Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal

by Olive Senior

The popular West Indian migration narrative often starts with the Windrush Generation in 1950's England, but in Dying to Better Themselves Olive Senior examines an earlier narrative: that of the neglected post-emancipation generation of the 1850's who were lured to Panama by the promise of lucrative work and who initiated a pattern of circular migration that would transform the islands economically, socially and politically well into the twentieth century. West Indians provided the bulk of the workforce for the construction of the Panama Railroad and the Panama Canal, and between 1850 and 1914 untold numbers sacrificed their lives, limbs and mental faculties to the Panama projects. Many West Indians remained as settlers, their descendants now citizens of Panama; many returned home with enough of a nest egg to better themselves; and others launched themselves elsewhere in the Americas as work beckoned. Senior tells the compelling story of the West Indian rite of passage of Going to Panama and captures the complexities behind the iconic Colon Man.Drawing on official records, contemporary newspapers, journals and books, songs, sayings, and literature, and the words of the participants themselves, Senior answers the questions as to who went to Panama, how and why; she describes the work they did there, the conditions under which they lived, the impact on their homelands when they returned or on the host societies when they stayed. Many books have shown the conquest of the Isthmus of Panama by land and sea exploring how the myriad individual lives touched by the construction of the railroad and the canal changed the world as well.

Genres: Nonfiction

440 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2014

About the author

Olive Senior was born and brought up in Jamaica in 1941 and educated in Jamaica and Canada. She is a graduate of Montego Bay High School and Carleton University, Ottawa.

She is one of Canada's most internationally recognized and acclaimed writers having left Jamaica in 1989, spending some years in Europe and since 1993 being based in Toronto.

Among her many awards and honours she has won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and F.G. Bressani Literary Prize, was nominated for a Governor-General’s Literary Award, and was runner up for the Casa de Las Americas Prize and the Pat Lowther Award. In 2003, she received the Norman Washington Manley Foundation Award for Excellence (preservation of cultural heritage – Jamaica). Her body of published work includes four books of poetry, three collections of short stories and several award-winning non-fiction works on Caribbean culture.

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book on the Canal builders.

It addresses in great depth aspects that are merely mentioned elsewhere: Senior doe not simply tell us that workers operated steam shovels, for example, but explains exactly how that's done and drives the point home that the workers were far from unskilled, despite the way they may have been classified. No detail about their daily lives is too small to omit; where they lived, what they ate, how they had fun...

I especially love how the author chose to transmit these workers' own words, and not only used them as evidence but contextualized and explained them, so that we're able to appreciate their testimonies to their just historical value. The "True Stories" had never been used this well in a history book. The pictures are numerous, varied, and jaw dropping (the crocodiles, the 154 steps...). You won't find most of them elsewhere.

I think the great strength of this account is that the focus is completely and solely on these workers and their impact on the world - no insufferable U.S.-centric considerations, no overly detailed description of political machinations, the space here is entirely dedicated to the Caribbean perspective. The last chapter in particular, on the impact of the returning workers to the islands, is to my knowledge the most detailed piece of scholarship on this aspect you can find in a book.

The world truly has no excuse not to remember the Canal workers and their legacy.

[Alba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dying to Better Themselves studies the West Indian workers that constructed, first, the Panama Railroad, then the French canal, and finally the U.S. canal. It has everything I expected of a university press history book and more. Extensively researched, it focuses on the workers from the different islands toiling in the construction, the conditions in which they lived, the discrimination they endured, and the pride they felt at their feat. The author, Olive Senior, even shared the work songs they sang (which I then sought out on Youtube) and reflected on the effects the returning workers had in their home islands. I highly recommend this scholarly work.

[Ryan Fohl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting to read a history from an important but often ignored perspective. The book is studded with poetic quotations and amazing photos. The cultural exchanges, the challenges of the work, and the bigotries, are fascinating human stories. The zone was a strange place in America.

What I learned: Irish moss is a beverage in which the main ingredient is marine red algae. Allspice or pimento comes from the pimento tree. The first ford dealership outside of the US is in Kingston, it’s also the longest continuously operating dealership. Panama has an intense rainy season for half the year. No one was paid in paper money. The first boat to celebrate the crossing had no alcohol aboard, because of prohibition.

[Jennifer Webb Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent chronicle of the role West Indians, in particular Jamaicans played in the building of the Panama Canal.