From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions: Tourism, Cultural Heritage, and Afro-Antillean Identities in Panama

By Carla Guerrón Montero

A new reading of Panama’s nation-building process, interpreted through a lens of transnational tourism

Based on long-term ethnographic and archival research, From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions: Tourism, Cultural Heritage, and Afro-Antillean Identities in Panama considers the intersection of tourism, multiculturalism, and nation building. Carla Guerrón Montero analyzes the ways in which tourism becomes a vehicle for the development of specific kinds of institutional multiculturalism and nation-building projects in a country that prides itself on being multiethnic and racially democratic.

The narrative centers on Panamanian Afro-Antilleans who arrived in Panama in the nineteenth century from the Greater and Leeward Antilles as a labor force for infrastructural projects and settled in Panama City, Colón, and the Bocas del Toro Archipelago. The volume discusses how Afro-Antilleans, particularly in Bocas del Toro, have struggled since their arrival to become part of Panama’s narrative of nationhood and traces their evolution from plantation workers for the United Fruit Company to tourism workers. Guerrón Montero notes that in the current climate of official tolerance, they have seized the moment to improve their status within Panamanian society, while also continuing to identify with their Caribbean heritage in ways that conflict with their national identity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780817392970

Book preview

From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions

From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions

Tourism, Cultural Heritage, and Afro-Antillean Identities in Panama

CARLA GUERRÓN MONTERO

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

uapress.ua.edu

Copyright © 2020 by the University of Alabama Press

All rights reserved.

Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of Alabama Press.

Typeface: Minion Pro

Cover image: Robert Lerich © 123RF.COM

Cover design: Michele Myatt Quinn

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-0-8173-2061-4

E-ISBN: 978-0-8173-9297-0

To my father, Luis Hernán, for holding my hand through many forests

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Panameñismo and Panameñidad: Converging Ideologies in the Construction of Panamanian National Identity

2. Panama’s Temporary Migrants: The Afro-Antillean Presence in the National Narrative

3. Panama Is More Than a Canal: The Twenty-First Century and the Panamanian Tourism Industry

4. Touring the Archipelago of Bocas del Toro

5. Afro-Antilleanness Represented: Museums, Theme Parks, and the Manufacturing of History

6. The Permanent Attractions: Music and Cuisine as Malleable Ethnic Commodities

7. Conclusions: Afro-Antillean Identity Construction, International Tourism, and the New Symbols of Panameñidad

Glossary

Notes

References

Index

Illustrations

Figures

I.1. Map of the Bocas del Toro Archipelago

I.2. Marta at her home garden

I.3. Map of the Republic of Panama

4.1. Luke, Afro-Antillean coal maker

4.2. Possible former Mechanics Lodge in Colón Island

4.3. Typical Bocatorenean restaurant in the 1990s

4.4. Calypso Kev singing at a local restaurant

4.5. Tourists sunbathing on Red Frog Beach

4.6. Transforming aesthetics of Colón Island

4.7. Handicraft store in Colón Island

7.1. Bocas for sale

7.2. Marta and the author at the Bocas airport

7.3. Bocatorenean tour guide and tourists on boat ride

Table

3.1. Panama’s tourism zones and number of attractions

Acknowledgments

I have been thinking about this project for many years. It has morphed, transformed, grown, and accompanied me in many phases of my life. I see it as a collaborative project because I owe its completion to countless family members, friends, colleagues, and institutions.

