| Examining our Past, Ourselves, and our Future Who are we? We are Second-Generation Panamanians of West Indian descent! One might say that we are swinging for the fence to rekindle a sense of pride in our heritage. Part of the thrust is promoting education, awareness, and dialogue; as well as a greater familiarity and understanding of our history and our rich and diversified cultural heritage (albeit under disturbing circumstances), since our forefathers came in droves to help the Americans build the Panama Canal. This beginning, however, must be viewed in its proper historical setting. Much of what we are presenting below has been documented and published, yet cleverly well hidden and carefully disguised, as it was not intended for us to see or read. As usual, however, we have restructured some of the materials to the findings and have added our own commentaries and theoretical values, where considered necessary, to the mix to clarify/highlight a point. Having said that, and in our on-going examination of our past along with the exploration of the difficulties of our present fragmented and hyphenated existence, we believe it is fair to say that our fragmented conditions have been determined by what took place in the past, prior to our forefathers setting foot in Panama. We, however, missed opportunities to properly address the situation by not remaining a unified community. Our integration process into Panamanian society has not been thought out well. We have been conforming mindlessly to the norms of the Latin majority without a cohesive voice, plan, or proposals of our own; we have nothing to distinguish us or to call attention to our plight. First, there is nothing shameful in our past than what is found in the past of other races. Thus, we are not reluctant to cause offense to those in denial, as we won’t attempt to spruce up our past history. If you have been following our stories, you will know by now that we are strong advocates and believers in Dr. Woodson Carter’s (founder of Black History Month) philosophies. The fact remains that we were duped/misled and were dealt the short end of the stick in the mind game! Needless to say, the WIs’ experiences in Panama have been a microcosm of the African Diaspora where blacks were scattered, by force, due to slavery, poverty, and white dominance. After learning the facts, we must develop a process to unleash the power of our collective energies as a people with vision and purpose to execute a plan/program to deal with the problem. Mindless assimilation in Panama today will only serve to erase our cultural heritage from history, which would play into the evildoers’ original plan, as noted below. These evildoers will have you believe that blacks have no worthwhile past, that we have done nothing of significance since the beginning of time. They maintain there is no evidence that we will ever achieve anything great and that we will always remain their burden. The unfortunate details of our slave era history may not have survived, but there is no reason why we should not attempt to properly chronicle the truth about our 100-year history in Panama and, ultimately and most importantly, to prove them wrong. Knowing what we know about our history today, we can learn from it with a vision and a mission for improving the future. We have lived in the shadows of others far too long! (Cont'd)
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