,
were at best ambivalent in their loyalties. But with Pres-
ident Carter fully behind the treaty, many found it pos-
sible and even comfortable to show their support for
the negotiations and later ratification of the document.
PAIA, an outgrowth of the Brooklyn District of
the NCOP, played a modest role in selling the treaties
to the Panamanian and Black communities in the Unit-
ed States, and to the U.S. Congress. After the breakup
of NCOP in 1975, the Brooklyn District of the organi-
zation continued to work within the Panamanian com-
munity in Brooklyn. For two years, it published a news-
letter dedicated to informing the community about the
ups and downs of the treaty negotiations, encouraging
Antillean-Panamanian participation in that process. To
better reach the community, PAIA opened an informa-
tion and cultural center, offering classes for adults and
young Panamanians ranging from math to Spanish. As
modest as the results were, this was the first such cen-
ter in the Brooklyn community with a clear purpose of
addressing a variety of local needs while focusing on
impacting the treaty negotiations and the political pro-
cess in Panama.16
According to one its most active members, "PAIA's
most important work was lobbying for the treaties, giv-
ing information to the community and to Washington
insiders on the treaty process, and designing and pub-
lishing a pamphlet containing the proposed Carter-Tor-
rijos Treaty and the 1903 treaty, in order to better high-
light the contrast between the two documents" (Inter-
view with PAIA spokesperson, Summer 1993). Clear-
ly, the 1903 treaty and its 1936 and 1955 modifica-
tions were seen as "causes of conflict" between Pana-
ma and the United States, while the Carter-Torrijos
document was presented as a mutually beneficial solu-
tion. PAIA leaders boasted that this was the first time
some senators had seen both documents at the same
time. Whether this is true or not is unimportant. The
fact is that organized Antillean-Panamanians living in
the United States had began to lobby the U.S. Con-
gress on behalf of the Torrijos government, increasing
their visibility not only in the United States but also in
Panama.17
But as laudable as PAIA's efforts were, they fell
short of what Torrijos had expected from Antillean-
Panamanians in the United States. To get the results he
wanted, the general turned to Cirilo McSween, an An-
tillean-Panamanian resident of Chicago and personal
friend of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, to lobby con-
gress on behalf of the treaties. The Panama Task Force
emerged to perform that function, forging stronger ties
than PAIA with the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus.
It is not clear whose idea it was to form the Task Force;
several individuals and groups have claimed author-
PRIESTLEY 57
ship. It is, however, crystal clear that Cirilo McSween
emerged as its most visible leader (Downer-Marcel
1997:121).18
The Panama Task Force appears to have emerged
at the end of 1976 in Chicago. Its purpose was to rally
African-American civil and political leadership to sup-
port the Carter-Torrijos Treaty, and if possible to unite
the badly fragmented Panamanian organizations in the
United States—primarily those in Brooklyn—in order
to present a united front. Cognizant of the divisions in
the Brooklyn Community, the Panama Task Force, with
its headquarters in Chicago, was reluctant to reach out
prematurely to Panamanians in Brooklyn. However, in
early 1977 the Task Force held a public meeting in
Brooklyn, presenting itself and its leaders as the new
coordinators of all efforts having to do with the selling
of the treaty to the non-White community in the Unit-
ed States. Neither the original leadership of NCOP nor
die more radical UNDEP/NAPP joined the Task Force;
however, the Task Force did go on to influence public
opinion and to lobby members of the U.S. Senate, where
Jesse Jackson was believed to have influential friends
in the Democratic Party. In effect, Torrijos had shifted
away from Brooklyn's splintered groups, relying more
on Chicago's Cirilo McSween and Jesse Jackson, who
he believed would have greater impact on the public
opinion of Blacks in the United States, including Anti-
Uean-Panamanians.
Antillean-Panamanian groups within Panama and
within the Panamanian community in Brooklyn that had
a more radical analysis of the Torrijos regime did not
so much participate in "selling" the treaties as offer
critiques of their shortcomings. UNDEP/NAPP was
particularly concerned with the vagueness of treaty
language with respect to the rights of canal workers,
who at that time were largely Panamanians of Antillean
descent. It was the view of UNDEP/NAPP that the
interest of these workers were not forcefully or clearly
articulated by either negotiating parties, and hence
following a historical trend of discrimination and
exclusion of this group by both the U.S. and
Panamanian elite.
UNDEP/NAPP (1975-1978)
UNDEP/NAPP's leadership had come to the organiza-
tion by way of a variety of previous experiences. Some
had participated in various New Left student organiza-
tions in Panama during the 1960s and early 1970s, years
of intense anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles.
Others had participated in one or more Antillean-Pan-
amanian organizations of the early 1970s, and yet oth-
ers were among the first Panamanian educators and po-
litical activists to tour 20 major cities across the Unit-
ed States in March 1975 to raise the issue of Panama-
58 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
nian sovereignty before the American public. Solidar-
ity activists who later visited Panama affirmed that "the
March tour inspired... North Americans to organize a
visit to Panama in October of 1975, at the invitation of
the Panamanian government, as an exchange of soli-
darity between the peoples of the two countries"
(Wheaton 1976:121). In 1976 the U.S. visitors, core
members of NAPP and other Antillean-Panamanians
living outside of New York, formed the U.S. Commit-
tee for Panamanian Sovereignty (USCPS), an organi-
zation that played a significant role in educating Unit-
ed States citizens and residents about the history of
U.S.-Panamanian relations as well as about the nuts
and bolts of the proposed Carter-Torrijos Treaty.
Prior to breaking away from NCOP in the summer
of 1975, those who became the organizers of UNDEP/
NAPP had worked within the Political Action Com-
mittee of NCOP. This committee, operating out of the
Brooklyn District, had provided organizational and po-
litical leadership for the work of NCOP, since the na-
tional organizational structure proposed in 1974 at the
Poconos conference had proved cumbersome, unman-
ageable, and ineffective. During 1974 and 1975 the Po-
litical Action Committee organized a number of activ-
ities, including a press conference on August 13,1975,
and a massive rally/demonstration on the 20th of the
same month. The press conference, carried by the As-
sociated Press and United Press International, so im-
pressed the Torrijos government that it sent a delega-
tion and members of the Panamanian press to cover
the huge rally held at the United Nations. Unquestion-
ably, the Panamanian government was extremely
pleased with the impact that these activities had on
public opinion in the United States and abroad, but
equally important was the impact they had within
NCOP, igniting a struggle at the second conference for
direction and leadership of the organization.
