Pan-Caribbean Voices: Connecting People and Sharing Stories Relating to the Panama Canal May 20, 2021

Pan Caribbean Sankofa and the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries presented an online community event that examined the history and lives of the Pan Caribbean people who lived and worked in the República de Panamá and the former Canal Zone. The event focused on an Oral History Project underway to record interviews narrated by people of West Indian descent and featured a panel discussion on the importance of preserving and sharing personal stories. The panelists were Cedric Gittens, Nelly Ibarra, and Joan Flores-Villalobos, with Valeria Howell as moderator. Other participants included Frances Yearwood-Williams, Rev. Oral White, John Nemmers, Betsy Bemis, Toni Robinson, Arcelio Hartley, Carmen Grimes-Eccles, Casma Cockburn-Henlon, and Rev. Nelson Edwards. The webinar also featured selected images from the Panama Canal Museum Collection (PCMC) and the Digital Library of the Caribbean, as well as music courtesy of the Digger Descendants Calypso Band and Carlos “Curly” Chambers.

Transcript of Pan-Caribbean Voices event:

[Prior to the start of the event, a video of a slideshow of photographs from the Panama Canal Museum Collection was played. The video included music courtesy of Carlos "Curly" Chambers.]

00:03:13 Frances Williams-Yearwood: Good evening, and welcome everyone. Just a little housekeeping before we get started. There are two buttons that I'd like you to pay attention to. One is the Question and Answer button, to ask questions at any time during this program. And the second is a Chat button, that is currently disabled - that is disabled currently but will activate later in the program. Thank you.

00:03:53 Frances Williams-Yearwood: In honor of our ancestors and Mes de La Etnia Negra in Panama, thank you for joining us this evening, for this very important virtual event, Pan Caribbean Voices: Connecting People and Sharing Stories Relating to the Panama Canal, being hosted by Pan Caribbean Sankofa and the University of Florida at Gainesville. We begin this evening with a word of prayer from Reverend Oral White, son of Basil and Ada White, a native of St. Anne's Parish in Jamaica. For the past ten years Reverend White has been serving as pastor of the First Isthmian Baptist Church in Colon, Panama. We extend a warm welcome to Reverend Oral White for the invocation.

00:04:53 Rev. Oral White: Let us pray. God, our father and creation, we are in awe of your wisdom and power. You are worthy to be praised by people from every language, nation, tribe, race, culture and create a test your goodness your mercy and your love for your God who intervenes in human history for the freedom, peace, and advancement of all. The peoples of the Pan Caribbean and Pan American region can trace your caring hand, your guiding and providing hand in their history, the breaking of chains of slavery, and the raising of flags of independence, and the exodus of people from under oppressive regimes to enter new lands of opportunity to live a better life. Today, oh Lord, we praise your name for the historic undertaking of the construction of the Panama Canal, for the turning point that it was for many migrant families from the Caribbean, and for the legacy that lives on to this day. We their descendants, members of the diaspora, friends and well-wishers all tell you thanks, not just for their intellect and creativity, for their hard work and humility, but also for the spirit of goodwill and sense of

1 community inspired by fear of you and faith in you. For every shovel of dirt moved, for every dollar earned, for every family provided for, we are inspired by the ambition that took them to live and settle in totally new surroundings. We are inspired by the hope and perseverance with which they lived through dangerous and difficult moments. We are filled with a sense of pride when we look on this wonder of the world that is still in operation today. Now, Lord, as you have inspired us to research, record, and raise awareness of the roles played by these families, so may your spirit also inspire us to play our part to open new opportunities for human advancement, inspire us to preserve and build on the wholesome values that they have taught us, inspire us to pass on a legacy of goodwill and faith to future generations. So we pray now that you would bless us in this evening's proceedings and make us always channels of your blessing. For Christ's sake. Amen.

00:07:55 Frances Williams-Yearwood: Thank you for the blessings, Pastor White. Hello, again. My name is Frances Williams-Yearwood. I am a descendant of grandparents from Barbados and Jamaica, and the seventh of nine children born to Panamanian parents. My grandparents came to Panama during the construction of the Panama Canal. They worked, lived, and raised their children on the former Canal Zone in the towns of Red Tank, La Boca, Gamboa, and Pedro Miguel. Before I begin, please allow me and the members of Pan Caribbean Sankofa to thank the University of Florida, namely John Nemmers and Betsy Bemis for bringing this project to life. To Dean Judith Russell and Senior Associate Dean Patrick Reakes for your support of this project. And to Professor Leah Rosenberg for your encouragement from the very start. Less than a year and a half ago, we met. I shared my observation and concern. You listened and before I knew it we were invited to the University for a table discussion. See, I had attended a reunion in Orlando hosted by the Panama Canal Society, an organization of former American Zonians who lived and worked on the former Canal Zone. Truthfully, I knew no one, and as you can imagine, I was one of the few Black faces in the crowd. A little bold, I would say, but I was on a mission. I was there to distribute flyers to raise awareness about the Corozal, Gatun, Mt. Hope Cemetery Preservation Foundation, an organization that was founded in 2016 to address the disgraceful neglect of the cemeteries where our ancestors, the builders and workers of the Panama Canal are laid to rest. As I walked the halls of the convention, I was drawn to a room where they were they were conducting a silent auction. The room was filled with books, photos, and other memorabilia of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone. In the same room, there was also a digital display and photos on the wall of the infamous 1989 Operation Just Cause. In another room I watched a film depicting community life in the towns of the Canal Zone where whites lived. Something seemed odd. The more I perused, I said to myself, this is a one-sided story. There was nothing there depicting the lives of West Indians who also lived and worked for the Panama Canal. Absolutely nothing about my people, a determined and resilient people who persevered despite all odds, worked hard, endured pain, poor conditions, injustices, to pave the way in hopes of a better life for themselves and their families. Nothing about our communities and history. It was as if we did not exist. In my head I kept thinking how a people who contributed and sacrificed so much, paid the ultimate price in death, continued to be marginalized so blatantly. I approached the table in a room and introduced myself to Betsy Bemis. We chatted a bit about the display, and she explained that UF, the University of Florida, acquired this collection from the former Zonians who owned and managed it for many years but were no longer able to sustain it. Again, in my head, I'm saying well no wonder. This is their story as told by them. Nevertheless, I knew that I had to say something. I then shared my observation and concern with Betsy. I said that it all seemed like a one-sided story. Betsy listened and respectfully acknowledged my observations. She explained that they had little or no information about the lives of the West Indians during the Canal era. She encouraged me to come back to meet her boss, who was not there at the time. I went back the next day and met John Nemmers, who is the curator of the Panama Canal collection at the George Smathers Library at the University of Florida, Gainesville. As

2 what Betsy, John listened, agreed that this was something his Dean and others would be extremely interested in having a further conversation. In no time, I received an invite from John to meet with them at the University of Gainesville. I immediately reached out to members of CGM, the cemetery foundation, and folks from our community to galvanize a group who could join me at this meeting. Especially special thanks goes out to Fred Smith, Ricardo Millet, Arcelio Hartley, Louis Emmanuel, Carlos Alleyne, and Claudia Thorne, who all took the time to join me in the initial conversations with the University. That's the birth of CGM's sister arm, Pan Caribbean Sankofa, and the partnership with the University of Florida. Today Sankofa has four directors: Arcelio Hartley, Casma Cockburn, Carmen Eccles, and me, along with the support of Toni Robinson, Amber Harris, and several others who conduct interviews. The University supported these interviews and have provided funding for this event. The word "Sankofa" is a metaphorical symbol used by the Akan people in Ghana, generally depicted as a bird with its head turned backwards taking an egg from its back. It expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bring it into the present to make positive progress. The goal of PCS is to document and preserve the experiences of people as told by the descendants of the West Indians who lived on the former Canal Zone and in Panama, and who worked for the Panama Railroad and the Panama Canal. Not all West Indians who worked for the Panama Railroad and the Canal lived on the Canal Zone. Many lived in places outside the Zone such as Rochet Yard, Wachapali, Colon, La Boca town, Chorrillo, and they share a different experience that also must be told. While we may share different perspectives, as living descendants of the West Indians who came to Panama, it is up to us to share our stories so that history gets it right. Their contribution and sacrifices must not be forgotten. We need to tell the story so that our future generations can know their history and that the academic world can have a more comprehensive understanding of our experience - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our diaspora is vast, so it pleases me to know that the University of Florida will ensure that this history collection will be permanently held in the archives of their institution and made available to all. Thank you again for being here and for attending this event. I am now pleased to introduce the curator of the Panama Canal Museum Collection at the George Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida Gainesville, John Nemmers.