First, I must express my deepest gratitude to the inhabitants of the Archipelago of Bocas del Toro, Panama. I thank immensely my dearest friends Patricia Whitaker, Jackqueline Vásquez, the late Zaida Warren, Patricia Samms, Maritza West, Esperanza Vargas, Adira Culiolis, Angarita Mitchell, Víctor Herrera, Rubén Rodríguez, Clanrod Bilanfante, Orlando Cargill, Virgilio Porta, and their respective families. I thank especially all the members of the Vásquez family, in particular the late Joanne and Chicho Vásquez, Virginia, Toyo, Diana, and Cris. In Panama City, I received wonderful encouragement from colleagues and friends, who supported my initial research project and have continued to follow my work throughout the years. I thank Stanley Heckadon Moreno, senior researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, for his outstanding support, interest, and guidance. I express my gratitude to Anthony Coates, Olga Linares, Gloria Maggiori, and Celideth León at the same institution. I am deeply thankful to Gloria Rudolf, Coralia Hassan de Llorente, Melva Lowe de Goodin, William Harp, Francisco Herrera, Osvaldo Jordán, and Clyde Stephens, for their constant reminders that my work needed to be disseminated and shown to Panamanian audiences. I also thank these organizations: the Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON) (Iván Valdespinos, Eligio Binns, and Marissa Brown); the Panamanian Bureau of Tourism (IPAT) (César Tribaldos, Cecilia Pérez Balladares, Anita Shaffer, Anabella Andrade, José Thomas, Mauricio Lopez, Julia Culiolis, and Maria Quiel); ANCON Expeditions (Marco Gandásegui, Jonathan Parris, Patricia Samms, and Orlando Segura); the Afro-Antillean Museum (Romualda Lombardo, Melva Lowe de Goodin, and Verónica Forte); the Simón Bolívar Library at the National University of Panama as well as the Department of History; the National Institute of Culture (Elvia Crespo); the National Office of Statistics and Census; the Rogelio Josué Ibarra High School (Harold Callender and Dora Reina, and the English Department); the Catholic, Methodist, and Saint Jude International Baptist Churches in Bocas del Toro; and the governor of Bocas (1999–2004), Luis Nuque, and his family. I am also deeply grateful to the Dávalos and Shaffer families in Panama City for their hospitality during my frequent visits.

In 1996, the late Philip D. Young, my advisor and mentor, introduced me to a breathtaking archipelago and a fascinating country. I fell in love with Bocas del Toro at first sight and embarked on this long voyage with great curiosity. Philip endlessly and generously supported my development from a fledgling anthropologist to a scholar. I thank him for his exemplary mentorship and teachings, for encouraging me to keep my ethnographic eyes wide open, and for believing in my abilities as an anthropologist.

I thank the numerous colleagues who have read and enhanced my scholarly writings throughout the years. I am particularly indebted to colleagues and dear friends Kathleen Adams, Peter Sánchez, and Florence Babb. I am also thankful to Geraldine Moreno-Black and Carlos Aguirre for their constant support throughout the years. At the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—where I was a fellow-in-residence in 2009—I am grateful to the late Colin Miller, director of the Scholars-in-Residence Program; Diana Lachatanere, former assistant director for Collections and Services; my research assistant Peter Hobbes; and the fellow members of my research cohort, Carolyn Brown, Johanna Fernández, Nicole Fleetwood, Anthony Foy, Jerry Gershenhorn, Venus Green, Carther Mathes, Eve Shockley, and Laurie Woodard.

Similarly, I thank my colleagues of the Catalan Institute for Research on Cultural Patrimony (ICRPC) (especially Gabriel Alcalde, Gemma Domènech, Nina Kammerer, Antoni Rojas, and Sophia Vackimes) and the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA) (especially Mihiel Baud, Fabio DeCastro, Christin Klaufus, and Annelou Ypeij) for their kind welcome as visiting scholar and for their comments and enthusiasm about my research.

In addition to the aforementioned institutions, I conducted archival and bibliographic research in Panama and the United States. I thank the Catholic Church (Monsignor Agustín Ganuza), the Judicial Power Notary Archives of Bocas del Toro, the Archives of the Province Governance, and the private archival collection of Governor Luis Nuque. I also thank the staff of the Panamanian Bureau of Tourism, the Bocas Town Municipal Library, and the Library of the University of Panama in Changuinola. In the United States, I am grateful to the staff at the Knight Library of the University of Oregon, the Benson Collection at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas, and the Morris Library at the University of Delaware.

My warmest and special gratitude goes to the colleagues who read earlier versions of this book. Margaret Stetz and Aletta Biersack commented on several chapters. They are both giants in their fields and outstanding feminist role models, and I am honored that they gave me their vote of confidence. Rafael Estrada Mejía read every word of this book and provided invaluable feedback and generous encouragement throughout the writing process. I am also very thankful to the anonymous reviewers who made the book a much better final product with their comments.