Four days after the August 1975 rally at the Unit-
ed Nations, NCOP held its second conference at the
plush L'Enfant Hotel in Washington, D.C., where hun-
dreds of Panamanians from several states gathered to
evaluate the organization's work over the previous year
and to map out an agenda for future work. Dominating
the agenda, however, was the question of leadership
and direction of the organization. On the one hand was
NCOP's national leadership, with substantial support
from civic and social groups, and on the other was the
leadership of NCOP's Political Action Committee. Key
members of the committee made recommendations to
streamline and democratize the structures of the orga-
nization with the intent to move it away from what they
perceived as a pro-Torrijos orientation. In reality they
wanted to move NCOP in an anti-imperialist direction.
The positions remained irreconcilable, leading to a split
in the organization and its quick demise as a national
group.
Although the majority within NCOP maintained
that the split was based on differences of personality
and clashes of egos, those who left NCOP to found
UNDEP/NAPP maintained that the split was based on
differences in analyses and perceptions of the Torrijos
regime. In a "Quadra Centennial Message to the Pana-
manian Community" issued in summer 1976 (Wheaton
1976), UNDEP/NAPP made it clear that it doubted
whether Torrijos, despite his nationalist rhetoric, could
adopt a genuine anti-imperialist strategy, given the re-
gime's economic and financial dependence on the Unit-
ed States. Furthermore, the message pointed out that
in 1975 Torrijos' erstwhile aggressive and nationalist
diplomatic posture had begun to waver as the Panama-
nian government made one concession after another to
the Ford administration. As an example, the document
cited the removal of Panama's foreign minister, Juan
Antonio Tack, who in Washington's view was too rad-
ical, constituting an obstacle to continued negotiations.
To replace Tack, Torrijos appointed Aquilino Boyd, a
moderate nationalist more acceptable to Washington.
The political ties of the new foreign minister to one of
NCOP's top leaders in Brooklyn was cause for alarm
within NAPP's leadership, because it was assumed that
the appointment would give new life to NCOP's lead-
ership, while weakening the progressive and radical
forces in Panama and Brooklyn.
However, as we saw earlier, UNDEP/NAPP's
problems no longer involved a swiftly declining NCOP
but rather its breakaway group, linked to the FEP. Be-
tween January 1976 and the summer of that year, the
systematic conflict between NAPP's nucleus and the
FEP sympathizers within NAPP led to a split, leading
each to hold onto the organization's name. Was this
split inspired by confrontations in Panama between the
FEP, tied to the military regime, and the more radical
student group, GUAYCUCHO? Was the FEP attempt-
ing to increase its political influence within the Torri-
jos coalition by demonstrating leadership in U.S. based
Antillean-Panamanian political groups? It is reason-
able to believe that both rivalry between the "reform-
ist" FEP and the "radical" GUAYCUCHO student
groups had spilled over into the political movement in
Brooklyn. It is equally reasonable to hold that the FEP
had ambitions to insert itself, via Panamanian groups
in New York, into the treaty debates in the United States.
More research, however, is necessary on this point.
Having left or been dismissed from NAPP, the
FEP-inspired group in Brooklyn joined forces with the
Panama Task Force, now under the leadership of Ciri-
lo McSween, Chicago magnate and friend of Jesse Jack-
son. UNDEP/NAPP moved into full-time work with
the U.S. Committee for Panamanian Sovereignty (US-
CPS) on a national scale.
The USCPS, organized in the fall of 1975, was
one of a number of U.S. religious, business, and polit-
ical organizations participating in the canal debate
(Hogan 1986). Organizations in support of the treaties
included the Committee of Americans for the Canal
Treaties, the National Association of Manufactures, the
Business Roundtable, and the Chamber of Commerce.
In support also were religious groups such as the Na-
tional Council of Churches (NCC) and the United States
Catholic Conference. Groups and organizations to the
left of these "support associations" were the Ecumeni-
cal Program for Inter-American Communication and
Action (EPIC A), the Washington Office on Latin Amer-
ica (WOLA), and the USCPS.
One U.S. political analyst said that the USCPS
"claimed to unite oppressed 'working people' in the
United States with others involved in the world-wide
struggle against imperialism" (Hogan 1986:111). In fact
the USCPS, utilizing a grassroots rather than a media
approach, appealed to a wide variety of people, includ-
ing students, women, environmentalists, and Blacks.
However, the organization did have ideological and po-
litical shortcomings. Most, if not all, of its national com-
mittees, spread through many states, reduced the Pan-
amanian anti-imperialist struggle to a legal problem of
signing a treaty with the United States. For example, in
the summer of 1977, on the eve of the conclusion of
the Carter-Torrijos Treaty, when the USCPS was con-
fronted with a choice of support for or rejection of the
treaty, it chose to offer what it called "critical support."
UNDEP/NAPP was unhappy with the choice made by
USCPS, a choice that was also made by what consti-
tuted the U.S. left and the Latin American left in the
United States.
Once the treaty was signed and UNDEP had
changed its name to NAPP, the organization made a
concerted effort to educate the Panamanian communi-
ties in New York and in Panama about the nuts and
bolts of the agreement. A detailed analysis of the trea-
ty was made and widely distributed, and a special ef-
fort was made to point out the treaty's shortcomings
with respect to labor rights and the probability of a
continued U.S. military presence in Panama after the
year 2000 (Priestley 1978, Manfredo 1988).