00:17:05 John Nemmers: Thank you, Fran. Thank you very much. First, I want to thank you and I want to thank Pan Caribbean Sankofa for an amazing partnership and for your incredible dedication to this terrific project. I have the privilege of serving as curator for the Panama Canal Museum Collection at the University of Florida. This is a leading research collection for the study of the Panama Canal and it focuses on the 20th century and the American era of the Canal's history. UF acquired this collection in 2012, as you mentioned Fran, from the Panama Canal Museum, which was a long-running community- operated museum that was located here in Florida. We have a large team here at UF that manages this collection, because it is a very large collection. It consists of librarians, archivists, museum professionals, led by our Dean of the University Libraries Judith Russell, and we all collaborate to manage this massive, ever-growing collection. I want to share with you a couple of resources and images, so let me start sharing my screen here. Alright, so we have our Panama Canal Museum Collection website and I've included the URL there. As curator, I can tell you that we always have experienced an extremely high demand from researchers and educators for West Indian historical resources and this demand just continues to increase. It's increased greatly in recent years. Unfortunately, our collection can't always meet this very high demand. You know, as you stated Fran, despite the incredible contributions, the West Indian voice often is largely underrepresented in scholarship and research collections related to the Canal and to Panama. And of course, we're always looking for ways to expand our our collections so that we can support education and support research, exhibits, digital humanities projects, and so on. Through our collaboration with Pan Caribbean Sankofa we now are preserving oral history interviews in

3 which people of West Indian descent can share their stories, in their own voices. And, these stories document their history, their culture, the diaspora of the Caribbean people and their descendants. It's a great relationship because Pan Caribbean Sankofa conducts the interviews and UF preserves and provides access to them in our UF Digital Collections and also in our Digital Library of the Caribbean. We make all of our oral histories available online in our digital collection. We provide - some of the interviews are audio, some are video, and we are working to provide transcriptions for the interviews. They also - they are both in English and Spanish, and often sometimes there's a mixture of both throughout a single interview. When you go in, you can watch a video, you can play an audio recording, or you can have your transcription if it's available. We work regularly to make these interviews available online. Sometimes there's a delay between the time we put the recording online and the time the transcription is available, but we are working on them. Many of our interview participants also donate photos and other materials to supplement their interviews, which is a wonderful thing. We have, for example here, all of the materials that we get in conjunction with the interviews that we do we preserve. They're now available for researchers and many of these we're putting online to supplement the interviews in our digital collection. Since our collaboration began, Pan Caribbean Sankofa has conducted 50 interviews - and that's 50 interviews through a pandemic so that's an impressive number - and we already have 40 of those that are available online. We list them on our website as they come available online. We really - you know, I can't thank enough all of the people who have participated in our interviews, have agreed to be interviewed. As you can see it's quite an impressive list, and I should note that we already had a handful of interviews that we had conducted in 2014 here at the University of Florida in conjunction with the Centennial of the Canal's opening. We also have been able, through this relationship, to preserve some terrific interviews that were conducted by the Gamboa Reunion Group that they make available on their website and now we're preserving and making available as well. Thanks also to those people who have generously shared their time as interviewers. Several of these people have conducted multiple interviews, and I should note here that many of the interviews are conducted by family members, by former students, scholars, and that sometimes these interviews actually become conversations, because some of these interviews can include as many as five or ten people. And, in addition to being interviewed there's actually a discussion that occurs, so it's wonderful. I can't state it any plainer than that. We also, in addition to collecting the audiovisual recordings we collect personal narratives if people want to write something. And, we accept written contributions that you can make to our website. And, thanks to those people who have submitted their information, their historical information, to us that way. I want to give you one quick example of how these resources can be used. I mentioned digital humanities projects earlier, and if you'll bear with me for a second I'm actually going to end my slideshow for a second, and I want to go over and share my website. All right. We have a Ph.D. student here at UF, Amrita Bandopadhyay, and I know I'm mispronouncing her last name, so I apologize. Amrita has been working on a digital humanities project using an app called StoryMaps and the project developed after discussions with Professor Leah Rosenberg who regularly teaches classes on the Panama Canal and Caribbean literature and culture. Amrita's online exhibit features images from our collection, and everything from maps to cookbooks, historical photographs. These are all materials that are in our Panama Canal Museum Collection. For example, pictures of Carnival and classrooms, teachers including Emily Butcher who is one of our interview participants, as a matter of fact. This exhibit - Amrita is very close to being finished with this, and when this exhibit is finished, we'll list this on our website and we'll include it in the Digital Library of the Caribbean in the near future. And then, finally, speaking of digital humanities - bear with me while I switch screens, one more time. We are very grateful for the support that we received from the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. Wrong thing. Pardon me. I apologize. We received funding from the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere and we want to acknowledge their gracious support. I am having technical problems. I apologize. I don't know why that is happening. Okay, here we go - caught back up

4 with myself. And so, through their Rothman Endowment, they were able to provide support to have this event. So, thanks very much to the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. Alright, and now I would like to introduce the person who's truly been key to the success of this collaborative project. Betsy Bemis, as Fran mentioned earlier, is our Curatorial Assistant for the Panama Canal Museum Collection and she's responsible for managing our oral history program and she keeps us all on track, so I'm going to hand it over to Betsy now.

00:27:02 Elizabeth Bemis: Thank you, John. Hi, everyone. In addition to the oral history project which John discussed, I wanted to talk about the importance of photographs in documenting the history of the West Indian communities and Panama and talk a little bit about our photography collection. Because of high demand for materials related to the West Indian communities over the past few years we've made a concerted effort to gain a better understanding of what we actually have in the collection that relates to these communities, to increase accessibility to those materials, and to acquire more of them. And, about a year and a half ago we asked a collection assistant to start compiling a list of all the photographs in the collection that possibly included someone of West Indian descent. And she spent months creating a spreadsheet for us that ultimately included over 750 photographs. We scanned about 400 of the photographs and combined those scans with images that had previously been digitized to create an online gallery and that's what you see here on the screen. We invite you to visit this gallery anytime. We will put the link to the gallery in the chat, but you can also find a link on our website and in the invitation to this webinar. So, I'm not sure, John, if the there we go. So, this is the gallery and I'll move on. Maybe John - there we go. That's perfect. Sorry about that. So, I wanted to show you two examples of individual images from the gallery and highlight a feature for you that allows you to leave comments, and the comments are a space for you to share thoughts and stories and an opportunity for you to participate in preserving and documenting this important history. So, we're asking you to share your knowledge and help us improve the information that we have about these photographs, by identifying people and locations and describing events. So, in the example on the top one of Pan Caribbean Sankofa's directors, Carmen, shared memories about her personal experiences, as well as identified an address, provided a nickname for the area of town where she lived, and included details about everyday life in the community. And, the example on the bottom, Carmen told us that one of the individuals in the photograph was her neighbor which builds a picture of the Community, and Casma, another director, provided his name. So, this information will be added to our database, people will be able to search for Mr. Williams by his name and anyone who sees this photograph will now know who he is. So, as you see, as you'll see when you look at the gallery, we do have a lot of photographs, but most were produced by the Panama Canal Company for official reports or publications, or they were taken by U.S. citizens. And, what we lack are photos and documents that reflect the community from the community's own perspective. And, we're working with Pan Caribbean Sankofa to try and collect those things, and many of the people who've been interviewed have also shared family photos and additional materials as John mentioned, and I wanted to share a couple of examples of that with you. So, Mrs. Nelly Ibarra shared a document relating to her work, which is important for preserving her personal story, but also for preserving the reality and circumstances of many of the original diggers and former Canal Company employees faced after retirement. Mr. Lancelot Llewellyn shared a photograph of himself and many other documents that enrich our understanding of the Boy Scouts in the West Indian communities of the Canal Zone. And, Ms. Marva Gordon shared this beautiful family photograph among many others that document multiple generations of her family in Panama and the Canal Zone. We also have an example of an incredible donation from the family of Enid M. Hall that includes original materials recording the history of La Boca. Ms. Hall noted the names of the families that lived in each building, the school teachers, commissary and dispensary workers, street vendors, sports players, hairdressers, dressmakers,

