Those years and Scott
During my adolescence, I had a friend named Scott. Scott was a “Zonian,” which gave our friendship an unusual edge. What was a Zonian? An inhabitant of a unique space: the Panama Canal Zone. Panama was living with the presence of the United States military, sometimes under tense circumstances.
What exactly were relations like between the United States and Panama? Little by little, I will try to sketch them out.
My friends nicknamed me “Chombo.” By chombo, I mean a Black man of Afro-Caribbean descent. The derogatory term’s origin alluded to the stereotypical size of Afro-Caribbeans — “jumbo” — although my adolescent body was tall and thin.
After the failure of the French canal project, creative efforts had to be made to recruit workers for the American-led one. Word had already spread that the work could be deadly. The Caribbean islands had to be flooded with pamphlets featuring the so-called “Panama Man” — who was allegedly making a fortune on the isthmus — to achieve any results.
In his book Silver and Gold: Untold Stories of Immigrant Life in the Panama Canal Zone (2014), Guillermo Evers Airall recounts that most of the islanders dreamed of amassing a fortune and returning to their homelands. But this generally didn’t happen: most started businesses with their earnings — enjoying varying degrees of success — and found a new home in the country.
Scott and I had two things in common: rock-band T-shirts and our age. In every other respect, we were different. He bore a striking resemblance to Metallica’s lead singer, James Hetfield. I, meanwhile, sported a short, stiff afro.
But something else connected us: like teenagers of all eras, we felt lonely. I found solace in my gallada [crew of friends], while Scott had his parents, which, for a 15-year-old, is another way of saying he had no one.
Why was Scott where he was, at that particular moment in time? Sometimes military-base housing became available more slowly than new recruits arrived. Houses near the Canal Zone were rented to make up for the shortage.
Our friendship blossomed without any apparent reason. My friends and I welcomed him to our dead-end street, with the powerful sound of heavy metal blasting from the cassette player. We drank more than a few beers and talked until late into the night.
Discovering the military bases
Scott’s parents invited us to spend a day with him after they had settled into the military bases. Gratitude peeked through their smiles. There was also an unspoken tension. It was the 1980s, and the boundaries that enclosed the interoceanic route were beginning to blur. Students from the National Institute were no longer being shot at for demanding sovereignty over the Canal Zone (January 9, 1964), but the roots of the conflict remained alive beneath the surface. The Torrijos-Carter Treaty had been signed in 1977, and its implementation seemed to move painfully slowly.
Just as we were about to leave the base, I saw an Indigenous woman. Illuminated by fluorescent sportswear, she jogged along the traffic-free streets. I will never forget her fleeting colors. Never had I seen such a determined display of female and ethnic power. Blond Americans were attracted to women like that; gringos fell in love with our cholitas. And the opposite was also true. “White flesh, the downfall of the Black man,” people used to say.
A strange crossing of thoughts
My anti-imperialist reading progressed in parallel to my friendship. For years, my parents had been involved with the party founded by Omar Torrijos, the nationalist general. My father had been given books written by Panamanian journalist Joaquín Beleño, which I devoured. One thread in my mind became intertwined with my friendship with Scott.
Beleño wrote a novel titled Gamboa Road Gang (1960). One of his characters was a reddish-skinned Black man named Atá. Atá wasn’t entirely fictional; he was based on Lester León Greaves. Like Atá, Greaves was imprisoned in a Canal Zone jail. His crime was more common than one might think: falling in love with a white American woman. But the clashes and reconciliations with the United States had been happening long before this case.
The construction of the Canal transformed the country forever. Adding up the figures from the French and U.S. projects, a local population of approximately 315,000 inhabitants received 100,000 newcomers. The impact was etched into a collage of customs and architectural styles. The Indigenous component, however, was absorbed by the U.S., European and even African-descended influences.
In a report titled Panamanian Society: The History of its Formation and Integration (1970) — coordinated by historian Alfredo Castillero Calvo — there’s a chapter that examines Afro-descendant migration and the social classes along the interoceanic route. Like the rest of Latin America, Panama is an Indigenous nation with branches of immigration, but the construction of the Canal multiplied its diversity.
Harmonizing history
How can we fondly recall the camaraderie of Jimmy Carter when we’re faced with an aggressive Donald Trump? It seems that, every so often, the White House threatens to erase generational struggles.
Even so, we should accept that the history of Panama, of all Latin America (is it too risky to say of the entire planet?), is inseparable from that of the U.S. empire. We should weigh each moment on its own terms. Not all Americans were gringos, even though the current president is unashamedly one.
A night to end the day
I had just finished teaching at the university and was heading back to the apartment where I lived at the time. But I had recently separated from my partner, and I hated spending more time than necessary in an empty home. A neon-green sign with zigzagging letters reflected across my windshield. I parked and decided to cap off the night with a drink.
At the bar, I settled onto a stool at one end of the counter. I did not want to be disturbed. I ordered rum on the rocks. Before long, I was sipping it slowly, intending to stay only a short while. Then I felt a hand slap me on the shoulder. I turned around. It was a lean, cheerful face: Scott. Gone was the long hair; now he wore a close-cropped haircut and long sideburns.
I leaped up to greet him. I told him I taught classes and that, to supplement my income, I also worked in a monotonous government office. It was obvious that he didn’t quite recognize me: he seemed to be searching for traces of my old self in his memories.
He cut me off. He said he worked with the stock market. He had rented an apartment in the luxurious district of Paitilla. From there he could see the magnificent, endless sea. He would only be staying a few days. I could not reconcile him with my memories either. Without his Hetfield-like appearance, he no longer seemed like Scott. The way he pronounced his words, his tone of voice, felt affected. I had to replace the present with the past.
For a while I simply watched him without speaking. My body remained half-turned between the stool and the padded bar. My eyes looked through Scott rather than at him. I felt nostalgia, not joy. All that remained was to talk about the dead-end street, the brief visit to the military base, our friends. We exhausted the subject. We had spent half an hour together without finding what either of us was looking for.
I smiled. I explained that I had to wake up early the next morning. We embraced, briefly tightening the waist of time. My country and the United States: an indelible past, a future yet to be revealed. I walked slowly toward the exit.
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