“Sadly it seems the North Americans do not understand that. To them, we know nothing and have nothing--nothing worth knowing or having, as far as they are concerned. I have heard them say that the work they are planning will bring things like progress and civilization and modernity to this place--I am sure you have heard those words as well--as if the tools we have already created, the buildings we have already constructed, the land we have already cultivated, the society we have already organized is not, somehow progress or civilization or modernity, but outside of those things. As if we are nothing more than primitive people with a few primitive huts that can be so easily moved.” IndigenousPanamaPanama Canal Book:The Great Divide Source: The Great Divide
“I was born here, in the Americas. Therefore, I am an American... We were Americans long before you were.” IndigenousPanamaPanamanian Book:The Great Divide Source: The Great Divide
“West 13th Street! No Panamanian would have given this street that name. It was so... bland. Scrubbed spotlessly clean. Disconnected entirely from the history of what this area for so long had been, which, yes, yes, was poor and smelled to high heaven, but that is what it was. That was the truth.” ColonizationPanamaPanama Canal Book:The Great Divide Source: The Great Divide