"Delves into the ancient convergence of peoples and cultural traditions that either improve and problematize notions of nationwide belonging, identification, tradition, and citizenship."--Antonio D. Tillis, editor of Critical views on Afro-Latin American Literature

"With wealthy aspect and theoretical complexity, Watson reinterprets Panamanian literature, dismantling longstanding nationalist interpretations and linking the rustic to the Black Atlantic and past. a fascinating and critical contribution to our figuring out of Afro-Latin America."--Peter Szok, writer of Wolf Tracks: well known artwork and Re-Africanization in Twentieth-Century Panama

"Illuminates the deeper discourse of African-descendant identities that runs via Panama and different important American countries."--Dawn Duke, writer of Literary ardour, Ideological dedication: towards a Legacy of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian ladies Writers

This quantity tells the tale of 2 cultural teams: Afro-Hispanics, whose ancestors got here to Panama as African slaves, and West Indians from the English-speaking international locations of Jamaica and Barbados who arrived through the mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries to construct the railroad and the Panama Canal.

While Afro-Hispanics assimilated after centuries of mestizaje (race blending) and now establish with their Spanish history, West Indians carry to their British Caribbean roots and determine extra heavily with Africa and the Caribbean.

By reading the writing of black Panamanian authors, Sonja Watson highlights how race is outlined, contested, and inscribed in Panama. She discusses the cultural, racial, and nationwide tensions that hinder those teams from forging a shared Afro-Panamanian identification, eventually revealing why ethnically different Afro-descendant populations proceed to fight to create racial cohesion in international locations throughout Latin the United States and the Caribbean.

Sonja Stephenson Watson is director of the Women’s and Gender reports software and affiliate professor of Spanish on the collage of Texas at Arlington.

A quantity within the sequence Latin American and Caribbean Arts and tradition, funded via the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.