At the University of Delaware, my colleagues in the Department of Anthropology have been extremely collaborative and supportive. I am particularly thankful to Karen Rosenberg, Thomas Rocek, Lu Ann DeCunzo, Jessica Schiffman, Peter Weil, and Ken Ackerman, who were there for me at all times. Sandy Wenner, office coordinator extraordinaire, helped with all the administrative work for several fellowships and grants I received to continue my research. I also thank the Hemispheric Dialogues Research Cluster at the University of Delaware; Mónica Domínguez Torres, Rosalie Rolón-Dow, Pascha Bueno-Hansen, Alvina Quintana, and Gladys Ilarregui were highly supportive. I am deeply indebted to Margaret Andersen, who in her role as associate provost for Academic Affairs, gave me the opportunity to participate in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity Success Program (NCFDD). I thank faculty facilitator Badia Ahad for the valuable skills she instilled in our small group training. My former student Scarlett Schaffer, now an accomplished university instructor in Mexico, accompanied me in the field in summer 2007 and provided great insights on the Archipelago of Bocas del Toro with her natural ethnographic curiosity. I am very grateful to Carol Lyell from the Department of Geography, who generously created the maps that appear in this book.

I am also very thankful to my University of Alabama Press editor, Wendi Schnaufer, who took on my project with great enthusiasm and with whom it has been an absolute joy to work. Likewise, my editors Dorothy Ross and Christopher Lura worked with me throughout the entire writing process and were not only incredibly professional but also enthusiastically supportive.

Numerous granting agencies have sustained the research that was necessary to write this book. The Inter-American Foundation, the Nippon Foundation, and several grants at the University of Oregon made my initial research possible. I also thank the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Regis University (Sponsored Projects and Academic Research Council grants), and the University of Delaware (General University Research grants and several grants from the Center for Global and Area Studies). Finally, I thank the Center for Material Cultural Studies at the University of Delaware for providing generous support for editorial review of the manuscript.

Additionally, I would like to thank the following for allowing me to use material originally published in these sources: Carla Guerrón Montero, Tourism, Cuisine, and the Consumption of Culture in the Antilles, in The Routledge History of Food, edited by Carol Helstosky (London: Routledge, 2015), 291–312, reproduced with permission of Informa UK Limited through PLSclear; Carla Guerrón Montero, Building ‘The Way’: Creating a Successful Tourism Brand for Panama and Its Consequences, in Tourism in Latin America: Cases of Success, edited by Alexandre Panosso Netto and Luiz Gonzaga Godoi Trigo (New York: Springer, 2015), 191–205, reprinted by permission from Springer; Carla Guerrón Montero, All in One Pot: The Place of Rice and Beans in Panama’s Regional and National Cuisine, in Rice and Beans: A Unique Dish in a Hundred Places, edited by Livia Barbosa and Richard Wilk (London: Berg Publishers, 2012), 161–80, used by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; Carla Guerrón Montero, ‘Can’t Beat Me Own Drum in Me Own Native Land’: Calypso Music and Tourism in the Panamanian Atlantic Coast, Anthropological Quarterly 79, no. 4 (2006): 633–63, used by permission of Anthropological Quarterly.

The family I love have made this possible. My father Luis Hernán, mother Sonia, siblings María Alejandra and Pablo Esteban, brother-in-law Iván, beloved niece Juliana, and four-legged companion Gino were there for me always. My dearest friends Valetta, Dora, Janet, and María Gloria accompanied me in this journey in multiple ways.

Last, I apologize and offer appreciative gratitude for anyone whose name and help I have neglected or omitted.

Introduction

One could hear her laughing from a mile away. Marta¹ announced her arrival to any place with a boisterous laugh and the expression "Hi, papacito (daddy").

I met Marta during my first prospective visit to the Bocas del Toro Archipelago in Panama in 1997 when I was beginning my research into Afro-Antillean history and cultures. Like many others, I was immediately attracted to Marta’s spirited personality. Marta had a captivating spontaneity and a boundless desire to learn and experiment. While most Afro-Antilleans apologized to me for their broken English—actually, a local variant of Creole English known as Wari-wari² and a full-blown language in its own right—and immediately switched to Spanish when they learned I was South American, Marta slowed down the pace of her Wari-wari and avoided certain words to make sure I would understand her. I came to associate the archipelago and my life there with the melodic cadence of this endangered language.

