From Barbados to Panama is Melva Lowe de Goodin's bilingual play about a Panamanian schoolgirl discovering her family's West Indian roots. The book also contains several pages of historical photos documenting the Silver Roll experience during the Panama Canal's construction days.

Manuelita is a student in a contemporary secondary school where proper Spanish is spoken. Those scenes in Manuelita's home and classroom are written in Panamanian Spanish, which has its unique characteristics among the many dialects spoken across the vast regions that once comprised the Spanish Empire.

Manuelita's great-grandparents, Samuel and Leah, came to the isthmus from Barbados in 1909. The scenes in which they are featured are written in that Barbadian form of Caribbean English commonly known by its speakers as Bajan.

The author, who now heads the English department at the University of Panama and is past president of SAMAAP (the Friends of the West Indian Museum of Panama), wrote this play to be performed at the 1999 celebrations marking the Panama Canal's 85th anniversary and the former Canal Zone's final reversion to complete Panamanian sovereignty. Assistance from SAMAAP and the Kellogg Foundation made Professor Lowe de Goodin's work possible.

For Panama's present English-speaking community, a bilingual play is a very natural thing. Despite an attempt to create an English-speaking enclave that lasted the better part of a century, Panama, including the former Canal Zone, is a Spanish-speaking country. Though more than 10 percent of Panama's population speaks English as its native tongue and an even larger part of the nation uses English as a second language, virtually all English speakers on the isthmus, whether they have North American, Caribbean or British roots, speak Spanish.

This play, written by an educator, is also quite useful for the process of making young people bilingual. It might just as well be staged at a Panama City colegio to teach students both history and English, as it could be performed in a New York high school as a lesson in both history and Spanish.

From Barbados to Panama, an 86-page illustrated paperback, costs $6. This includes shipping and handling. To order your copy, send a check made out to Eric Jackson and the information about where you want it mailed to:

Eric Jackson
The Panama News
Apartado 55-0927 Estafeta Paitilla
Panama, Republic
of Panama