Race In The Panama Canal Zone

The Panama Canal Zone was an unincorporated territory of the United States from 1903 through 1999. There was a lot that went on in the Panama Canal Zone during the 20th century. In this essay, I’m first going to focus on how race played a big part in the Panama Canal Zone. Donoghue gives great information in his book “Borderland on the Isthmus” that helps us better understand this topic.In the Panama Canal Zone, there were race divisions in the canal workforce. It showed mostly in the pay rate each race got. The authorities in the canal assigned employees to either a gold or silver roll depending on status and race. Canal officials never really used the terms white or colored but how people would act and go about their lives with the gold

Most of the workers who worked on the canal construction were of West Indian descent. They were basically doing slave labor because they weren’t treated or paid fairly. Then there was Zonians. These were U.S citizens who lived in the zone. The Zonians and non-white canal workers Donoghue states that they had “significant tension” (Ch. 2) which stemmed from race. Also, the U.S Officers had an impact on their loves lives as well. In the book, Donoghue states “ U.S officer duty was to prevent intermarriages” (Ch.4). This means that they didn’t want people of different ethnic descent to get into relationships. They wanted to keep the separation in all aspects of life like towns, schools, facilities, even marriages. This goes to show you that if you were a person of descent you were very limited in the Panama Canal Zone and everything was controlled as

This way of doing things really caused racial tension when it came to having a good work environment. The sad part about all of this is that the canal was built off of imperialism and U.S racism. In this particular topic of racism, Donoghue did an incredible job of showing how American privilege was in effect in the Canal Zone. Racism was found at the very beginning of this project. The people that were involved in the racism and discrimination had a mindset that was passed down from one generation to another. Unfortunately, the people of that was colored and of different descent got the bad end of the stick. There wasn’t really anything the people could do about this racism and discrimination. All they could do is keep working hard and hope for things to get better. These people of different descent had families to feed and support so they had to maintain a level head and remain calm. That’s exactly what they did and things eventually got