5 musicians, and many more. This is a really incredible document that this woman created, and we'll be scanning them and making them available online as soon as possible so this is something that you'll be able to see online. There are also many publications associated with the Canal Zone and the Panama Canal that are already digitized and available online. And, this is a page of resources from our websites. If you go to our website you'll see the image on the left. Of particular relevance to the West Indian community are the "Workman" newspaper, as well as the official Panama Canal publications, like the "Panama Canal Review", the "Spillway", and a number of yearbooks. When Pan Caribbean Sankofa was at the University visiting the collection, we also went to the Latin American and Caribbean Collection library, which is where our physical yearbooks are kept, and Casma actually saw her Canal Zone College yearbook for the first time, which is really wonderful. We have hard copies of some of the yearbooks but many do only exist in our collection digitally. And, for most of those we're indebted to Emilio Collins who took on the project of locating and scanning as many of the yearbooks from the West Indian schools as he could find, and as you will see we're still searching to fill in some of those missing years. In summary, we hope that you will enjoy the online gallery and possibly join Pan Caribbean Sankofa and the University of Florida in our efforts to preserve this history. Lastly, we went to acknowledge that there are many other institutions who are involved in the important effort to preserve and document the West Indian experience in Panama, and the Canal Zone. And this - these are only a sample of many, but these groups certainly do deserve recognition for their work. And, before we start the panel discussion we're going to take a quick five minute break. So, please feel free to get up and dance, as you enjoy a performance by the Diggers Descendants Calypso Band and we'll be back in five minutes to start the panel. So, you have a five minute break. Listen to some music and dance, stretch your legs, and we'll be back in five minutes.

[Played video featuring a musical performance by the Diggers Descendants Calypso Band.]

00:38:55 Frances Williams-Yearwood: I don't know about everyone, but I've been dancing in my chair. Welcome again. I'd like to take this moment to introduce the moderator. Valerie, also known as Valeria, is a third generation West Indian Panamanian having been born in Colon, the proud descendant of Jamaican and Bajan. Valerie immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s and grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn. She earned a BA in Political Science and Spanish from SUNY Binghamton and taught Spanish for the New York City Department of Education for many years. Later, she earned her Juris Doctorate from New York Law School and practices in the areas of elder law, Article 81 guardianship, wills, trusts, estates, and immigration. Currently, she's the Corresponding Secretary for the Caribbean American Lawyers. Valerie wholeheartedly believes in the mission of Pan Caribbean Sankofa and is honored to serve as moderator for this event. Please welcome Valerie Howell.

00:40:19 Valeria Howell: Thank you, Frances. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This evening, we are honored to have with us three distinguished panelists: Licenciada Nelly Blackman de Ibarra and Cedric Gittens, who are two of the 50 participants featured in the University's collection, and the third panelist is Professor Joan Flores-Villalobos. As the moderator, I will ask Mrs. Ibarra and Mr. Gittens a few questions based on their interviews and I will pose a few questions to Professor Flores-Villalobos pertaining to her research about women of the Panama Canal Zone. While there are countless topics relating to the building of the Canal, tonight's discussion is centered around the particular experiences of our panelists, as descendants of West Indians in Panama and as professionals both during and after the construction of the Canal. Please note that English translations will be made available in the chat when necessary. Once we have completed the panel discussion, Ms. Toni Robinson will moderate the

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Q&A portion of the program. Please use the Q&A link at the bottom of your screen to send questions. The chat will be open later in the program during the slideshow presentation for comments and reflections. And now, I would like to introduce our first panelist. Our first panelist, Joan Flores-Villalobos, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Southern California. Her work brings to life the West Indian who journeyed to Panama for money, love, family, and adventure during the construction of the Canal. Her book entitled "The Silver Women: Gender, Labor, and Migration at the Panama Canal" is still in progress and we look forward to reading it soon. Our second panelist, Mr. Cedric Gittens, the son and grandson of Jamaicans, was born and raised in the Canal Zone. Mr. Gittens graduated from Rainbow City High School in 1951. Following graduation he worked for the Panama Canal Company in the Supply division. Then, in 1956, he joined the Fire Department. By the time of his retirement in 1987, Mr. Gittens rose to rank of Captain training officers, where he was responsible for the training of the new firefighter recruits from the Atlantic and Pacific of the Isthmus at Rodman Naval Base. And now let's take a look at a clip from Mr. Gittens' interview when he explains how he became a firefighter.

00:42:57 [Video clip with an excerpt from Cedric Gittens' oral history interview recording and photos of Mr. Gittens.]

00:45:19 Valeria Howell: Throughout the panel discussion, I will be asking Mr. Gittens questions relating to that clip and to other questions related to his longer interview. Our third panelist is Licenciada Nelly Blackman de Ibarra, who was born in Panama as Nelly Virginia Paul Burke. Her mother, Vyris Catalina Burke Blackman, also born in Panama, the daughter of Jamaican parents who immigrated to Panama to work on the construction of the Canal. Her father, Joseph Patrick Paul, was from Grenada but he immigrated to Jamaica, eventually to make his way to Panama to work on the Canal. Mrs. Ibarra was raised by her mother and step-father, Wilbert Blackman, with her eight siblings in the barrio of San Miguel, Panama. Mrs. Ibarra received her nursing degree in 1953 from Santo Tomas Hospital School of Nursing. In 1964, she received a degree in public health nursing specialty from the University of Panama, and in 1967 a degree in nursing sciences from the University of Panama. Mrs. Ibarra worked as a public health and occupational health nurse from 1954 to 1960 within the Canal Zone and surrounding areas. She joined the Panama Canal Company and Panama Canal Commission as nurse supervisor of the Home Healthcare Program from 1960 to 1988 when she retired. Between 1970 and 1983 Mrs. Ibarra attended several training courses in home healthcare and geriatrics in the United States from Mt. Sinai Hospital in Baltimore to Gainesville, UCLA, San Francisco. And now let's turn to a clip from Mrs. Ibarra's interview where she shares one of her memories.

00:47:00 [Video clip with an excerpt from Nelly Ibarra's oral history interview recording and photos of Ms. Ibarra.]

00:48:33 Valeria Howell: And now, we're going to move to our question and answer section. Hello, Professor Joan.

00:48:56 Joan Flores-Villalobos: Hi. I'm so honored to be here today with all of you.

00:49:05

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Valeria Howell: Hello. Hello, Mr. Gittens. Good evening. Good evening, Mrs. Ibarra. Okay. My first question is for - the three of you can answer. We can start with Mrs. Ibarra, and then go to Mr. Gittens, and then to Professor Flores-Villalobos. My first question is why did you agree to be a part of this process, to be interviewed, and also to write about it in Professor Flores-Villalobos' case?

00:49:44 Nelly Ibarra: I would say, because as part of the history of the Canal this history should be known.

00:50:02 Valeria Howell: Okay. And, Mr. Gittens?

00:50:11 Cedric Gittens: I joined the group because I believe that we should tell our stories to say who we are rather than let other people define us, so when I heard that this group was doing that I wanted to be a part of it, so I could learn your stories and share mine with them.

00:50:35 Joan Flores-Villalobos: I echo what Ms. Ibarra and Mr. Gittens said. Much of the history of the Canal is so dominated by the perspective of Americans and really participating in this project and writing about the lives of West Indians is important because we really need to add to these histories that have been so limited by American sources.

00:51:02 Valeria Howell: Okay. I'm having a little technical difficulty on my side with the sound, but I'm going to keep going and see if it comes back on. You can hear me. I'm having some trouble hearing you. Okay. Alright, so I'm going to first start with Mr. Gittens. I have a question for you. My first question is early on in your interview you mentioned that you were born in Colon Hospital and you mentioned that you were not a U.S. citizen but you felt that you should be. Why did you make that comment?