In the end, the treaty had been ratified in the Unit-
ed States and in Panama by margins that were narrow-
er than what the principals had hoped for. In Panama,
it was ratified by a 2-1 margin, and it squeaked through
the United States Senate with a 68 to 32 vote, one more
than the required two-thirds majority. By summer of
1978 NAPP shifted direction, offering the Nicaraguan
solidarity movement "the ... experience gained in the
PRIESTLEY 59
anti-imperialist struggle in the United States."19
After treaty ratification in 1978, the Torrijos re-
gime embarked on a transition to civilian government,
with political parties moving to center stage. In effect,
this was the beginning of the end of the nationalist/
populist Torrijos project. Torrijos was killed in a mys-
terious plane crash in July 1981, and by the time na-
tional elections were held in May 1984, most popular
political organizations, including Antillean-Panamani-
an ones, had declined or shifted emphasis. Most were
unprepared for the burdens of the International Mone-
tary Fund (IMF)-imposed structural adjustment poli-
cies implemented by the new political leadership in
Panama, which, headed by General Manuel Antonio
Noriega, repressed the relative autonomy enjoyed un-
der the Torrijos government.
Disenchanted with this turn of events and exclud-
ed from meaningful participation within elite-con-
trolled political parties in the 1980s, some Antillean-
Panamanian activists in Brooklyn turned their atten-
tion to the U.S. Central American solidarity movement.
Others championed the cause of the largely Black city
of Colon, where high unemployment and dilapidated
housing conditions continuously pushed residents to
migrate to Panama City or the United States. One such
group was Colon Necesita de Ti, under the leadership
of the late Rex Archibald and the businessman Sandy
Trotman. In Panama, the FEP, or what was left of it,
turned its attention to electoral politics, participating
in the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), at the
time a military-controlled institution. GUAYCUCHO-
NIR flirted with a left electoral alternative in 1984 and
dabbled in PRD electoral politics in 1989.
In the 1980s it became increasingly evident, in
Panama at least, that the politics of class had steadily
declined as a result of the iron-fisted politics of Norie-
ga, operating in tandem with the neo-liberal policies
then emerging from Washington. It also became clear
that so-called ethnic minorities and women had begun
to turn to the politics of race and gender, which in the
1980s and beyond had gained a foothold in Latin
America's political arena as part of the so-called new
social movements (Escobar and Alvarez 1992). In Pan-
ama, GUAYCUCHO-NIR sponsored or cooperated
with several Antillean-Panamanian initiatives, namely
the Congresses of Black Panamanians in 1981, 1983,
and 1988, and the Panamenisima Reina Negra Black
aesthetic cultural initiative. A joint effort of Antillean-
Panamanians in the United States and Panama City led
to the emergence of the Society of Friends of the Afro-
Antillean Museum (SAMAAP) in 1981, and in 1980
ethnic/racial activists in Panama and the United States
joined the Afro-Latino movement embodied in the ef-
forts of the Congresses of Black Culture of the Amer-
60 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
icas, held in Cali, Panama City, and Sao Paulo. It is to
this arena that I now turn, in order to describe and an-
alyze the various positions on ethnicity and nation that
emerged within the Antillean-Panamanian transnational
community, especially as its public intellectuals cri-
tiqued and redefined identity labels in search of a place
within and across the Panamanian community.
ETHNICITY, CLASS, AND THE NATIONAL
QUESTION: REVISITED (1970S AND 1980S)
In Priestley (1989), I discussed how Panamanian, North
American, and Caribbean scholars and politicians char-
acterized and labeled Panamanians ofAntillean or West
Indian descent (Oboler 1995). For example, Materno
Vasquez (n.d.), non-Antillean Black, lawyer and former
Supreme Court Justice during the Torrijos regime, re-
garded English-speaking Antillean Blacks as incom-
patible with Panama's nationality. Velma Newton
(1984), a Caribbean, agreed with Vasquez, doubting
whether the tens of thousands of Antillean workers
would ever be permitted to integrate into Panamanian
society. Even Luis Navas (1974), progressive Panama-
nian scholar and politician, attributed the weaknesses
of Panama's labor movement to the "cultural backward-
ness" of Antillean or West Indian workers (Navas
1974).
On the other hand, while John and Mavis Biesanz
(1993), North American scholars living in Panama dur-
ing the 1950s, would subscribe to much of the above
characterization of Antillean-Panamanians of the peri-
od, another North American scholar, Michael Conniff
(1985), influenced by the writings and views of George
Westerman, detected identity transformations among
Antillean-Panamanians and pointed to signs of inte-
gration. Since the 1960s, the majority of Panamanians
of Antillean descent have become completely bilingual
or even monolingual in Spanish. Similarly, many have
converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, the reli-
gion of the dominant group in Panamanian society.
Some have even become culturally and phenotypically
Mestizo, shedding Antillean behavioral patterns and
marrying lighter-skinned Spanish speakers. The ma-
jority, however, continue to reaffirm their Antillean
roots while asserting an Afro-Panamanian identity.20
An assertion of an Afro-Panamanian identity is based
on the premise that Antillean-Panamanians and so-
called colonial Blacks (former slaves who presumably
share a common language and culture with Panamani-
an Whites and Mestizos) share in a common history of
oppression and are equally victims of social exclusion
in present-day Panama. Furthermore, the concept is
strategically designed to bridge the historical schism
that has separated so-called colonial Blacks from An-
tilleans and their offspring.
 The political inclusion of both groups in the 1952-
1955 Remon administration and in that of the govern-
ment of General Torrijos during the decade of the 1970s
was instrumental in bridging the schism between Anti-
llean-Panamanians and colonial Blacks. While Down-
er-Marcel (1997) advances the notion that the two com-
munities commingled in the arrabales (lower class ar-
eas in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Pana-
ma) and insinuates some kind of incipient solidarity
between the groups, it is my contention that the two
groups remained politically apart until President Remon
made a conscious effort to include members of both
groups in his administration. A.L. Lawson, a promi-
nent West Indian engineer and civic and political lead-
er in the early 1950s, included in his book (Lawson
n.d.) the names and photographs of prominent West
Indian and Hispanic Blacks who participated in the
Remon administration, seeming to suggest that both
groups could be seen as Negro sons of Panama or what
today would be called Afro-Panamanians. I argue, how-
ever, that it was Antillean-Panamanians who re-opened
the discussion of race, ethnicity, and nation during Tor-
rijos' rule.
