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Panama Antillean Blacks
Black laborers from the British West Indies came to Panama by
the tens of thousands in the first half of the twentieth century.
Most were involved in the effort to improve the isthmus
transportation system, but many came to work on the country's
banana plantations as well. By 1910, the Panama Canal Company had
employed more than 50,000 workers, three-quarters of whom were
Antillean blacks. They formed the nucleus of a community separated
from the larger society by race, language, religion, and culture.
Since World War II, immigration from the Caribbean islands has
been negligible. Roughly 7 to 8 percent of the population were
Antillean blacks in the 1980s. Their share in the total population
was decreasing, as younger generations descended from the original
immigrants became increasingly assimilated into the Hispanic
national society.
The Antillean community continued to be marked by its
immigrant, West Indian origins in the 1980s. Some observers noted
that Antillean families and gender ideals reflected West Indian
patterns and that Antillean women were less submissive than their
mestizo counterparts. The Antilleans were originally united by
their persistent loyalty to the British crown, to which they had
owed allegiance in the home islands. Many migrated to Panama with
the intention of returning home as soon as they had earned enough
money to permit them to retire. This apparently transient status,
coupled with cultural differences, further separated them from the
local populace. Another alienating factor was the hostility of
Hispanic Panamanians, which increased as the Antilleans prolonged
their stay and became entrenched in the canal labor force. They
faced racial discrimination from North Americans as well. Their
precarious status was underscored by the fact that the 1941
constitution deprived them of their Panamanian citizenship (it was
restored by the 1946 constitution). The hostility they faced welded
them into a minority united by the cultural antagonisms they
confronted.
The cleavage between older and younger generations was
particularly marked. Younger Antilleans who opted for inclusion in
the Hispanic society at large generally rejected their parents'
religion and language in so doing. Newer generations educated in
Panamanian schools and speaking Spanish well identified with the
national society, enjoying a measure of acceptance there.
Nevertheless, there remained substantial numbers of older
Antilleans who were trained in schools in the former Canal Zone and
spoke English as a first language. They were adrift without strong
ties to either the West Indian or the Panamanian Hispanic culture.
Isolated from mainstream Panamanian society and increasingly
removed from their Antillean origins, they existed, in a sense, on
the margins of three societies.
In common with most middle- and many lower-class Panamanians,
Antillean blacks valued education as a means of advancement.
Parents ardently hoped to give their children as good an education
as possible because education and occupation underlay the social
hierarchy of the Antillean community. At the top of that hierarchy
were ministers of the mainline Protestant religions, professionals
such as doctors and lawyers, and white-collar workers. Nonetheless,
even a menial worker could hope for respect and some social
standing if he or she adhered to middle-class West Indian forms of
marriage and family life, membership in an established church, and
sobriety. The National Guard, formerly known as the National Police
and subsequently called the Panama Defense Forces (Fuerzas de
Defensa de Panamá--FDP), served as a means of integration into the
national society and upward mobility for poorer blacks (Antilleans
and Hispanics), who were recruited in the 1930s and 1940s when few
other avenues of advancement were open to them
(see Manpower
, ch.
5).
Data as of December 1987
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