The Bocas del Toro Archipelago (figure I.1), where Marta lives, is located in the northwestern coast of Panama and consists of nine islands peopled by approximately 13,000 Afro-Antilleans, indigenous peoples (mostly Ngöbe), Chinese Panamanians, Panamanian mestizos, and since the mid-1990s and because of the tourism industry, permanent and semipermanent lifestyle migrants mostly from the United States, Canada, and western Europe. The archipelago is part of the province of Bocas del Toro, with an area of 4,643.9 km² (2,885 mi²) and 125,461 inhabitants (Dirección Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos 2010).³ Among the archipelago’s cultural and ethnic diversity, Afro-Antilleans have long been one of the most prominent populations.

Since our first encounter, Marta became my reference for all things Bocatorenean (figure I.2). She immediately took me under her wing, introduced me to her friends, showed me the archipelago, and especially, taught me how to cook Antillean food. She was my student in two English night courses for adults I taught, and my classmate in several tourism workshops I attended as part of my research. Marta took me to Sunday picnics, church services, dance parties, and burials. She received me in her small home, where we sat on her porch for countless afternoons, sipping tea and learning about each other. I welcomed her in the many places I called home during my fieldwork—from the basement of the Catholic curial house to a comfortable room in an aparthotel. I met her mother, sisters, children, and grandchildren. She met my mother, sister, niece, and students.

Marta arrived in Bocas del Toro from the Archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia, Colombia, in the 1970s, following her mother who had settled in the archipelago a few years earlier to find better job opportunities. After her arrival, Marta quickly learned to navigate life in the archipelago, as there are many historical and cultural similarities between the island environments of Bocas del Toro and her native Providencia. The soil is just like in Providencia, she once described to me. I could plant, feel the breeze, enjoy the ocean. And people were kind to me, in Bocas and Bastimentos (interview M. S., October 5, 1999). She fell in love and married a man from Bastimentos, the love of her life, and had four beautiful daughters. In our many conversations, Marta shared with me the passion she had for the father of her daughters, and the pain it caused her to see him leave some years later. After her divorce, she met another Bocatorenean with whom she had her only son. Marta distinguished herself for her great cooking abilities and found work at several restaurants in Bocas and Bastimentos to support her family. Her main source of concern, however, was her legal status in Panama. In spite of having married a Panamanian and having lived in Panama for decades, she feared being deported to Colombia because she was not a documented resident and thus was not legally permitted to work.

Over the years, and despite her legal status, Marta worked as assistant to a cook and then as a cook, perfecting her skills, learning new dishes, and always keeping the dream to open her own restaurant. Then, in the mid-1990s, a tourism boom shook the archipelago with an impact that was as powerful as the actual 7.4 magnitude earthquake that rocked the foundations of Bocas del Toro only a few years earlier on April 22, 1991.⁴ Many Bocatoreneans link the opening up of Bocas to world tourism to the information that appeared about the archipelago and the massive sale of properties immediately after the earthquake. As Julia Robinson, an Afro-Antillean woman from Bastimentos, describes it: After the earthquake, there was a fall; this became almost a desert; most people sold [their properties] very inexpensively and left, because they were afraid that a similar phenomenon would happen (interview J. R., July 24, 1999). Today, however, people no longer see Bocas through the lens of the before and after the earthquake. In 2019, before and after the earthquake had been replaced by before and after tourism in the eyes of many Bocatoreneans.