00:51:38 Cedric Gittens: Well, because the Canal Zone was United States property overseas similar to Puerto Rico or Guam and anyone that was born in those areas were automatically considered American citizens, so my being born in the Colon hospital, I believe that I should have been granted citizenship. Of course, that was hidden or denied us and we had to seek redress in other ways, which later came on.

00:52:19 Valeria Howell: Okay. And Mr. Gittens you - after working at the gas station and then at Cold Storage, you went to work at the Fire Department from where you retired. You tell us of a very interesting story, something that would take place often during lunchtime. Would you should share a little bit of that story with our guests?

00:52:47 Cedric Gittens: Well, during the lunch - now in the fire station, we had the officer side of the station and the firefighter side of the station. So, in the evening when the officer's wife brought his supper, he would take the supper to his quarters and he would have his supper. And then when he was done, he would bring the plate of the leftover food over to our side of the station with the forks and the knives still on the plate, and he would offer that to the firefighters on our side. Now, the guys thought it was a benevolent offering and they would dive into the food and say, "Hey, come and get some of this." I said,

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"No. I'm not interested, because the guy didn't even take the fork off the plate. His mouth water, so to speak, is still on the fork and he's offering that to you. I'm not interested." So, that got me into trouble with them, because they said, "Who do you think you are? You know you want to participate." You know, I had problems in that respect with my coworkers.

00:54:03 Valeria Howell: I really enjoyed reading the transcript, Mr. Gittens. It's clear that you had somewhat of a rebel spirit, and I really enjoyed reading the transcript of your interview. I have another question for you. In I believe it was 1968, you traveled to Panama City, along with your brother who served as your interpreter, your Spanish interpreter. You said that you spoke Spanglish at the time. Why did you make that trip to Panama City? To see who, and to be a part of what?

00:54:37 Cedric Gittens: Actually, we received, as the President of the Civic Council, we received an invitation from General Omar Torrijos, who was head of government at that time and he was seeking to retain sovereignty of Panama. And, he was speaking to whoever would listen, so he invited the civic councils, the labor unions, and so on, to come to a meeting with him in Panama City so he could present his case and get support. So, being a Panamanian, in as much as I was living in Canal Zone, I felt that the least we could do is pay him some respect, go and listen to what he has to say, without making any commitments. So, that's what I decided to do. However, my constituents and the Civic Council decided that they need not have anything to do with Torrijos because he was crazy. We lived in the Canal Zone. We had nothing that we needed from Panama, so we had no reason to go listen to him. But, I insisted well you need to just go and pay the guy some respect at least, and I decided to go because I couldn't get anyone else to go with me. So, I called my brother who was living in Panama, and I asked him to accompany me to the meeting just in case I had something to say that he could interpret for me. So, I drove over to Panama alone with my brother and we went to this meeting with Torrijos in which for the labor union and people from other organizations, lodges and so on. And we sat in the meeting and Torrijos has presented his case as to why he thinks that we should we reclaim that ten-mile strip of land at United States thought was theirs in perpetuity. Anyway, we listened to him, he presented his case and I got on the bus and came back to Rainbow City, to the wrath of my core civic council members. They said I should not have gone, I disobeyed the rules, and they set up a meeting to have me impeached, to take me out of my position as president, which they did. They used what they call Robert's Rules of Law and say, based on that, I have violated my rights and privileges as president, so I should vacate the chair. Well, I was not familiar with Robert's Rules, so as not to create a friction in the meeting I decided okay I'll step aside until we can clear this up. So, the vice president took over, and he swore against me what he's going to do, and he was going to impeach me, and fine me, and a lot of things he was going to do to me because I violated the laws of the civic council. Anyway, I took my problem to the president of the labor union. His name was Mr. [inaudible]. He was a brilliant man, and I told him what happened, and he told me that those people are out of mind, because the Robert's Rules does not go in the civic council. You were elected by the citizens of Rainbow City to be the president of Rainbow City so they can't take you out of office based on Robert's Rules. So he asked when was the next meeting, I told him, and he said okay next meeting I'll come. And he came to the meeting and he asked for the floor and he defended the position for me and they were forced to relinquish back the chair to me and I took over as president again. I was unanimously elected for a second term. However, I did not complete my second term because I was promoted and assigned to the Pacific side, so I had to relocate in the middle of my second term. So, that's more or less my story for that question that you asked.

00:59:18

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Valeria Howell: Thank you. Toni is going to take over for a few seconds while I try to fix my audio, and is going to ask you the next question.

00:59:25 Cedric Gittens: Sure.

[Chat message from John Nemmers: While Valeria is trying to fix her audio, Toni Robinson is filling as moderator. Thanks, Toni! Arcelio Hartley also is joining us to help with translations as needed. Thanks, Arcelio!]

00:59:28 Toni Robinson: Hello, Mr. Gittens. The next question I have for you is that you shared that you believe that by 1945 the high schools went up to the twelfth grade but prior to that they only went to the eighth or ninth grade. Would you happen to know what caused this change and how it came about?

00:59:47 Cedric Gittens: Well, the lower grades, it was more physical, not mental, teachings and learnings and so on, but as technology improved they needed to give us higher education so we can continue to do their work. In other words, things like electric typewriters are coming online and other new equipment for getting the work done. Typewriters. Electric typewriters. That sort of thing. We moved away from the Rolodex and that kind of stuff. So, in other words, to get their work done they needed to give us higher education to complete their work. So, the grades kept going up until it went to twelfth grade and that's where I'm graduated from twelfth grade in Rainbow City High School.

01:00:48 Toni Robinson: Wonderful. Thank you so much, and I'm going to give you a little bit of a break, as I shift the conversation a little bit and address Professor Flores-Villalobos. I'm just curious to know when and why did you become interested in researching and writing about the experiences of West Indian women in the Canal?

01:01:14 Joan Flores-Villalobos: Thanks, Toni. I started working on this project when I was an undergrad. I worked with my advisor Professor Rhonda Cobham-Sander, who works on Caribbean literature. I also have a lot of family in Panama, so I started looking into the history of the Panama Canal and I realized very quickly that even though I was really interested in the history of Black women, Black immigrant women, it was really, really hard to find the information. And that became this, you know, this obsession for me to really find the place where this history lay. So, that's really how I got started on the project, and now it's been over ten years that I've been working on this same topic.

01:01:59 Toni Robinson: That's interesting. Thank you so much for that. As you've been working in this area and thinking about the work you do specifically around the Canal Zone, the Panama Canal, I'm just wondering compared to other major research that you've conducted, what has been some of the challenges that you see in acquiring and compiling information for this area?

01:02:24 Joan Flores-Villalobos: Yeah. I mean, there are many challenges and like I mentioned in my kind of initial comments briefly, the archives of the Panama Canal construction in particular really privileged American

10 actors, American concerns, and so when West Indians do show up the lives of the ancestors of everyone here right only mattered to the Canal Company in so far as they were productive for construction, right. So, they didn't care about the social and cultural lives of people. They didn't care about, you know, kinship networks and families, and certainly not about women who are often not official employees of the Canal in those early years. I always tell the story that one of the - if you go to the archives of the Panama Canal which are at the National Archives of the U.S. in Washington D.C., there is, you know, there are lots of different categories. They're all about production, right. It's administration, labor, management, finances. There's one category about laundry, and I thought well this has to be where you find all women right, at least here. You go to that category and there's tons of boxes, hundreds of documents. I could tell you the cost of starching a collar or washing a shirt every single year that the U.S. was in Panama from 1904 to 1979, but the Archives hold nothing about the women who washed these clothes. So, these are some of the basic challenges. Sorry, go ahead.

01:04:01 Toni Robinson: No, that's just really fascinating that you can get that information, but not details about the women. I think that's why one of the reasons we're so glad to have Ms. Ibarra participating in this to kind of get a story from a woman's perspective, and I'm just going to ask Ms. Ibarra, you know, for you as you were a woman working with so many men, what was that like for you?