The advent of the Torrijos nationalist/populist re-
gime of the 1970s and the Torrijos Carter treaty nego-
tiations provided Antillean-Panamanians in Panama and
in the United States with the opportunity to place high
on the political agenda discussions of national, ethnic
and racial identity.21 While the Torrijos regime can take
some credit for furthering Antillean-Panamanian inte-
gration, this was not the result of a clearly defined gov-
ernment policy or an explicit recognition that Panama
was in fact a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multicul-
tural society (Castro 1988). For all its anti-oligarchical
and populist rhetoric, the regime's conception of Pan-
amanian national culture was not very different from
previous governments. Like them, it equated national
culture with cultural symbols and practices emanating
from the White-Mestizo region of Azuero, particular-
ly from the province of Los Santos (Jaen 1978:489-
582). All other cultural symbols and practices, for ex-
ample those of the Congos—African-derived—from
the provinces of Colon and Darien, were seen as mere
additions to the national culture.
Antillean-Panamanians, in informal alliances with
Spanish-speaking Blacks, challenged this White-Mes-
tizo view of Panamanian culture, while the Kuna and
Ngobe Bugle indigenous groups vied to affirm their
own identity (CEASPA 1981, Dixon 1990, Lund Dro-
let n.d., Tice 1995). Panamanians of Antillean descent,
at home and abroad, made concerted efforts at self-
identification, challenging many of the assumptions
held by others about Antillean-Panamanians, Panama-
nian culture, and the Panamanian nation. Individuals,
groups, and organizations within both Panama and the
United States participated in these processes of self-
definition and identification, evaluating cultural and
race relations in Panama, and organizing a series of
political forums and cultural activities to challenge the
dominant cultural and racial paradigms in Panama.
In the early 1970s, the Exciters, an Antillean-Pan-
amanian musical group, organized "Miss Soul" Carni-
val Queen in Panama. This was the first time that Anti-
llean-Panamanians had chosen a queen to represent
their ethnic-racial group during the pre-Lent four-day
carnival festivities. The effort, influenced by the Civil
Rights and Black power movement in the United States,
was not well received by the White-Mestizo majority.
Many complained that even the name "Miss Soul" was
an affront to Panama's cultural identity, and in 1978 it
was replaced by the "Panamenisima Reina Negra"
Queen contest, a concept more acceptable to the ma-
jority population since it was inclusive of all Black
Panamanians. Unlike the "Miss Soul" concept, Pana-
menisima Reina Negra was integrationist and indica-
tive of the changing reality of Antillean-Panamanians,
principally those living in Panama, many of whom had
begun to embrace the idea of being Afro-Panamanian.
While the Afro-Panamanian label was acceptable
to some middle-class Antillean-Panamanians on the
isthmus—nationalists, class-based organizations, and
political elites—its integrationist implications did not
sit well with Antillean-Panamanians in Panama who
remained at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder
or who remained nostalgic about their "privileges" in
the former Jim Crow Canal Zone. Neither was the la-
bel welcomed by many Antillean-Panamanians in the
United States who had either participated in the Civil
Rights/Black Power movement of the 1960s or who,
as a result of sharing the same geographical and cul-
tural space with English-speaking Caribbean immi-
grants, had reasserted their West Indian identity. Basi-
cally, these individuals/groups rejected the concept of
an Afro-Panamanian identity because it threatened the
very existence and viability of the broader and, to them,
preferred concept of Antillean or West Indian identity,
one that privileged Blackness and the English language
as essential markers of their identity.
For the most part, proponents of the Afro-Pana-
manian label were more grounded in Panamanian pol-
itics, and, without rejecting their Antillean roots,
thought it important to their life chances in Panama to
master the Spanish language, bridge the gap between
Antilleans and colonial Blacks (Westerman 1946,
1950), and shape alliances with class-based and anti-
imperialist formations engaged in what they saw as an
anti-oligarchical and anti-imperialist struggle. In part,
the tensions between the proponents of these different
PRIESTLEY 61
ethnic/racial labels were responsible for the previous-
ly mentioned schism between the leadership of the
NCOP and the UNDEP/NAPP.
The proponents of an Antillean or West Indian
identity in Panama pointed to a number of key markers
in the construction of that identity: discrimination and
racism suffered by the group in the Canal Zone as well
as in Panama, the group's unique contributions as "dig-
gers" of the Panama Canal, and the strengths of West
Indian institutions—the English language, Protestant-
ism, and family structure. Guillermo "Cubena" Wil-
son, a major proponent of this label, unveiled, confront-
ed, and de-constructed pejorative labels, such as
"Chombo," imposed on Antilleans by the dominant
society, and examined the nature of West Indian repre-
sentations in mainstream Panamanian literature. Assum-
ing "Chombo" as a positive identity, "Cubena" (pen
name of Guillermo Wilson), a professor of literature at
Loyola University in California and an Antillean-Pan-
amanian, wrote Chombo, a novel about West Indian
life in Panama during the first five or six decades of
the twentieth century (Wilson 1981). He captured im-
portant moments in the lives of Antilleans in Panama
as they fought against racism in the Canal Zone and
cultural and racial prejudice in Panama itself.
In a separate paper (Wilson 1978) examined the
ideological roots of Panamanian cultural nationalism
and its essentialist features. In that unpublished paper,
he describes and analyzes the three pillars of Panama-
nian culture: the Spanish language, the Catholic Church,
and the White race. Wilson argued that these ideolog-
ical markers are used by Whites and Mestizos in Pan-
ama to discriminate against colonial Blacks as well as
against English- speaking immigrant Blacks from the
Caribbean, and that Antillean-Panamanians are fre-
quently represented as being ugly, submissive and doc-
ile. For example, "Cubena" (Guillermo Wilson) notes
that in Alfredo Canton's novel Juventud Exhausta, one
of the characters differentiates and contrasts Antillean
men from "true" Panamanian "machos." "One, these
niggers speak English. The other, since they become
accustomed to being ill treated by the British, when
the gringo insults and kicks them in the derriere, the
Jamaican tolerates this ill treatment. But a Panamani-
an retaliates with whatever he has available" (Wilson
1978). Notice in the quotation that all West Indians
are referred to as Jamaicans, from which the disparag-
ing stereotype "Jumecos" is derived. According to
"Cubena," (Wilson) in the same novel Black women
are presented as ugly, sensuous and amoral, a view
widely held in Latin America where White women are
represented as virtuous and the Mulatta as voluptuous
and desirable as a sexual object (Wilson 1978:13).