When tourism first exploded in Bocas del Toro in the 1990s, some Bocatoreneans were adamantly against it; others looked suspiciously at the many foreigners arriving from Europe and the United States; still others saw tourists as their salvation. Marta, in the latter group, embraced tourism and the arrival of tourists wholeheartedly. She quickly learned that her Creole English gave her the perfect means to communicate with the tourists. She also learned that her warm and lively personality and her love for dancing and general joie de vivre were well received. She became a cultural broker not only for tourists but also for the numerous foreigners interested in investing in small-scale tourism enterprises or wishing to relocate to the archipelago.⁵

Marta has now worked in tourism-related activities for twenty years; she first worked as a maid, cook, and administrator in a small hostel in Bocas del Toro, then as administrator and cook at a larger hostel in Carenero. A few years later, she was the main cook for a study-abroad program in Bocas. Currently, Marta—now in her sixties—mostly prepares meals by request, continues to produce her hot sauce from home, and has become a devoted member of her Baptist church. All her children are grown and have formed families of their own. Her son became a nurse and lives in Panama City.

When looking back over her life, Marta thinks tourism brought her positive changes. Even though she is critical of some of the highly irregular situations surrounding tourism in Bocas, such as land speculation, irregular work permits, or environmental degradation, and even though her own economic condition did not improve radically (the dream of running her own restaurant never materialized), for Marta, tourism brought a personal transformation and opportunities to grow. Her US friends, those she helped to settle in Bocas, made some of her dreams come true: She returned twice to her native Providencia to see her family; she also traveled to San Andrés for vacations and several times to Panama City; she hired a lawyer to help her become a documented resident of Panama. Finally, she expanded her horizons through her most enduring passion: cooking. Marta is fearless in experimenting with flavors that very few Bocatoreneans dare to try. She manipulates ingredients to create meals with a Caribbean kick and yet that are attractive to the Western palate. She cooks gluten-free food and has learned to substitute olive oil for milk or butter for lactose intolerant tourists; she uses her knowledge of Colombian food and has become an expert on desserts. Marta prepares her own hot sauce (I Be a Bitch) at home and sells it to friends and in markets that mostly cater to tourists and resident expatriates. For Marta, her foreign friends, acquaintances, and the internet are always sources of information, ideas, and exchange. Marta embraces rather than rejects these challenges.

In some ways, Marta’s broader life story is emblematic of the process of Afro-Antillean populations in the African diaspora. Racial solidarity and civic participation, a constant among peoples of Afro-Antillean descent in the Americas, flourished significantly in Panama. In fact, Panama has played a substantial role in the fortunes of Afro-Antilleans in Central America, as a refuge in conflictual political and social moments in the Antillean region. As Nathaniel Samuel Murrell wrote in 2010, it became a marketplace for a cross-fertilization of ideas among immigrant workers who were en route to industrial cities as well as the social climate for seeding religious dreams (Murrell 2010, 289).

Panama is the southernmost country of Central America (75,416 km² or 29,118 mi²). It is divided into nine provinces and three indigenous regions (comarcas) and has a population of 4,246,439 inhabitants (UN Data 2019). Its dollar-based economy is estimated to be No. 92 in the world and third in Central America, with a GDP per capita of US$15,088 in 2017. It has been one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America over the past decade, with real GDP expanding an average of 7.2 percent between 2001 and 2013, and 5.5 percent in 2018 (World Bank 2019). In recent years, it has been called The Singapore of Central America by analysts in Panama and worldwide (The Economist, July 14, 2011). The political and social history of Panama is highly complex, and although Afro-Antilleans today are recognized as a central ethnic group within the country, it is only recently that this has been the case.

Although Marta was born in Colombia, once she moved to Panama, she was always considered an Afro-Antillean, but one with a triple condition of marginality: being black, a woman, and a Colombian citizen. As an Afro-Antillean, Marta was not the right kind of migrant (white, European) welcomed by the Panamanian authorities. Not surprisingly, Marta’s legal limbo was a constant source of anguish and distress.