01:04:29 Nelly Ibarra: I really had no problems, working with men or women. I had a - if you're talking about the Canal Zone time, I had a lot of cooperation in my first job with Merritt-Chapman and Scott. And then, when I was referred to the Canal directly for the retired employees, or the diggers, so I really had no problem with my bosses who were men and didn't understand anything about nursing but, thank God, I got all the cooperation with them to be able to take my job as far as I could because they were my people. And, they were not given the opportunity as a U.S. citizen in Panama in the Republic or in the United States. They were given nothing.

01:05:26 Valeria Howell: Thank you so much.

01:05:28 Nelly Ibarra: Not a monthly salary. No income.

01:05:33 Valeria Howell: Thank you so much, Toni, for jumping in. We are of Western Indian ancestry, so we know how to survive, and I picked it back up and I'm back on. Thank you so much everyone for your help. Mrs. Ibarra, on the topic that Toni just broached with you about working with men, you tell the interesting story about needing to borrow a pair of pants from one of the supervisors. Why did you do that? Why did you need to do that?

01:06:01 Nelly Ibarra: That was while I was working with Merritt-Chapman and Scott, a construction company that were hired by the Panama Canal in a Canal widening project, where they use a lot of dynamite and they had huge cranes and trucks and things that I never seen before, but I had to work in that area, which is was very unsafe. And, nurses in those days don't use, never use pants, so if I went to a crane I had to plan some underwear that will cover my legs and my - so that wouldn't be seen, and when I was going down into the depths to pick on my patients and so on, I was really covered. So, that's - that was

11 part of it, you know, first aid, emergency first aid. And, that company worked for 24-hours a day for almost a year and six or eight months until the end of the contract, which was the project of Panama Canal widening project on Constructors Hill.

01:07:10 Valeria Howell: So what happened after the - what happened to the diggers after they retired? You tell in your interview about going out and looking for them.

01:07:23 Nelly Ibarra: The diggers now is a separate condition. When I was working with the contractors, at the end of the program or the time that they were working in the Canal widening, I was supervised by safety inspectors of the Canal Zone. I didn't know, because I never had worked in the Canal Zone prior to that job with Merritt-Chapman and Scott. So, they were watching closely what I was doing to my patients or what me and other nurses, because we work 24-hours a day, without weekends, seven days a week, on the project when the project started and when it ended. So we were there 24 hours because that's the way constructors work, I guess, I don't know in those days. So, I had to attend to my patients, emergency treatment, but most likely they're - they're not Canal diggers. We're talking about a separate issue. But, that was the job that was - I'd been followed, supervised, and then I was referred by them. My name was given by a Colonel Brandl, who was the chief inspector, safety inspector, to the Panama Canal employee services branch who wanted to organize this program for the retired employees or for the disability relief, that is what we used to call them. These were the employees that work for so many years, they had no retirement, they had not retirement plan in those days for them, they were contracted from Jamaica to the Canal to work. They work five, ten, twenty years, whatever, and they were sent back to their country with their family and their belongings, and that was it. Most of them lived in Panama. They remained in Panama. They had family in Panama. They raise children in Panama. They educated their children, most of them, in the Canal Zone. Unfortunately, I was not in that bunch. I was never raised in the Canal Zone, but my ancestors were diggers. My father was a digger. So, that is the reason why I took the job to prepare and help my people, and I was wanting to stay just one year until the program was initiated. Well, that one year turned into 28 years nine months or more and that's the end of it. And I loved every minute of it. I cry every day about what I saw everything. I did the best because no help from the Canal Zone because they weren't residents in the Canal Zone. They weren't Americans. In Panama - they didn't work for the government of Panama. Nobody care for them. Nobody gave them any help, so we had to start with nurses, find them. We went to the association and they gave us names and addresses and we work - we look for them, and those that were in bad shape we find help. How we find help? We started by friendship. Doctors who I know, doctors all the nurses knew, neighbors who was a friend of so and so, until we got help. And in the, what do you call, the health centers that I worked for prior to the Canal, I could go back and ask them for favors. I went to Santo Tomas emergency room and asked my personal friends that worked there to give me a chance to take care of so and so that had so and so, and I could take them in. And, that's how it started.

01:11:21 Valeria Howell: Thank you. So, you would go through the barrios and try to find the retired diggers and provide them health care?

01:11:30 Nelly Ibarra: That's right. We had no address. We had nothing but we used the Retired Workers Association. They helped us. The younger ones that were there active, they gave us names, they gave us addresses, they gave us places, or they came with us and take us where we could find and, finally, in the

12 ghetto areas we needed help, so I had to get the policemen sometimes to go into the area for safety. I have to - we have to do so many things, but we got help from the community there they lived in, and from the people of goodwill that you always find, and neighbors that were good. And, it was a desperate and terrible situation. For instance, we found a man that had urinary problems. Prostrate, I guess, and he wasn't seen in Panama and he couldn't go to the Gorgas Hospital. He didn't get any kind of service anywhere, because he was not a Panamanian. He was not an American so that was it. What he did was to tie with a shoelace his penis so he could go out and get some food and come back and sit with the same situation. Other cases - I'm telling you this part of what I remember. Another case was tuberculosis. He had - I sat down and cry. Not there, because I was full of bed bugs. His house was full of bed bugs and he had tuberculosis, so the beg bugs was getting a feast. He couldn't get help from Panama. He couldn't get help from the United States Government so - until we arrive, and we did what we had to do, thank God.

01:13:24 Valeria Howell: And in your interview, you mentioned that the insurance companies were the ones who actually ended up stepping in to help because these men were stuck in between the two governments.

01:13:35 Nelly Ibarra: The United States Government had all their employees that wanted insurance covered with the Mutual of Omaha. Mutual of Omaha accepted to give us some help, and then we created through one of the helpers, first helpers, a Doctor Puertas, and we got a clinic with furniture and everything, and then we have this first little tiny hospital. I think they had four beds for those emergencies. And, that's how it started, until the United States Government decided many years after that they will take in, and then we could use Gorgas Hospital and as usual, Panama through our contacts.

01:14:24 Valeria Howell: And one last question for you, Mrs. Ibarra, and I have a question for Professor Flores- Villalobos before we start the Q and A. Mrs. Ibarra, you talked about something - your father went to the bank to get a loan to purchase property as many West Indians who stayed went to the banks to get a loan. What was the process for getting a loan, a mortgage loan?

01:14:45 Nelly Ibarra: My father did not go for a loan to purchase a property. He had a piece of land. It's where now I'm sitting. That was in 1939, so I'm talking about history. And, he wanted a loan to build a house. He had the land, a piece of land, but he have to build so he could live there, and he was denied because he had high blood pressure. So, my mother - and she's a fighter - and she says, come. I was 12 years old then. My mother says you speak Spanish and I can hardly express that they understand me, nevertheless, I want you to explain what the problem... and we went to the President, Presidente of Panama, who the President was Enrique A. Jiménez. As a youngster I was sort of amazed of the huge head that he had and I was kind of scared. They had garzas. I don't know you call it English. Big birds. Storks. Storks. So, I was kind of afraid. I was really quite afraid, up to now. Well, my mother told the policeman - told me to tell a policeman in Spanish that "Tell the Presidente that the Negra is here." That's why you call me Negra I am happy. I'm Negra and my friends call me Negra. See what is it is that done the right way, I was saying, well look at me twice you know anyway. Anyway, we went up and this President knew - he remembered la Negra and that is Enrique A. Jiménez and he said "sube sube" and we went up. And then he said "What, can I help you, what can I do for you?" I was only twelve, but I am really shocked because I've never seen nothing like that before or after. Anyways, he said - my mother, my mother told me explain what the social security, so I explained to him that social security deny el

13 préstamo del hipotecario. He wanted to build. Because he didn't pass a physical exam. He had high blood pressure. And then he said "High blood pressure? Because of that?" Yes. And you know my mother will say, "I have so many children and most of them are females, and I live in a hot area and I don't want to stay there. I wanted to get out of that area with my children." And then I explained to him and he said "Who's at the social security?" We don't know who. Anyways he called right there, picked up the phone. Dialed. He called and he asked, "Hey, I'm el Presidente of the República..." and so so so so so, and this is a question and he said "Yes, who's the person in charge?" And he spoke to the person in charge. "Why did this man - did not pass it?" "Because of high blood pressure." "And what is the problem with high blood pressure?" He says "Well it's a race thing, that's what. He said, "Look. I am responsible for that loan." And that was the end of it. He promised, he helped, and we did. I'm right here, sitting on the same house that my parents built in 1939.