New York-based Antillean-Panamanians Dr. Car-
62 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
los Russell and Roman Foster rejected these negative
stereotypes imposed from the outside, and sounded an
alarm concerning what they perceived as a trend to-
ward assimilation in Panama. They both proceeded to
make a case for recreating a separate West Indian or
Antillean identity in Panama. Russell, an activist in the
Civil Rights movement prior to his involvement in Pan-
amanian politics, occupied many positions and served
in many organizations. He was Brooklyn editor of the
Amsterdam News, associate editor of the Liberator,
founder of Black Solidarity Day and the NCOP, spe-
cial consultant to Dr. Martin Luther King's "Poor Peo-
ple's Campaign," and former Panamanian ambassador
at the United Nations and the Organization of Ameri-
can States. He also organized the West Indian-Pana-
manian Heritage Association in New York, and wrote
several poems and plays highlighting Antillean identi-
ty. Two representative works of his are Ode to Pana-
ma, a play about the West Indian Diaspora, and The
Last Buffalo (Russell 1995), an essay lamenting the
loss of West Indian identity among Antillean-Panama-
nians in Panama.
Foster, a Panamanian educator of Antillean de-
scent, produced and directed "Diggers," a 1984 docu-
mentary in which he sang the praises of West Indian
immigrants who built the Panama Canal; explored
themes of discrimination, work and identity; and af-
firmed the centrality of West Indian culture in Panama,
which he asserted was being repressed and denied.
Foster's project, funded by the New York Council on
the Arts, the Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS),
and the Ford Foundation, rekindled the memories and
pride of hundreds of Brooklyn's Antillean-Panamani-
ans who made a substantial financial contribution to
the project (Ettrick 1984, 1985). In a 1985 interview,
Foster indirectly criticized second- and third-genera-
tion Antillean-Panamanians who had assimilated, say-
ing, "I feel that I have attained—unlike many of my
lost brothers and sisters—the highest level of pride and
respect for my heritage as a Black man of West Indian
descent born in a land called Panama" (Ettrick 1985:2)
He further argued, "many [Antillean-Panamanians]
chose to relinquish all the traits and characteristics that
would classify them as descendants of 'Chombos'—
one of these being the ability to speak and write En-
glish. Unlike our forefathers and mothers who chose
to preserve our culture and sought to gain the respect
of the native Panamanians, descendants of the "dig-
gers" found it easier to give up their heritage in order
to assimilate within that society"(Ettrick 1985:3).
Foster's views are echoed by Russell in "The Last
Buffalo" (Russell 1995), a paper delivered at a confer-
ence sponsored by the Sociedad de Amigos del Museo
Afro-Antillano de Panama (SAMAAP). In it, Russell
argues that Antillean-Panamanians are an endangered
species inasmuch as they have been assimilated into
the larger society, losing their own cultural identity in
the process. However, unlike Foster and Wilson, Rus-
sell, over the past two decades, has organized U.S.-
based Antillean-Panamanians with the singular purpose
of increasing their participation in Panamanian soci-
ety. On the other hand he differs with those in Panama
who seek integration in Panamanian society as Afro-
Panamanians rather than as Antilleans.
All this suggests that there is a strong integration-
ist process underway in Panama whose clearest cultur-
al and political indications are the "Panamenisima Re-
ina Negra" carnival queen contest referred to earlier
and the Congreso del Negro Panameno, whose prede-
cessor, the Asociacion Afro-Panameno, was organized
in the early 1970s by Alfred Rowe, of Antillean de-
scent, and Eugenio Barria, a Black of colonial descent.22
The Afro-Panamanian cultural label found political
expression in the Congreso del Negro Panameno, a
series of high profile forums held in 1981, 1983 and
1988 whose founders and principal organizers were also
involved in the Panamenisima Reina Negra organiza-
tion. Unlike most Antillean-Panamanian organizations
in Panama during the 1970s and 1980s, the Congreso's
leadership was made up mostly of graduates of the
University of Panama: bilingual but more fluent in
Spanish than English, participants in civic and labor
organizations, and leaders of nationalist and progres-
sive student organizations.
Although one objective of the Congreso's orga-
nizers was to provide a forum for all opinions and views
of the entire Black community, Antilleans as well as
Spanish-speaking colonials, their politics are clearly
reflected in the themes discussed, resolutions taken,
and views stated at the Primer Congreso del Negro Pan-
ameno in 1980 {Memorias del Primer Congreso del
Negro Panamenol9S2). Their central objective was to
unite all Panamanian Blacks, those of Antillean descent
as well as Hispanic descent, as part of the popular ma-
jority whose interests were represented by progressive
labor, student, indigenous, and other groups. Not only
did they invite and get the support of indigenous lead-
ers such as Julio Dixon, but in several of the final res-
olutions the Congreso expressed solidarity with the
struggles of the Kunas, Guaymies and Chocoes. Ex-
ploitation of cultural differences between Antillean and
colonial Blacks was also denounced and a call for ra-
cial unity was made, and the "Documento Central" as-
serted that the Panamanian nation was a cultural and
ethnic mosaic with different cultural and linguistic ex-
pressions (Priestley 1980, Memorias del Primer Con-
greso del Negro Panamenol982:93).