Marta and I have been friends for twenty-three years, the same number of years she has worked in tourism and the same number of years I have followed the lives of Afro-Antilleans and their relations with other ethnic groups. On arriving in Panama in 1996 to initiate what turned out to be long-term research, I was pleasantly surprised with the way racial relations were manifested in Panama on the surface. I was used to the very rigid, almost caste-like, racial conventions of my home country, Ecuador. I am a mestiza with a light complexion and belong to the Ecuadorian middle class; I did not experience racial discrimination while growing up in Ecuador, although I did encounter it on my arrival in the United States. I knew that Panama was an unquestionably complex society in terms of racial and ethnic diversity, but I found it profoundly refreshing to be able to hear an informal, colloquial greeting from an indigenous-looking taxi driver, or to be treated as equal by the black man who sold juice in the street. Beyond the surface, however, I realized early on that Panama faced deep inequalities and that racial relations—despite my many amicable encounters—were far more complicated and problematic (Guerrón Montero 2006c).⁶

In my research, I have explored how Afro-Antilleans have constructed gendered and racialized identities in the context of unplanned and unorganized tourism development. From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions focuses on how tourism, as a transnational device, has provided an avenue for reinterpreting Panama’s complex history, where the struggles of marginalized groups (such as Afro-Antillean populations and indigenous groups) are occluded with a rhetoric of multiculturalism, now eagerly espoused by the Panamanian government. Following world trends that started in the 1990s and which viewed cultural diversity as a resource for development (Kymlicka 2007), Panama is now a country proud of its great ethnic diversity (figure I.3). In addition to mestizos, there are eight indigenous groups (Ngöbe, Buglé, Naso, Bokotá, Guna, Emberá, Wounaan, and Bri-Bri), five waves of migration of peoples of African descent with different characteristics and from different areas,⁷ as well as large numbers of immigrants from China, Greece, Spain, and India, among others.

Panama has been frequently defined as a place of transit, more as a path or a route and less as a destination, a place where people settle and create community (Siu 2005, 37). During colonial times, Panama was a strategic route for the Spanish empire: it was a communication nodule between the empire and its American colonies, and a barrier between the Caribbean and the Pacific Oceans. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, its position as a commercial link for the Americas has determined its social, political, and economic processes as well as its international relations. However, since the 1990s, with the advent of aggressive policies toward the development of tourism, Panama has conjured itself otherwise: as a place worthy of being an international tourism destination, and a place to settle.

This book tells the story of Marta and many other Panamanian Afro-Antillean men and women who have spent their lives in Panama and Bocas del Toro forging diaspora. I developed strong friendships with some of them, and I certainly learned from all of them. As a historical ethnography,⁸ this book draws from the experiences of people living in Panama and Bocas del Toro to give an account of how a nation that has based itself on the notion of racial mixing and racial democracy—on a strong, heartfelt reaction toward a marginal position as a province of Colombia for eighty-two years and the imperial imposition of inequality and apartheid instituted by US authorities in the Canal Zone for almost ninety-five years—responds to race and racism. I show how Panama has constructed specific conceptions of nationalism, and what happens when certain groups of people living in that nation are left unimagined within these conceptions (Anderson 2006)—either left out or incorporated into the nation as mere cosmetic accessories. In the chapters that follow, I discuss in particular how one of these unimagined groups—Afro-Antilleans—negotiates, and in some ways, resists the onslaught of neoliberalism exemplified by the tourism industry, creating, producing, and living their diasporic identities in the process (Hall 1990; Wilson 2008).

PANAMA AND TRANSNATIONAL TOURISM

The history of Afro-Antillean populations in Panama is tightly connected to the complex global and regional social histories that intersect in the region. Terminology that is often used to refer to Afro-Antilleans include West Indian (the most common), Antillean, Caribbean, or Afro-Caribbean. The term West Indian refers exclusively to the descendants of people of Anglophone societies. In Panama, and in other parts of the Caribbean, Afro-Antilleans are not only descendants of Anglophone societies but also of the Francophone Caribbean (e.g., Martinique) and the Hispanophone Caribbean (e.g., Cuba). Furthermore, it is not uncommon for Panamanian Afro-Antilleans—especially in Bocas del Toro—to have Chinese, mestizo, or indigenous ancestors, in addition to European ancestry. Consequently, I believe the term Afro-Antillean is a cover term for this wide and hybrid ancestry as well as for the multiplicity of origins, mixtures, and colors, albeit with blackness predominating over others.

Examining this extraordinary history of Afro-Antillean populations within the context of the Panamanian nation, my aim in From Temporary Migrants to Permanent Attractions is to provide a new reading of Panama’s nation-building process, using the transnational phenomenon of tourism as a lens to interpret it. My understanding of the