Panamá
Spring 2013 | Volume XII, Number 3
Table of Contents
Editor’s Letter →
by June Carolyn Erlick
First Take
First Take: The Isthmus and Its Challenges
For the past 20 years Panamá has maintained enviable economic growth. During the last decade, the country consistently ranked among the top in economic…
The Canal: Shaping History
A Tale of Two Flags
A Tale of Two Flags The Last Hurdle When in 1995 President Ernesto Pérez Balladares appointed me to head the commission responsible for the transition of the Panama Canal from U.S. to Panamanian hands, it never crossed my mind that yet another negotiation—unexpected...
Who Remembers Panamá?
There was a time, many decades ago, when the Isthmian country of Panamá—dividing the Americas—made near daily headlines from Canada to Argentina…
The Story That Panamá Decided to Write
A few days prior to the date set for the transfer of the Panama Canal from the United States to Panamá, a reporter from a U.S. news network asked me, “Mr…
Panamá and the United States
Marching bands in their colorful uniforms from schools all over Panamá fill the streets of the City for the November 3 Independence Day parades. Panamá is…
A Hidden Dictator
On Saturday, December 16, 1989, four U.S. military officials decided to go for dinner at the Marriott Hotel in Panama City. One of them never came back…
Ethnic Diversity
Panamanian Culture
Panamanian culture has roots in at least three continents. It’s a heterogeneous culture, embracing elements from various communities that coexist peacefully…
Muslims and Jews in Panamá
The Muslim community in Panamá, understood as a group that maintains its cultural and religious traditions, became rooted in the second half of the 20th…
Encounters with Guna Celebrations
In 1681, an injured pirate named Lionel Wafer spent several months in the Darién region of eastern Panamá recuperating with the local Indians, who, he noted…
The Distortion of History
Panamá was already inhabited 11,000 years ago. Its history, nonetheless, is written from two perspectives: that of archaeologists and of historians. The…
The Chinese of Panamá Also Have a Story to Tell…
Panamá’s Chinese immigrants arrived 159 years ago after a hellish journey from their homeland. Hired by the Panama Railroad Company, the company in charge…
Culture
The Panamanian Novel
Pueblos perdidos, the novel which earned Gil B. Tejeira Panamá’s Miró Literary Prize for 1963, tells the story of Gatún Lake, at the time the largest artificial…
Panama City
On May 8, 2003, the Bay of Panamá suddenly turned red. The Coca-Cola factory had spilled a massive amount of non-toxic red chemical dye and was eventually…
The Museo del Canal Interoceánico de Panamá
A Panamanian child visiting the Museo del Canal Interoceánico de Panamá—the Canal Museum—might be fascinated to learn how a slice of watermelon started…
Biodiversity
Degreening Panamá
Panamá is in the news. Although it’s a small country of only 75,000 square kilometers, it’s a place where many want to invest, do business, work and live…
A Century of the Smithsonian Institution on the Isthmus of Panamá
The average visitor to Panamá might not be attracted to a site that hosts a hundred species of cockroaches and 41 species of snakes. But Barro Colorado is…
Building the Biomuseo
Panama City, the first city in the Western Hemisphere to be founded on the Pacific Coast, is today a vibrant, busy tropical metropolis. Panama City is a place…
Book Talk
Violencia pública en Colombia
Another book about violence in Colombia? At first glance, it would seem superfluous to add one more title to the already extensive bibliography that…
Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter’s Journey Through a Country’s Descent into Darkness
In Mexico, the tradition goes, your heart will always remain where your umbilical cord was buried. This place will always be your magnetic pole. Your safe-haven…
Brazilian Art under Dictatorship
Discussions of cultural resistance to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 tend to focus on two different centers of creative protest. One is the…
Making A Difference
Making A Difference: Hasta Luego, Not Goodbye
When I first excitedly told Harvard friends and classmates that I would be studying abroad in Buenos Aires during my fall 2012 semester, I did not quite get…
The Last Word
The Last Word: The Canal and Beyond
On May 3, 2009, pro-business supermarket magnate and New York Yankees fan Ricardo Martinelli defeated equally pro-business former housing minister…