Despite the call for ethnic unity, the strategic ob-
jective of the Congreso's leadership was to advance
the anti-imperialist struggle in Panama during the pe-
riod. This assertion is shared by one of the organizers
of the Black Congresses. In a 1997 interview, he of-
fered a self-criticism, stating, "In the 1970s and 1980s
there was a struggle for integration. There were many
petty-bourgeois groups ... representing the poor of the
poorest in the Antillean community, but adhering to
clientele politics; then there were those who linked race
struggle to that of class, and here there were many great
defects, misunderstandings and limitations. This we
find in the Congreso. We overemphasized class and
failed to capture the specificity of the ethno-cultural
dynamics."23
There is no doubt that Gerardo Maloney, poet, so-
ciologist, cineaste and Black activist, would agree with
the above self-criticism and with Paul Gilroy (1993),
who states that class analysis should be substantially
reworked in the light of its encounter with "race." A
man of progressive politics and firm race conscious-
ness, in the 1970s and 1980s Maloney tried to bridge
the gap between the "race"-first and class-conscious
groups in the Antillean-Panamanian community, sav-
ing some of his severest criticism for those who subor-
dinated and reduced "race" to the politics of class. On
the other hand, having studied in Mexico and Ecuador,
more fluent in Spanish than English, and engaged in
the nationalist and anti-imperialist struggles of the
1970s and 1980s, Maloney could not embrace the An-
tillean-Panamanian label as presented by "Cubena"
(Wilson), Foster, and Russell. In a recent interview Ma-
loney made it clear that he preferred the Afro-Panama-
nian label because it best represents the various Black
groups in Panama and because it is useful when "mak-
ing comparisons to the Afro-Brazilian or the Afro-Cu-
ban experience."24
Maloney, although not a principal organizer of the
Congresses of Black Panamanians, emerged as one of
the most important contemporary Afro-Panamanian
scholar-activists in Panama. He served as advisor to
ARENEP during the Carter-Torrijos Treaty negotia-
tions, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the
University of Panama, Executive Director of Channel
11, Panama's educational TV, and organizer of the Sec-
ond Congress of Black Culture of the Americas, held
in Panama in 1980. He has published widely on the
Antillean and Black experience in Panama, and made
several important documentaries on the Antillean so-
cial experience, including "Los del Silver Roll," "Ca-
lypso," and "Tambo Jazz" (Foster 1997; Maloney 1991;
Maloney 1994).
The latter two films represent Antillean-Panama-
nians in the Diaspora. Important segments of both doc-
umentaries were filmed in Brooklyn, capturing the tal-
PRIESTLEY 63
ents of Antillean-Panamanian musical talent in New
York City. Upon completion of "Calypso," the present
author organized a full-fledged showing and gathering
to recognize some of the documentary's participants at
the Paradise Manor in Brooklyn. "Tambo Jazz," mean-
while, premiered in the modern air-conditioned audi-
torium at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Uni-
versity Hospital of Brooklyn in 1994. The Congress of
Black Panamanian and Viaful Dynamics organized the
event, in honor of the legendary Victor Boa, and over
500 attended a three-hour concert, which, for the first
time brought together several outstanding Afro-Pana-
manian jazz musicians. Highlights of the event are re-
produced in Foster (1997).
CONCLUSION
Since the heyday of Antillean-Panamanian activism in
Panamanian politics in the 1970s and 1980s much has
changed in Panama. Following the death of Omar Tor-
rijos in 1981, the political process was dominated by
General Manuel Noriega, who embraced the politics
of neo-liberalism to the detriment of the vast majority
of Panama's citizens, including Afro-Panamanians.
With the exception of one brief moment of political
demagoguery when, in confrontation with the United
States, Noriega invoked the notion of a Black and brown
Panama, issues of race and racial discrimination took
a back seat to that of security, democracy, and sover-
eignty. The 1989 U.S. invasion, accompanied by fun-
damental changes in the world order, brought new eco-
nomic, political, and social woes to the powerless ma-
jority and fueled the resurgence of racism and ethnic
conflicts.
As they enter the twenty-first century, Afro-Pana-
manians are still confronted with new and old forms of
exclusions. Their presence in the Canal work force has
substantially diminished; they are largely absent from
decent-paying jobs in the commercial, banking, and fi-
nancial sectors of the economy; their numbers in high-
er education, while decent, do not translate into decent
jobs, and their continued exclusion from public plac-
es, of entertainment]and stereotyping in the mass me-
dia has led to the emergence of new groups such as
Pro-Dignidad, Comite Panamefio Contra el Racismo
(CPCR), and others. Older groups, such as SAMAAP,
which formed the Comision Coordinadora de la Con-
memoracion del Dia de la Etnia Negra Nacional 2001—
including Hispanic as well as Antillean Black organi-
zations—have joined these.
Unity amongst these groups is still a long way off,
but they have come together to denounce the exclusion
of Blacks, women, indigenous groups and the dispos-
sessed. Pro-Dignidad and the CPCR have recently de-
nounced the exclusion of youth of color from public
64 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
places of entertainment and have organized mass dem-
onstrations against Bacchus, Rock Cafe, and La Cos-
tillita, three of the most blatantly racist business estab-
lishments. Pro-Dignidad has successfully submitted a
legislative bill against "the right to reserve admission,"
used by these businesses to exclude people of color.
The CPCR, meanwhile, has launched a campaign, "No
Me Pidas Una Foto," to prohibit businesses from de-
manding a photograph as part of a job application, a
practice used to eliminate people of color and women
over 35 years old from the job pool.
On July 10, 2001, at the urging of the CPCR, the
mayor of Panama City approved Resolution 497 of 28
June 2001 to discontinue that practice in the govern-
ment offices of the municipality of Panama City. These
are first steps in a long journey toward the destruction
of "racist discourse and exclusionary structures ... [nec-
essary to] create a truly multicultural, multiethnic, mul-
tiracial and multilingual nation, one in which all are
recognized and in which all are given an opportunity
to construct and represent the new Panama" (Priestley
1999).
In the United States, Panamanians of Antillean de-
scent continue to display a cultural hybridity: speaking
English and Spanish; dancing Soca, Salsa, Calypso and
Tipico; eating fried fish and yam while also enjoying
tortilla, tamales, and cahmanola; and participating in
the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn as well as in
the various Hispanic parades in Manhattan, Queens,
and Long Island. And given U.S. politics of ethnicity,
particularly in New York, Panamanians have moved to
reaffirm their national identity by publicly celebrating
Panama's emancipation from Colombia on the 3rd of
November. For example, on or around that date hun-
dreds gather at the Borough President's Office in Brook-
lyn, while thousands participate in the Independence
Day Parade along Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn. Al-
though skeptical of the process of mestizaje that the
Afro-Panamanian label implies, many continue to par-
ticipate in the cultural, social, economic, and political
affairs of the nation. During the recent celebration of
the Day of Ethnic Awareness, many actively partici-
pated in the month-long affair.
