Borderland on the Isthmus: Race, Culture, and the Struggle for the Canal Zone

by Michael E Donoghue

Overview

The construction, maintenance, and defense of the Panama Canal brought Panamanians, U.S. soldiers and civilians, West Indians, Asians, and Latin Americans into close, even intimate, contact. In this lively and provocative social history, Michael E. Donoghue positions the Panama Canal Zone as an imperial borderland where U.S. power, culture, and ideology were projected and contested. Highlighting race as both an overt and underlying force that shaped life in and beyond the Zone, Donoghue details how local traditions and colonial policies interacted and frequently clashed. Panamanians responded to U.S. occupation with proclamations, protests, and everyday forms of resistance and acquiescence. Although U.S. "Zonians" and military personnel stigmatized Panamanians as racial inferiors, they also sought them out for service labor, contraband, sexual pleasure, and marriage. The Canal Zone, he concludes, reproduced classic colonial hierarchies of race, national identity, and gender, establishing a model for other U.S. bases and imperial outposts around the globe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822356660
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	05/09/2014
Series:	American Encounters/Global Interactions
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael E. Donoghue is Associate Professor of History at Marquette University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 Borderland on the Isthmus: The Changing Boundaries and Frontiers of the Panama Canal Zone 8

2 Race and Identity in the Zone-Panama Borderland Zonians Uber Alles 50

3 Race and Identity in the Zone-Panama Borderland West Indians Contra Todos 93

4 Desire, Sexuality, and Gender in the Zone-Panama Borderland 128

5 The U.S. Military Armed Guardians of the Borderland 168

6 "Injuring the Power System" Crime and Resistance in the Borderland 203

Epilogue: The Zone-Panama Borderland and the Complexity of U.S. Empire 245

Notes 255

Bibliography 307

Index 333

What People are Saying About This

Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama - John Lindsay-Poland

"In this fascinating social history, Michael E. Donoghue breaks new ground by exploring not just a single group in the Panama Canal Zone, but all of the diverse and conflicted resident populations and the relationships between them, particularly in the years after World War II. He shows how societies in conflict also collaborated, and he locates these interactions in relation to the broader U.S. imperial project in the Canal Zone."

Walter LaFeber

"As the newly expanded Panama Canal opens to pose historic challenges to U.S. trade and diplomacy, Michael E. Donoghue's timely, superbly written, and remarkably researched book is unsurpassed in giving us a social history of the century-long American empire in Panama—with welcome emphases on the post-1945 years, the multiethnic Panamanian perspectives, the long-lasting U.S. imperial experiences, and their legacies for the twenty-first century."

From the Publisher

"In this fascinating social history, Michael E. Donoghue breaks new ground by exploring not just a single group in the Panama Canal Zone, but all of the diverse and conflicted resident populations and the relationships between them, particularly in the years after World War II. He shows how societies in conflict also collaborated, and he locates these interactions in relation to the broader U.S. imperial project in the Canal Zone."—John Lindsay-Poland, author of Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama

Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama - John Lindsay-Poland

"In this fascinating social history, Michael E. Donoghue breaks new ground by exploring not just a single group in the Panama Canal Zone, but all of the diverse and conflicted resident populations and the relationships between them, particularly in the years after World War II. He shows how societies in conflict also collaborated, and he locates these interactions in relation to the broader U.S. imperial project in the Canal Zone."

Editorial Reviews

"Borderland on the Isthmus is the most thorough and best depiction of day-to-day reality in the post-war Canal Zone to date.... The theoretical questions that linger here... make this anthro-historical study all the more important to read for historians interested in Latin America and the US empire."

Journal of Latin American Studies - Ezer Vierba

"Borderland on the Isthmus is an outstanding achievement, highly recommended for scholars of empires in general and the US empire in particular, borderland studies, US diplomatic history, Latin American studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and social history."

Canadian Journal of History - Atalia Shragai

"Donoghue’s social history of the Canal Zone is an indispensable source for our understanding of the good, bad, and ugly of this experiment in a (perhaps) American empire."

American Historical Review - Russel Crandall

"The book should be required reading for anyone seeking to get a sense of life around the Panama Canal, especially in World War II and the postwar decades.

Journal of American History - Noel Maurer

"In this fascinating social history, Michael E. Donoghue breaks new ground by exploring not just a single group in the Panama Canal Zone, but all of the diverse and conflicted resident populations and the relationships between them, particularly in the years after World War II. He shows how societies in conflict also collaborated, and he locates these interactions in relation to the broader U.S. imperial project in the Canal Zone."

Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama - John Lindsay-Poland

"As the newly expanded Panama Canal opens to pose historic challenges to U.S. trade and diplomacy, Michael E. Donoghue's timely, superbly written, and remarkably researched book is unsurpassed in giving us a social history of the century-long American empire in Panama—with welcome emphases on the post-1945 years, the multiethnic Panamanian perspectives, the long-lasting U.S. imperial experiences, and their legacies for the twenty-first century."

Walter LaFeber

This readable yet academically documented book contributes to American and Canal Zone historiography. It will interest general readers as well as students of postcolonial history, American imperialism, and late twentieth-century US history.

Hispanic American Historical Review - Robin E. Zenger

"In this fascinating social history, Michael E. Donoghue breaks new ground by exploring not just a single group in the Panama Canal Zone, but all of the diverse and conflicted resident populations and the relationships between them, particularly in the years after World War II. He shows how societies in conflict also collaborated, and he locates these interactions in relation to the broader U.S. imperial project in the Canal Zone."—John Lindsay-Poland, author of Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama

From the Publisher