01:18:34 Valeria Howell: Thank you so much, Mrs. Ibarra, and, as you say, also in your interview it's so ironic because as West Indians and with the food that they that they would leave to us most of us had high blood pressure so that was a way of holding back people from getting loans right - a lot of people from getting loans. Thank you very much for sharing your stories. I want to move to Professor Flores- Villalobos. I have one more question. I'm not sure if they had asked you this. Can you share with us something that you've learned about the women from the Panama Canal that you found remarkable despite their conditions?

01:19:13 Joan Flores-Villalobos: Of course, and in some ways, I feel like I don't need to say anything because Mrs. Ibarra already told us everything we need to know, right. But, I think it's exactly like you've been saying, Val, and like Ms. Ibarra has been saying. It's about survival right. It's about community. It's about kinship. The story that you learn, if you read only the American sources is about segregation, about racism, about labor, and that's important. But, there's another side to that right that's also about the people that were there, and how they supported each other and how they helped each other survive right. And, you can hear how people - I mean how Mrs. Ibarra was saying, she went out, she wanted to help her community. They walked the streets to find people. I have read about women who were the only people who were providing food for West Indian workers who were served food in the Silver cafeterias that was disgusting and wasn't you know ready to eat for people and, instead they were fed by West Indian women who walked around selling food from the islands, who were growing trees in their yards to be able to sell this food. So, again that's the kind of story about survival and community and that's what's important and that's what these oral histories help us highlight.

01:20:29 Valeria Howell: Will you be using any of the - have you been visiting the oral history collection and how much of that will be going into your book?

01:20:37 Joan Flores-Villalobos: I've used a lot of the collection from the Panama Canal Museum. I haven't - I mean, I'm only starting to use the oral histories now, but hopefully they will come a much bigger part of it, now that we're kind of working on this project, but the Panama Canal Museum Collection has already been such an important part of my work and the Digital Library of the Caribbean. And you know as John and Liz were saying that there are - they have been working so hard to try to create more space for West Indian voices. They have this great collection of letters from West Indians who sent their memories about the Canal construction period, which I use really extensively. So, now I'm looking forward to

14 adding some of these as well and I'm - I can't wait to for the next part of the program where we'll share a little bit more about a West Indian woman who was there during the construction era.

01:21:30 Valeria Howell: I just thought of another question because it's something that I hadn't heard from you before, but if you can share with us when did the West Indian women - the wives, the sisters, and daughters, and mothers - did they come the same time to Panama Canal Zone when the white and European workers, their wives and their women came to the Panama Canal Zone?

01:21:48 Joan Flores-Villalobos: So, not exactly in that I think one of the important things to always keep in mind about West Indians traveling to Panama is that it wasn't only about the U.S. Canal right. West Indians have long histories of migrating to Panama. You know, Jamaican women would come in the 1880s and just take boats to Panama, do laundry back in Jamaica, and bring it back. So, there are long ties between the islands and Panama that you know much proceed U.S. involvement. And, of course, women also came - West Indian women also came as white American women were coming, right, but they were going through different routes and they were facing really different challenges and limitations, you know. Theodore Roosevelt and George Goethals talked about white American women as this important migration right. They really celebrated the white American women who came as pioneers. They did not do the same for West Indian women, and often rejected them when they arrived and criminalized them, so it's a really different story comparing those two, but as a really important part of my work as well.

01:22:58 Valeria Howell: Thank you. I want to get back to Mr. Gittens. I really enjoyed reading the transcripts of your interview, Mr. Gittens. I had a question for you regarding there was a story you tell about going to the commissary right and you had to get some uniforms and some baseball caps and then some shirts from the commissary. Can you explain about the commissary system, and what transpired with that situation? Why did you have to go to the other commissary?

01:23:31 Cedric Gittens: Well, the distribution of items to the different commissaries, having to do with clothing and trinkets and so on and so on, and the commissaries were divided into gold and silver. The gold commissaries were for the white people and the silver commissaries were for the Black people. Of course, the best and the better stuff was sent to the gold commissaries. And, the reason why I went to the gold commissary is a little story that is very tender and very close to me. We had a baseball team and we wanted some sweaters or something like that. Of course, in our commissaries it was either the wrong size of the wrong color or something like that. And some of my guys said, "Why don't you go to the gold commissary and see if maybe they could sell you some?" Of course, the gold commissaries were for white people. But I decided hey let me go and see. You don't strike yourself out without taking a swing at the bat. So, I decided to go to the Cristobal commissary and I asked if they would sell me some sweaters or something, I think it was. And, I asked who was the manager of the commissary. So, they told me "That lady down there is the manager." So, I walked into the commissary, the gold commissary, and I went to the office, and there was this beautiful lady, light skin, long hair, sitting there. So, she looked at me and she said, "What can I do for you? Who are you?" I said, "Well, my name is Cedric Gittens and I am here to see if I could buy some stuff for - that we don't have in our commentaries." And she said, "Well you know you're not supposed to shop in this commissary." But I said "Well, that may be true, but we don't have the better stuff in our commissary, and I came here to see if you would do me the favor to sell me what I want." So, obviously she was very busy. So, she said,

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"Alright. Alright. Come. Come." And she walked me to the section that had what I wanted to buy and she told them to sell me what I want. So then she said, "What is your name?" She spoke with a Spanish accent, a beautiful Spanish accent. "What is your name?" I said, "My name is Cedric Gittens." She said, "Okay, Mr. Gittens. Here's your stuff and be on your way." I said, "Thank you very much" and I left. I went back to my homies and I said, "Hey, we got the sweaters." And we did our stuff. And a second time we needed something - I think it was baseball caps or something like that. They said "Hey, go to the commissary and see if you can do it again." So I went to commissary again and I asked for the manager. And "Hey, the manager down there." So, I went to the manager and she said, "Hey, that you again, Mr. Gittens? What do you want this time?" I said, "Well, I want to buy some baseball caps because we don't either have the size or whatever, you know, in our commissary. "Oh. Come come come. Quickly." And she took me. "Give him the caps." And I got the caps and I went back. My homes were glad. "Hey, you did it." Okay. One more time. We wanted something. I forget what it was. So, when I arrive at the commissary they said, "Hey, go tell..." Her name was Mrs. Garcia. "Go tell Mrs. Garcia that her friend is here." So, I'm waiting to hear from the guys in the back. "Hey, Mr. Gittens. What you want this time?" I told her, so she said to me "Hey, by the way. Did you win the game when you bought the baseball caps?" I said "Oh, my gosh. Would you believe me, Ms. Garcia? We lost." So she laughs and she said, "Well, you come to the store to get the caps and you go and lose the game?" Oh, my gosh. But, the way she said it was so amusing, I started laughing and she started laughing because I was laughing. So that - could you imagine that two people standing in the middle of the commissary laughing get a white lady and a Black guy and we laugh, and we have a good time laughing. Anyway, she gave me the caps and she bade me farewell and that was a beautiful lady. I will never forget her. And I took my caps back to my guys and you know we had a good time. But, those are one of one of the most memorable experiences that I had in the gold and silver situation in the Canal Zone.

01:28:50 Valeria Howell: Thank you so much once again, Mr. Gittens, for sharing that story. Now, we're going to turn to the Q&A section and Toni Robbins. Toni is going to lead us in that Q&A.

01:29:01 Toni Robinson: Thank you, Valeria. We have questions coming in from the audience so I'm just going to post them to the panelists as they come in. One is for you, Mr. Gittens. The first question for you is can you please confirm, tell us where your - your lineage? Are you Barbadian? Jamaican? The people would like to know.

