The Panama Historical Society meets the first Wednesday of every month at Niko’s in Balboa and usually people hear a guest speaker. The topics vary widely, from the history of various arts or sciences in Panama, to old coins, stamps, postcards or maps, to the writing of history or historical fiction, to sites of interest around the isthmus.
Sometimes, however, there is no special guest, and then it’s usually up to society president John Carlson to come up with a subject to discuss. (The author’s apologies, John --- the intention is not to put a burden on your shoulders, but to acknowledge that you have shouldered it so often.)
It looked like one of the latter for January, and John did have something to say. January 28 will be the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Railroad and the Panama Historical Society will be observing the occasion. (Why no details? Due to limited capacity for participation. Read all about it after the fact in the first issue of The Panama News in February.)
The Panama Railroad was not built because of the California Gold Rush. The project was underway before that great migration, but the two phenomena became so closely linked in American memory that it is often wrongly presumed that the one caused the other. Not so.
But the building of the Panama Railroad did mark the establishment in a large-scale and permanent way of three of Panama’s ethnic communities: the Americans, the West Indians and the Chinese all came here in great numbers for the building of this, the first Atlantic to Pacific rail link. Much as a certain type of Panamanian cultural nationalist would like to write all three groups out of the official history, the gringos, chinos and antillanos have all been here for a century and a half and each group has left indelible marks on this country and its culture.
As luck would have it, however, John wouldn’t have to bear all the burdens of the January meeting. Several people who are active with the The Panama Canal Museum, in Seminole, Florida, were in town and took the occasion to grace the Historical Society meeting with their presence. Chris Skeie spoke to those assembled about the project.
A Zonian, Skeie told a tale not at all consonant with the stereotype. Yes, the museum in Florida seeks to preserve the legacy of Panama’s American era. No, this project is neither a monument to colonial nostalgia nor an exercise in whining about a “stab in the back” by Jimmy Carter. No, it’s not about how the uncivilized Panamanians will never be able to properly run the canal, nor chest-thumping historical revisionism that ignores the fact that most of the people who did the work of building the canal were black people from the West Indies.
Instead, Skeie told of the Florida museum’s efforts to reach out to and cooperate with Panamanian museums. He recounted the tribulations of a growing and surprisingly successful effort to become a serious --- as in fully accredited --- US museum. He told stories of the Florida museum giving disks full of scanned material from its collection to Panama’s National Institute of Culture (INAC), and of its desire to scan things in the Panama Canal Authority’s collection.
Forty-one years after the nadir of Zonian-Panamanian relations embodied in the Day of the Martyrs, The Panama Canal Museum represents a calmer, more mature relationship, one that’s, well, informed by history.
Those who have documents, books, artifacts or other items to offer to The Panama Canal Museum, or who have questions about the project, can contact the museum by email at office@panamacanalmuseum.org.
Also in this section:
Two Panama natives killed in Mosul suicide bombing
Second annual American Fair
Republicans in Panama inaugural ball
Panama Historical Society discusses museums, railroad anniversary
Christmas in Panama, 2004
