The Silver Women

How Black Women's Labor Made the Panama Canal

By: Joan Flores-Villalobos

Narrated by: Marisol Ramirez

In The Silver Women, Joan Flores-Villalobos argues that Black West Indian women made the Panama Canal construction possible by providing the indispensable everyday labor of social reproduction. West Indian women built a provisioning economy that fed, housed, and cared for the segregated Black West Indian labor force, in effect subsidizing the construction effort and the racial calculus that separated pay in silver for Black workers and gold for white Americans. But while also subject to racial discrimination and segregation, West Indian women mostly worked outside the umbrella of US canal authorities. They did not hold contracts, had little access to official services and wages, and received pay in both silver and gold. From this position, they found ways to skirt, and at times subvert, the legal, moral, and economic parameters imperial authorities sought to impose on the migrant workforce. West Indian women developed important strategies of claims-making, kinship, community building, and market adaptation that helped them navigate the contradictions and violence of the US empire. These strategies of social reproduction nurtured further West Indian migrations, linking Panama to places like Harlem and Santiago de Cuba. The Silver Women is thus a history of Black women's labor of social reproduction as integral to US imperial infrastructure, the global Caribbean diaspora, and women's own survival.

©2023 University of Pennsylvania Press (P)2023 Tantor

The Untold Story

I highly recommend this book to learn about the amazing contribution and participation of Black West Indian women in the Panama Canal construction period. I'm SO proud of the resilience and empowerment of my ancestors.

A new perspective on a long ago history

I love hearing the perspective of the people behind the scenes that history seems to forget about. In this case it was the black women who fed and housed the men who worked on one of the most important projects of the Americas. I enjoyed the accent of the narrator she reminded me of my Abuelita who was from Bocas del Toro in Panama. Thank you for this book it’s so necessary to hear all parts of the story!