01:29:23 Cedric Gittens: Well, my lineage is from Jamaica. My grandfather on my mother's side - my father's side - he was from Jamaica, a part of Jamaica they called Black River. That's on the way if you're going up to Negril, Jamaica. You have to get past Black River before you get to Negril. And, he was a tall guy, tall boxing guy. He was ex-military. He was in the British army, and he was decorated for some act of valor that he did, and he was decorated by the Queen. He had a medal that he used to use on his - my father had a medal that he used to use on his uniform. It had like a sunburst on the front and then in the back it had like a crown and it said "From the Queen" because he was decorated for some act of valor that he did. That was my grandfather on my father's side. He came to Panama, and he was hired as a blacksmith. Shoed the horses for the police and the soldiers and so on. He was a blacksmith. He worked until he retired. He went to Limón, Costa Rica, where he passed away in Limón, Costa Rica. But in the archives of the microfilm in the Canal Zone library I was able to see a film of him that he was recognized when the Prince of Wales came to Panama some years ago and they had a ceremony honoring soldiers that used to work for the - fight for the British army. And, he was recognized in Panama by the Prince of

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Wales. I don't remember how many years ago that was. Like I said, he went back to Limón, Costa Rica, where he passed away in Limón, Costa Rica. Then, on my mother's side, my grandfather, he was a cosmetic salesman, sell cosmetics makeup and that kind of stuff. And, before that he was hired as a police officer in the Canal Zone, because he was very big and they hired the big guys to keep order. So, he worked at the police officer and then when he retired he was a cosmetic salesman. And he died in Panama. He was sick. He went - I think he had a stroke, or something like that. And they used to feed him pigeon soup because pigeon soup had some kind of a magic cure or something like that. SO, I used to go get a pigeon soup for my grandfather, give him the pigeon soup. And he walked with a cane as I remember. Some years ago, after that he passed away. Had a funeral for him in the lodge hall. And I remember at that time, when you were a certain age, if you had a parent that died, he was laid out in the coffin and then they would lift you and pass you over to the other side, or something, like that you know. That was a scary thing, where you look down and see your parent lying there and you're passing over the coffin. That was scary. But anyway, he's buried in Mt. Hope. And, to this very day, I can tell you what his grave number was, and I can tell you the location and the cemetery where he was buried. Now his headstone - the number of his headstone was 18565. That was the number on his headstone and a lot of times when my mother wanted to go visit the grave on Memorial Day or something I would take them, because I know where to find a way to find a grave and that kind of stuff. And, you know, he's laying there in Mt. Hope. Now, I don't know how Mt. Hope looks now because the last time I visited Mt. Hope, as I recall, I think Arcelio and I and Walter visited the cemetery and it was kind of tore up you know. It wasn't very well maintained as it was back in those days. But, my grandfather lays there. My grandmother is also buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery. And who else? My aunt - I have an aunt that also was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery. And, aside from having family buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery, that was the place where you went to get the best mangoes.

01:33:59 Toni Robinson: That's a good reason to go.

01:34:02 Cedric Gittens: I have a lot of memories of Mt. Hope Cemetery.

01:34:04 Toni Robinson: Thank you so much, Mr. Gittens. Our next question is for Ms. Ibarra and the question for you Ms. Ibarra is: the person says we notice you speak both English and Spanish. Did you attend school learning English or Spanish and what was your home language as well?

01:34:25 Nelly Ibarra: Spanish. My home language which was what we call [inaudible] which is Spanglish or mostly English, but not pronunciated the right way. But, then I went to Spanish school all the way until the university.

01:34:48 Toni Robinson: Wonderful. Thank you. And another question for you, Ms. Ibarra, is while the Canal workers were working did they have medical care during their employment and then it ended after retirement?

01:35:02 Nelly Ibarra: Did they - I didn't hear what you said - did they have what?

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01:35:05 Toni Robinson: Did the Canal workers have medical care while they were working?

01:35:12 Nelly Ibarra: I guess, while they were working because those were hired in Jamaica signed a contract that they will be sent to the place of work from Jamaica to Panama, with all the family and belongings, and when their time was up in the Canal, they were sent back to their origin, everything free of cost with all the family and belongings. But, most of them had their homes, already in Panama. They married Panamanians. They live in the Canal Zone, etc., etc., so they didn't go. Well, that was in the basic contract where when they were employed for the - as a digger, the first employees of the Canal.

01:36:09 Toni Robinson: Wonderful. Thank you. The next question is for Professor Flores-Villalobos and the person would like to know what courses do you teach and does your research require you to go to Panama and conduct interviews as well?

01:36:28 Joan Flores-Villalobos: Thank you for that question. So, I teach classes on the Panama Canal and on Afro- Latin America, and on U.S. empire and labor. And, yes, my research does require me to go to Panama a lot. I don't do a lot of interviews because I mostly work on the very, very early construction periods so most people are not alive. But I do a lot of work in the archives in Panama, and so, for example in the national archives in Panama, you can go read old court cases where West Indian women would go to the corregidor and say, "I want to sue this person who lives next to me." Not sue, but I'm sort of paraphrasing, right. But, you can read the court cases of how neighbors in West Indian areas of Panama City are relating to each other so there's lots of information to find in Panama that hasn't really been used for historical study.

01:37:24 Toni Robinson: That's wonderful rich information. Thank you. And, Mr. Gittens, someone would like to know which fire department and in what community did you work, for which fire department?

01:37:37 Cedric Gittens: Canal Zone Fire Department, in Rainbow City and Balboa.

01:37:40 Toni Robinson: Rainbow City. Thank you. And, Ms. Ibarra, there's a question for you where someone would like to know what your training was like as a nurse, like what did you study and what kind of support did you receive?

01:38:00 Nelly Ibarra: Basically, nursing school was a scholarship because my parents could not afford to send me any other place for nursing and that was the only nursing school in Panama. So it really belongs to the government. There's a scholarship and what they will do is to pay us every fifteen days $3 for transportation, because we had to take classes at some at the university and other places where we were sent for training. That's the basic nursing school. In that nursing school, you had to have four years of high school education, then you go there for three years for the nursing training, basic training, because nursing in Panama was not at the level of university. After that, then the nursing school of

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Panama were sent to the University of Panama, and then they had nursing school in the University of Panama. And I went so I could have a titulo universitario. At first I took public health for one year and then I went for the regular training as a registered nurse in Panama.

01:39:24 Toni Robinson: Great. Thank you. And, perhaps this one could be answered by Professor Flores- Villalobos. Someone is interested in knowing whether the immigrant Canal workers and families were able to maintain relationships and contacts with the relatives who remained on the island? So what was that like, and whether they returned or stayed in Panama for the most part? The communication?

01:39:52 Joan Flores-Villalobos: Yeah, that's actually a really hard question to answer in that of course people maintained communication but finding the historical evidence of that is really difficult because those are mostly, you know, family letters that aren't in kind of official historical archives. But, I've found lots of evidence of people communicating. In particular, you see it when somebody passes away and then their family in the islands just does everything they can to be able to get in touch with the authorities, find their family member, get back their belongings, and they'll send letters and say look I've been talking to my son. I've been talking to my husband. I want to know what happened to them right. So, communication was difficult. Letters got lost. Workers moved around a lot, so it was hard to identify them and get letters to them. And, of course, it's hard to find that historical evidence, but people were definitely in communication. And, in terms of whether people left or stayed a lot of people went back to the islands. That's the famous "Colón Man" who goes back to the islands and comes back with the gold ring, gold watch, etc. But, a lot of people also left, like Mr. Gittens said, to other places like Limón, Costa Rica, or they want to Flatbush, and some of them definitely stayed in Panama, like Ms. Ibarra's family.

01:41:15 Toni Robinson: Thank you. Great answer. Mr. Gittens, someone is asking about the classification of firefighters versus firemen. Is there any difference in how they were called, what they were called?

01:41:33 Cedric Gittens: Well, the title is interchangeable they both fight fires, whether they're gone fireman or firefighters it's interchangeable.

01:41:42 Toni Robinson: Okay. They just wanted to see. I want to remind everyone in the audience that you can submit a question via the Q&A button. We have just a couple of minutes left, but I do want to make sure that your burning questions get answered so if you have one please definitely let us know. Professor Flores-Villalobos, someone would like to audit your seminar on the Panama Canal. Maybe we can have - that's a question that's floating out there.

