Poetic Negrism and the National Sentiment of Anti-West Indianism and Anti-Imperialism in Panamanian Literature Sonja Stephenson Watson (bio) While Panamanian negrista literature during the early-twentieth century protested North American imperialism and hegemony, another result of the presence of the United States in Panamá was a decided increase in anti-West Indian hatred that had its beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century. From 1850 to 1855, approximately 45,000 Jamaicans migrated to Panamá to construct the Trans-Isthmian Railroad. The attempted construction of the French Canal from 1880–1889 would bring 84,000 additional Jamaicans to Panamá. After France’s failure, the United States intervened in 1903 and imported as many as 19,900 West Indian workers from Barbados as well as a small number of workers from Martinique, Guadalupe, and Trinidad to complete the Panamá Canal (1904–1914). Thus, the thousands of English-speaking West Indian immigrants who migrated to Panamá during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries to help build the nation were now viewed as a threat to the nation-building project because of their blackness and unwillingness to assimilate. This essay argues that the discrimination against West Indians and the stereotypical portrayals of blacks during the negrista period (1920–1960)1 in Panamá was racially motivated and enhanced by a national hatred of United States imperialism. The negrista movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s in the Hispanic Caribbean and was a pseudo-black poetry that focused on the black body, the supposed sexual prowess of people of African descent, and black people’s love of music and propensity for rhythm (Cartey 67). Negrista poets such as Luis Palés Matos (1898–1957), Emilio Ballagas (1910–1954), and Manuel del Cabral (1907–1999) portrayed African-derived cultures through appropriated poetic devices such as onomatopoeia, repetition, rhythm, and rhyme. Although this poetry focused on images of black life, it was primarily a movement of white intellectuals who objectified and portrayed them in stereotypical fashion. As a result, the movement has often been viewed as the “exploitation of black culture by white writers” (Cartey 41). These poets portrayed blacks and African-derived culture as wholly sensual, exotic, and sexual without any psychological or cultural depth. The black literary image that materialized during this period was often superficial, and rarely focused on the socio-historical and socioeconomic factors that plagued black America such as poverty, discrimination, and racism that burdened dark-skinned West Indians. In reading the literature of Panamanian writers Víctor Franceschi and Demetrio Korsi, which coincided with the aftermath of the construction of the Panamá Canal (post-1914), it is evident that their negrista poems served a purpose other than portraying Afro-Panamanian culture. Decades after the completion of the canal, which resided between the heavily black populated [End Page 459] cities of Panamá and Colón, Panamanians resented the “looming” United States presence in the canal zone. Negrista poetry responded to North American imperialism by vigorously denouncing United States presence and policy in the region and railing against Afro-Caribbean immigrants who comprised a majority of the canal zone workers.2 Although negrista writers argued that there were cultural and linguistic differences between Afro-Hispanics, blacks who were enslaved in Panamá, and Afro-Caribbeans, the literature makes clear that the hatred was inspired by racist assumptions about dark-skinned West Indians. Similar to other negrista writers, Franceschi and Korsi objectified blacks in their works and portrayed them uniformly with little regard for cultural or historical differences. However, the writers’ poems and essays confirm a particular racial prejudice towards West Indians. Many Panamanian critics acknowledge the anti-imperialistic tone of the works of this period, but none link anti-imperialism with anti-West Indianism.3 My analysis of the negrista movement in Panamá challenges other interpretations that primarily focus on the folkloric aspects of these poems by examining the role that racism played in the negrista writings of Franceschi and Korsi during the apex of the anti-imperialism crusade of the early-twentieth century. Moreover, the West Indian presence coupled with the anti-imperialism agenda contested the mestizaje (“race-mixing”) ideology that characterized Panamá during the nineteenth century. In turn, Panamanian nationalists conflated black...
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Nov 9, 2013
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