La Ciudad de Panama y La Historia Afro-Antilleano

I arrived in Panama City about 3 weeks ago, ready for a new adventure after a long month in Colombia. I left late and in a hurry from Colombia, so arrived in Panama with no US dollars, causing me to scour the airport for someone to loan me $5 to pay an annoying tourist entrance fee. I finally was able to borrow the money and get passed customs. My taxi ride was quite interesting. A young black man picked me up, and he spoke like he was from New York City. There was literally no trace of an accent, except with a few words. We went back and forth about Plaxico Burress and Michael Vick and NFL football in general, as we drove on the highway along the water passed impressive skyscrapers and bright lights. The guidebook says Panama City reminds people of Miami, and I really was confused about the level of development I saw. I got a healthy wake up call though as we drove passed some more sober neighborhoods, devoid of the glitz of the oceanside glamor.

Since the taxi driver seemed like quite an educated black Panamanian, I of course launched into a series of questions about racial identity and Afro- influenced culture in Panama. I was surprised that he responded with a very defensive rant about how race and racism does not exist in Panama, how it never matters the color of skin or where you come from because everyone is so mixed and embraces everyone, how the idea of difference basically does not exist. I am always surprised when people attack the idea of difference, as if it inherently threatens equality. People can have different sensibilities, understand the world through unique cultural lenses, and still respect others and live among them in a spirit of openness and peace and understanding. His dismissal of all of my questions shed a new light on the unique challenge I have come to recognize in Panama - the way people have handled their history of racism and cultural diversity has been to deny completely its impact on the present day. Now I'm still young, but I'm experienced to know that in a place like Panama its highly unlikely that they've reached the status of a racial utopia.

My first days in the city were uneventful. I switched hostels form El Cangrejo, a working class neighborhood, to Casco Viejo, the colonial city center. Casco Viejo is quite run down in some parts, with squatters living in centuries-old buildings, and in other parts, like the plazas and the area around the presidential palace, is developed, touristy, and almost ritzy. The contrast is startling. My second night I met my friend Diego from Colombia, who had missed his flight to his wedding in Turkey. I felt so bad for him that I dedicated two days to trying to take his mind off his angry/upset bride to be and the confused families waiting for him hundreds of miles away. We played basketball, ping pong, watched movies in the hostel theatre (shout out to Luna's Castle with their movie theatre - baller!), and generally did nothing of consequence. I'm happy to know he finally made his way to Turkey and is now with his wife. When Diego left, I immediately assembled a new crew - this girl Holly from Canada, this girl Trinh from the UK, and this guy Mike from Australia. There were some others, but we pretty much stayed attached during our time in the city. Weekend nights out on Calle Uruguay and Zona Viva, with tons of bars and clubs, was both fun and expensive (one night this Australian guy came with us, got incredibly drunk, we lost him, and it turned out he got mugged - not smart on his part). To be honest, being in Panama City kind of made me want to be back home, since I wasn't getting a huge sense of cultural difference. Of course there were some, watching families play craps and card games while blasting reggaeton and bachata outside my window. But the number of sports bars, McDonalds, etc. (even a Hooters) wasn't too exciting.

The two highlights of my time in Panama City though were my trips to the Panama Canal and the Museo Afro-Antilleano (that is the museum for the history of African people from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean). The canal was quite interesting. With millions of dollars spent a day, ships make their was from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean through a slow but efficient process of rising water levels and opening flood gates. The process wasn't exhilirating, but it was cool to see something I remember learning so much about in grade school American history. The three-floor museum was also fascinating as well as the movie. The most interesting part of the canal was the incredible diversity of people who worked on the project, side by side, in the early 1900s - including Jamaicans, Chinese, Europeans, and local Indian groups. The pictures were quite cool. Of course this multiracial panorama was met with the reality of segregation brought by the American government between black and white workers. This made sense after I learned of a former president denied the chance to run for reelection by the US gov't because of he was Afro-Panamanian. The US certainly did impose its accepted ideas of racial segregation on Panama, and there is some resentment among people here toward American racial imperialism - the idea that America's understanding of race being forced upon other nations.

Yet the misdeeds of the Americans should not give Panamanians a pass from dealing with their own history of racial hatred. The Museo Afro-Antilleano was small, in a dodgy part of town. This is because the gov't doesn't subsidize museums, so they depend completely on private donations. Though it was small it was extremely informative. The exhibits marked the times when immigrants from the Caribbean flooded into Panama during the canal building, as well as traditional dress, music instruments, etc. The lady that walked me through the museum was quite interesting as well. Describing her ancestry as "Afro-colonial," as in the wave of African slaves that came to Panama mostly from the area known as Congo today, she shared some oral history of the tragedy her forebears suffered. Working as slaves in gold mines, young women were routinely raped, slaves were killed and hung in public squares, families were sold and torn apart. As time moved on and Afro-Caribbeans moved in, there were tensions between "afro-colonial" and "afro-caribbean" communities, as they often dissociated themselves from one another culturally and engaged in violence. This history, prior to American intervention, is what complete denialists in Panama City must answer to. This history is not taught in schools (despite a law passed in 2000 for schools to include Afro- related history in the curriculum), and people generally don't know the pain endured by those first slaves. The fact that my guide defended her family's oral history and argued against putting her ancestors' struggles to paper was fascinating.

Clearly, just the term "Afro-Panamanian," unlike other countries' Afro groups, carries another degree of complexity, with such high levels of racial mixing, and waves of distinct "black" people immigrating to the country. The definition of Afro-Panamanian remains unclear and varied to me, thus the culture remains even more unclear. Unfortunately the kind of cultural and musical displays I have found in other countries has been hard to find here after trips through the country to Bocas del Toro, San Blas Islands, and stops in small towns like Almirante and David along the way. I will recap those trips as well. But in the meantime, I'm hoping a day trip to Colon, a city which housed some of the palenques (runaway slave communities), will bring some much-needed exposure to Afro-Panamanian culture before I leave for Dominican Republic in three days.