01:42:11 Joan Flores-Villalobos: Well, I'm not teaching it in the next year, but I'll let people know when it's happening again. I would love that.

01:42:18 Toni Robinson: Wonderful. Thank you for that and let's see if we have one more question. So this - I'll throw this out as a trivia question. I'm sure you all know the answer. But, the question that they're

19 asking is when did they start building the Canal, and before they started building the Canal who was living in Panama? Anyone can take that if you want.

01:42:53 Arcelio Hartley: Before - well, should I answer that?

01:42:57 Toni Robinson: Yes, please.

01:43:00 Arcelio Hartley: Before the Panama Canal, I mean there were natives and, of course, there were Spanish colonials that came to Panama, so you had quite a bit of that influence here. But, the West Indian migration began with the railroad, the building of the railroad in the 1850s. And, so there were three waves of West Indians that came to came in: the first ones to build a railroad, and then next set that came when the French began the construction of the Canal in the 1880s, and then the French failed and the Americans came in 1904. And, they're the ones that completed it. So, you had three waves of great migrations, but you also can find that there were West Indians in areas like Bocas del Toro and Chiriquí that came for the banana plantations and eventually for the sugar. So, there are quite a few of those, but Panama's population - in fact, it's estimated that Panama's population in the early 1900s when you probably had an influx of about 100,000 West Indians that may have arrived in the country, Panama's population probably would have been less than 300,000.

01:44:10 Toni Robinson: Great. Thank you for that information, Arcelio. This is going to be our final question, and it goes to Ms. Ibarra and Mr. Gittens. You know, people are curious to know when you were working as a fireman, Mr. Gittens, and as a nurse, Ms. Ibarra, what were your salaries like and did you get promotions? And, we'll start with Ms. Ibarra. How much did nurses earn at the time?

01:44:35 Nelly Ibarra: In Panama, if you're talking a bit before the Canal, before I went to the Canal, it was $90 a month. Before, when I started working with Merritt-Chapman and Scott, I got $225 a month because of the distance and the hours plus over time. And in the Canal Zone I started as a Grade 4. I mean when the retirement program, the nursing program, when I started, I started in Grade 4 and sixty days after I was Grade 6 and then I ended in Grade 11 or 12 - 11 when I retired.

01:45:24 Toni Robinson: Great. Thank you. And, Mr. Gittens, what was your salary like and your career advancement in your job?

01:45:32 Cedric Gittens: Well, if you're talking about strictly the fire department, as I recall I was making something like $2 and something cents an hour, then it went up to $6-7 an hour, and I think when I retired I was making $21 an hour, something in that area.

01:45:57 Toni Robinson: Okay, well, thank you. Thank you all for answering the questions, and to people who submitted questions, if you did not have an opportunity to get your questions answered, we will try to answer them offline for you and I'm going to turn things back to Valeria.

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01:46:14 Valeria Howell: Thank you so much, Toni. So, this is the conclusion of the panel discussion, but the program will continue. I just wanted to say thank you to our panelists for sharing your stories and for your dedication and service to the people who lived, worked and died in the Panama Canal Zone, thank you to Professor Flores-Villalobos for giving a voice to the stories of the women of the Canal Zone. Thank you to our interviewers who spent countless hours with interviewees, to Toni for moderating, and to nearly 200 participants for your engagement this evening. We hope that these stories will encourage you not only to visit the university's collection but also to start making records of your own family histories. With that said, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing one of the backbones of Pan Caribbean Sankofa, Ms. Carmen Eccles, who will present the next segment of our program. Thank you and enjoy.

01:47:07 Carmen Eccles: Thank you to our panelists. Great questions. Great answers, I just want to welcome all of you, our global villagers. Thanks for joining us this evening, and I want to let you know that the chat feature is now enabled and we encourage you to share your thoughts with us. Looking back to move forward, my forefathers are from proudly Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, and Cuba. I hail from Paraiso, also known as Ghost Town, and that's on the Canal Zone in Panama. Looking back to move forward, my grandmother Rose Nichols Grimes from Grenada chatted with her firstborn grandchild the Valina. And Valina focused on preserving our grandmother's proud legacy to share with her future generations and now the village. The following presentation is a vision by Rose's third, fourth, and fifth generation and they encompass the period from 1886 to the late 1930s. Stay safe and a pleasant good evening.

[Played video: "The Story of Rose Grimes"]

01:56:09 Casma Cockburn-Henlon: Good evening. I'm Casma Cockburn-Henlon, a descendant of Jamaicans. I was born and raised in Rainbow City, Canal Zone. And, I'm one of the directors of Pan Caribbean Sankofa. On behalf of the Pan Caribbean Sankofa board, I want to thank our panel, Valeria Howell, Toni Robinson, Arcelio Hartley, Carmen Eccles and the Grimes family, and all the participants. This project is a tribute to our ancestors, who have provided us with a rich heritage. Their courage, perseverance, and determination contributed to what is now a wonder of the world which changed the history of the world in so many ways. We are what they made us to be, a proud courageous and industrious people with a pioneering spirit. Most of all, we thank you our audience for joining us in this initial effort to uncover and highlight the history of the Pan Caribbean people. We need you. Your participation in this oral history project is essential, please consider the various ways in which you can participate as an interviewee sharing your story, as a contributor providing photos documents, artifacts, and information, or as an interviewer on the oral history portion of the project. We'll now show a video. It's a partial listing of our ancestors who contributed to the construction of the railroad and the Panama Canal. This list is just a sampling and does not include the names of all who were involved. It's meant to demonstrate some of our resources. Please observe a time of silence as we view the list and reflect on all our ancestors.

[Played video: "In Memoriam: A Tribute to Panama Canal Workers"]

02:01:03

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Casma Cockburn-Henlon: We're almost there. Reverend Nelson S. Edwards Bodkin attended Rainbow City elementary school. He graduated from Colegio Abel Bravo in the city of Colón. He has now served for the past 22 years at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Paraiso and 16 years at the St. Simon's Episcopal Church in Gamboa. At present, he is a Diocesan historian and a member of the diocese on the board of directors. Reverend Nelson Edwards will now offer a closing prayer.

02:01:55 Reverend Nelson Edwards: Closing prayer. Builders. Psalm number 127 first two verses says if the Lord does not built the house the work of the builders is useless. If the Lord does not protect the city, it does no good for the centuries to stand guard. It is useless to work so hard for a living getting up early and going to bed late for the Lord provides for those he loves while they are asleep. Loving God, creator of the universe, builder of all that has been made, we come to you in gratitude today giving thanks for our fellowship and friendship and the promise of a new relation full of hopes and plans. We ask for your blessing upon our colleagues as our own families and ask that you bless them and guide them as they begin their journey with us. Bless and guide those of us who joined them today as we seek to share a well worn and well intentional pasts with them, and as we delight in learning what you think they are to learn. We ask that your blessing would rest on this team, that you would give us great vision and enthusiasm for our work. Lead us in all the work we do so that our descendants and all we learn from this event may reap the benefits of our collective wisdom and experience. And let us all marvel in the joy of being together from this beautiful day forward. Blessing. May the Lord bless you and take care of you. May the Lord be kind and gracious to you. May the Lord look on you with favor and give you peace. And, the blessing of God almighty, God the father, God the son, God the Holy Spirit, remain and be with us always. Amen. Thank you.

02:03:59 John Nemmers: Alright. Thank you, Reverend Nelson, and thank you to everyone who participated tonight. It was a long program. We appreciate you sticking with us through the end and we're pretty much ending right on time, which is fantastic. The official program has ended. We will be sending out links to various things, to the recording, to some of the resources we highlighted, to the oral histories. We'll be doing that after the fact. In the next days and weeks you'll be getting links from us. Right now, at the end of the program we're going to start a PowerPoint video running with some photos from our collection. You're welcome to stay for the next 10 or 15 minutes as we let this play through. But, if not, if you don't stay, we understand. It's been a long night, afternoon. Have a good evening, and thank you very much.

[End of event.]

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