Continued cooperation between Antillean-Pana-
manians here and Panama is doubtful, though, unless
youth on both sides can begin the necessary dialogue
and action to insure the construction of a common agen-
da. Transnational activities are sometimes limited when
second-generation groups in the Diaspora are not con-
nected to the realities and problems of "home." Anti-
llean-Panamanians continue to be dispersed in Pana-
ma and moving toward cultural and biological mesti-
zaje, while in the United States, particularly in Brook-
lyn, they find themselves nucleated mostly in English-
 speaking Caribbean neighborhoods, reproducing hy-
brid cultural identities nurtured in part by reinventing
their national and cultural ties to Panama.
NOTES
1. Although the concepts of West Indians and West
Indian Panamanians are widely used, I use the terms
"Antillean" and "Antillean-Panamanian" to include mi-
grants from the Dutch- and French-speaking Caribbe-
an islands, but not of the Bahamas.
2. These Antillean groups in Panama organized
dozens of English-speaking schools, churches, lodges,
and benevolent societies during the initial decades of
the twentieth century. Many of these institutions have
since disappeared or have been transformed.
3. In a forthcoming work on Westerman's life and
works, I will detail the politics of the 1950s and ana-
lyze his significant literary and political contribution
to understanding the complexities of the politics of race,
class and nationalism in Panama during these years.
4. A brief comparison of the 1904,1941 and 1946
Panamanian constitutions reveals the inclusiveness of
the first, the exclusionary nature of the second, and the
conditionality of the third with respect to citizenship
requirements. For the 1904 Constitution, see Article 6,
paragraphs 1-4, particularly 1. By contrast, articles 12,
14, 18 and 23 of the 1941 Constitution exclude the
children of Antillean Panamanian from citizenship.
Article 12 of the 1946 Constitution provides for citi-
zenship for children of the foreign born, if at age 18
they request it and are found to be competent in Span-
ish and spiritually and materially connected to the na-
tion.
5. Lie. Hugo Wood, former Panamanian Ambas-
sador to Jamaica and media personality, provided much
valuable information on the politics of West Indians in
this period and led me to interview Lie. Spencer.
6. Much of this analysis comes from my present
research on the life and works of George Westerman.
7. Antillean political participation in this period is
not well documented, but there are important articles
in the George Westerman Collection at the Schomburg
Center for Research in Black Culture, New York City.
8. On the other hand, they were, in principle, giv-
en the long awaited equal pay for equal work. In addi-
tion, training programs were set up to increase the skills
of the non-U.S. worker (read White worker).
9. Based on dozens of interviews in Brooklyn dur-
ing the period 1995-2000 with scores of Panamanians
of Antillean descent and by decades of observation and
participation in that community.
10. Based on interviews with the late Walter "Tito"
Chandler, Enrique Thompson, and others, summer
1998.
11. Much of the information on these two related
organizations is based on my own observation/partici-
pation and extensive conversations with Lie. Alberto
Barrow, principal coordinator of both organizations.
12. Much of this information was gathered through
my participation in and observation of both Panama
and Brooklyn during the period.
13. Based on 1990 U.S. Census, 5 percent Public
Use Microdata Sample sample of Panamanians in New
York City.
14. Its chairperson, however, was a graduate of
the National Institute, Panama's prestigious and nation-
alist public high school. Additional information from
interviews with members.
15. Information on UNDEP/NAPP is based on my
observation/participation, the organization's minutes
for the period, and the organization's newspaper, Chim-
bombo.
16. Information gathered from PAIA literature and
interview in summer of 1996 with one of its most prom-
inent spokespersons.
17. IBID.
18. Information on the Panama Task Force gath-
ered from observation/participation and from interviews
with members of the several of groups under analysis
during 1976 and 1977.
19. Taken from a 1978 NAPP internal document.
20. On a similar phenomenon in Peru, where in-
digenous people reject the "Indian" label while em-
bracing "indigenous culture," see De la Cadena (2001).
21. When Panama's President Aristides Royo met
with hundreds of Antillean Panamanians in Brooklyn
in 1982, Carlos Russell, in a speech entitled "In Search
of New Reality," demanded absentee ballots for Pana-
manians living abroad and their participation in the se-
lection of Panama's consul general in New York. He
also proposed establishing a joint advisory commis-
sion made up of Panamanian officials and members of
the U.S.-based Diaspora community.
22. Interview with Alfred Rowe, December 6,
1996.
23. Confidential interview, January 1997.
24. Interview with Gerardo Maloney, January 18,
1997.
REFERENCES
Anderson, Benedict
1991 [1983] Imagined Communities. New York: Ver-
so.
PRIESTLEY 65
Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Blanc-
Szanton
1994 Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects:
Postcolonial Predicaments and Deterritorial-
ized States. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and
Breach.
Biesanz, John and Mavis
1993 Panama y Sus Gentes. Panama: Editorial Uni-
versitaria.
Bourgois, Philippe
1989 Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Cen-
tral American Banana Plantation. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bryce-Laporte, Roy Simon
1987 New York City and the New Caribbean Immi-
gration: A Contextual Statement. In Caribbe-
an Life in New York City: Socio-Cultural Di-
mension, Constance and Elsa Chaney Sutton,
eds. Pp. 54-73. New York: Center for Migra-
tion Studies.
Castro, Carlos
1988 Contribution al Debate sobre Etnia y Politica
en Panama. Paper presented at Tercer Con-
greso del Negro Panameno, Panama, Decem-
ber.
CEASPA
1981 El Pueblo Guaymi y su Futuro. Panama: Cen-
tro de Estudios y Action Social.
Conniff, Michael
1985 Black Labor On A White Canal: Panama,
1904-1981. Pittsburgh: University of Pitts-
burgh Press.
Constituciones de la Repiiblica de Panama
1968 Panama: Section de Investigation, Facultad
de Derecho, Universidad de Panama.
De la Cadena, Marisol
2001 Reconstructing Race: Racism, Culture, and
Mestizaje in Latin America. NACLA 34(6): 16-
23.
Dixon, Joseph
1990 Life's Journey. Atlanta: WriteConcepts.
Downer-Marcel, Joseph M.
1997 ARENEP-Accion Reinvindicadora del Negro
Panameno, A Community Grass-Roots Orga-
nization (and Social Movement). Ph.D. disser-
tation, Department of Sociology, Michigan
State University.
