Borderland on the Isthmus

<div>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.</div>