Racial nation building in Panama: Mestizaje and US influence

From 1776 to 1836, a wave of wars of independence encompassed nearly the entirety of the western hemisphere and resulted in the formation of fifteen independent countries from the former colonial holdings of the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese Empires. This sudden, widespread, independence from Europe launched simultaneous racial nation-building projects across North, Central, and South America, as well as the Caribbean. In the case of Anglo America (and to a lesser extent Franco America), these projects were based on a model of radical exclusion and removal. In the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America, these projects took the form of radical forced inclusion and assimilation commonly referred to as mestizaje (miscigenação in Portuguese), or miscegenation. In both cases, the non-European population was seen as a problem which must be resolved in order to form a new, single nation to correspond with the borders of each respective new country. On November 3, 1903, Panama became fully independent from Colombia for the final time, after significant involvement from, and a policy reversal by, the United States. As a newly formed country in the heart of Latin America and having spent eight decades in a tumultuous union with Colombia, the intellectual and political elite in Panama spoke the language of mestizaje. And yet, as a country which would house the single largest foreign interest of a post-Monroe Doctrine United States, Panama also experienced, and utilized, the racial exclusion and removal nation-building model as well. Panama’s history and contemporary situation demonstrate a unique blend of Anglo-Saxon and Iberian settler state racial practices. The revoking of some, but not all, Black Panamanian’s jus soli citizenship is one example of the Panamanian government’s buffet-style approach to racial nation-building. Today, it is estimated that nearly two out of three Panamanians identify as Mestizo, a higher rate than Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, a clear testament to the implementation of mestizaje common to Latin America. However, at the same time, nearly a quarter of Panama’s land mass is held in Comarcas (Indigenous reservations), despite only 12% of the population identifying as Indigenous. This ratio dramatically exceeds other former Spanish colonies such as Mexico, where nearly a third of the population identifies as Indigenous or Predominantly Indigenous; but, no lands are held specifically for Indigenous use, and Peru, where over a quarter of the population identifies as Indigenous but less than one percent of the country’s land mass is reserved for Indigenous use. This ratio is also four times greater than that of the United States, where reservations were a principal tool in the implementation of exclusionary racial nation-building. Panama’s unique history as a relatively late arrival as an independent entity on the international level, combine with its ongoing geographic, historic, and cultural situation within Latin America and as a focal point of imperial interest for the United States has resulted in a distinct manifestation of racial nation-building policy. This history of dual system nation-building, between forced inclusion assimilationist and displacement exclusionist homogenization projects, continues to manifest in distinct ways when compared to other countries in the hemisphere and to have reverberations within Panamanian society and politics. Notably, Panama has demonstrated the ability to alternate within this dual system which results in potential fluidity between the two paradigms for racialized groups over time.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Latin American Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Rabe, Timothy D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rosas, Gilberto

• Mestizaje
• Nation-building
• Panama
• West Indian
• Racial Project.

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Timothy Rabe

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/122058

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F122058