Escobar, Arturo and Sonia E. Alvarez, eds.
1992 The Making of Social Movements in Latin
America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Escobar, Juan Felipe
n.d. Amulfo Arias o el credo del Panamenismo,
1930-1940. Panama, n.p.
66 TRANSFORMING ANTHROPOLOGY
Ettrick, Pat
1984 Panama Chronicle, Vol. 2(2).
1985 Panama Chronicle, Vol. 3(1).
Farasworth, David N. and James W McKenney
1983 Las relaciones Estados Unidos-Panama: un
estudio politico. Mexico: Ediciones Gernika.
Foster, Noel Steward
1997 Las expresiones musicales en Panama: una
aproximacion. Panama: Editorial
Universitaria.
Furlong, William L. and Margaret Scranton
1984 The Dynamics of Foreign Policymaking: The
President, The Congress, and the Panama Ca-
nal Treaties. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
George, Raymond Antonio
1984 A Training Program for Satisfying the Criti-
cal Skill Needs of the Panama Canal Com-
mission. Ph.D. dissertation, Nova University.
Gilroy, Paul
1993 There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack. Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press.
Glick-Schiller, N., Linda Basch, Cristina Blanc-Szanton
1992 Towards a Transnational Perspective on Mi-
gration: Race, Class, Ethnicity and National-
ism Reconsidered. New York, New York Acad-
emy of Science.
Hogan, Michael J.
1986 The Panama Canal in American Politics: Do-
mestic Advocacy and the Evolution of Policy.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press.
Jaen Suarez, Omar
1978 La poblacion del istmo de Panama del siglo
XVI al siglo XX : estudio sobre la poblacion
y los modos de organization de las economias,
las sociedades y los espacios geograficos.
Panama: Impresora de la Nation.
Jorden, William
1984 Panama Odyssey. Austin, TX: University of
Texas Press.
Kasinitz, Philip
1992 Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and
the Politics of Race. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Uni-
versity Press.
Lawson, A. L.
n.d. Panama Black Sons. Panama, n.p.
Los Tratados entre Panama y los Estados Unidos
1999 Panama: Biblioteca de la Nacionalidad
Autoridad del Canal de Panama.
Lund Drolet, Patricia
n.d. El ritual congo del noroeste de Panama.
Panama: Instituto Nacional de Cultura.
Maloney, Gerardo
1991 Calypso (Video). Ciudad de Panama.
1994 Tambo Jazz (Video). Ciudad de Panama.
Manfredo, Fernando, Jr.
1988 Palabras del Licenciado Fernando Manfredo,
Jr. Tercer Congreso del Negro Panameno,
Panama.
Maskel, Laurence Phillip,
1981 Education, Inequality, and The Structure of
Dominance in the Canal Zone, 1954-1976.
Ph.D. dissertation. Duke University.
Memorias del Primer Congreso del Negro Panameno
1982 Panama: Impresora de la Nacion.
Navas, Luis
1974 El Movimiento Obrero en Panama: 1880-1914.
Panama: Editorial Universitaria.
Newton, Velma
1984 The Silver Men: West Indian Labour Migra-
tion to Panama, 1850-1914. Mona: Institute
of Social and Economic Research.
Oboler, Suzanne
1995 Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the
Politics of (Re)Presentation in the United
States. Minneapolis MN: University of Min-
neapolis Press.
Panamanian Cultural Action Committee.
1973 Memories of a Cultural Evening, Dec. 12,
Brooklyn College, City University of New
York.
Pippin, Larry
1964 The Remon Era: An Analysis of a Decade of
Events in Panama, 1947-1957. Stanford, CA:
Institute of Hispanic American and Luso-Bra-
zilian Studies.
Priestley, George
1978 A Critical Analysis of the Panama Canal Trea-
ties: Its International and National Dynamics.
Brooklyn: Nueva Alternativa Popular
Panamena.
1986 Military Government and Popular Participa-
tion in Panama: The Torrijos Regime, 1968-
1975. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
1990 Ethnicity, Class and the National Question in
Panama: The Emerging Literature. In Emerg-
ing Perspectives on the Black Diaspora. A.
Bonnett and G. Llewellyn Watson, eds. New
York: University Press of America.
1999 Panama en el siglo XXI: dejando el racismo
atras? La Prensa (Panama), 19 July.
Priestley, George and Gerardo Maloney
1975 Los Antillanos en la Politica Panamena. Tareas
33:11-27.
Priestley, George, Gerardo Maloney, and Felipe Wai-
some
1980 Documento Central del Primer Congreso del
Negro Panameno. Panama: Congreso del Ne-
gro Panameno.
Russell, Carlos E.
1975 Proceedings of the First U.S. Conference of
Panamanians. Poconos, PA: Panamanian Cul-
tural Action Committee.
1995 The Last Buffalo: Are Panamanians Of Carib-
bean Ancestry An Endangered Species? Pa-
per presented at Preserving Our Heritage,
meeting of the Sociedad De Amigos Del
Museo Afro-Antillano De Panama.
Schiller, Nina Glick, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc -
Szanton, eds.
1992 Toward a Transnational Perspective on Mi-
gration: Race, Class, Ethnicity and National-
ism Reconsidered. New York: New York Acad-
emy of Sciences.
Sutton, Constance and Elsa Chaney, eds.
1987 Caribbean Life in New York City: Socio-Cul-
tural Dimensions. New York: Center for Mi-
gration Studies.
Tice, Karin E.
1995 Kuna Crafts, Gender, and the Global Economy.
Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Vazquez, Materno
n.d. Omar Torrijos. Panama: Ediciones Olga Elena.
Wade, Peter
1993 Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics
of Racial Identity in Colombia. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University.
Westerman, George
1946 Toward a Better Understanding. Panama, n.p.
1950 A Minority Group in Panama. Panama, n.p.
Wheaton, P.
1976 Panama: Sovereignty for a Land Divided.
Washington, D.C., EPICA.
Wilson, G.
1978 Treatment of Blacks in Panamanian Literature.
International Studies Association, Washington,
D.C.
1981 Chombo (novela). Florida, Ediciones Univer-
sal.
PRIESTLEY 67