October 22, 2025 • 57 mins
In the 1960s, there were 36,000 Americans living in the Canal Zone. They had Friday night high school football games, sock hops, and Hollywood movies at the local theater. It looked like a mid-century American town had been dropped into the Panamanian jungle — because that’s exactly what it was. But many Panamanians weren’t happy with this “country-in-a-country” arrangement. What would it take to get the Americans to leave? The answer, it turns out, was a bunch of teenagers.
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Check out Marixa Lasso's Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal and Wendy Tribaldos' books about the history of Panama and the Canal Zone.
Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English
Written by Dave Roos
Senior Producer is Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design by Chris Childs
Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier
Additional Editing by Mary Dooe
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Research and Fact-Checking by Dave Roos and Austin Thompson
Special thanks to our voice actors Chris Childs and Josh Fisher
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Once upon a time, there was a country within a country.
If you visited Panama City in the nineteen sixties, you'd
find a bustling Latin American community, downtown streets packed with
department stores, fruit vendors hawking and banadas and shaved ice,
advertisements plastered on billboards and telephone polls, tourist bars playing
(00:27):
salsa music late into the night. In other words, Panama
City in the nineteen sixties was a lively, messy, slightly
chaotic place. In western Panama City was a street called
Fourth of July Avenue. It was the first sign you
were entering a different part of Panama. Realistically, it wasn't
(00:50):
part of Panama at all. Crossing Fourth of July Avenue,
the noise and chaos of Panama City faded into the background.
On the other side of the street was something completely different,
a lush, suburban paradise, handsome single family homes and apartment buildings,
(01:11):
manicured lawns, and pristine streets. It looked like a mid
century American town had been dropped into the Panamanian jungle,
because that's exactly what it was. When the United States
struck a deal with Panama to build the Panama Canal
in nineteen oh three. It also created something called the
(01:32):
Canal Zone. To build and operate the canal, the United
States needed a place for the Canal Company workers to live.
That was the Canal Zone, a ten mile wide strip
of land running the full length of the Panama Canal.
For the next seventy five years, the Canal Zone was
(01:54):
a slice of America smack in the middle of Panama,
a country with a country. By the early nineteen sixties,
there were thirty six thousand Americans living in the Canal Zone,
both civilians and military personnel. Life in the Canal Zone
looked a lot like life in any nineteen sixties American town.
(02:18):
The teenage kids of the canal workers attended Balboa High School.
They had Friday night football games, went to sacops, and
watched midnight movies at the local theater. But not to
everyone was happy with this country in a country arrangement.
From the very beginning, many Panamanians protested the Canal Zone's existence.
(02:43):
They thought that giving the Americans control of the Panamanian
territory was an affront to Panamanian sovereignty. Panamanians were restricted
from entering the Canal Zone unless they worked for the
canal company or were hired as maids or nan for
the American families. The canal Zone had its own police force,
(03:06):
armed American and quick to hassle anyone who didn't look
like they belonged. By nineteen sixty four, Panamanian resentment of
the canal Zone was at an all time high. Over
the world, colonialism was being dismantled, but here in the
middle of Panama was a de facto American colony. What
(03:30):
would it take to get the Americans to leave and
for Panama to finally be its own country, in charge
of its own canal. The answer, it turned out, was
a bunch of teenagers. Welcome to very special episodes and
iHeart original podcast. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and this
(03:54):
is how a Panama Canal high school brawl changed history.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We are so back.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
She's Danish Schwartz, He's Aaron Burnett, I'm Jason English. Josh
Fisher is on the other side of the glass.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Here.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We're back for another season of very special episodes. Welcome everybody,
glad to be back.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I'm so excited to be back. I felt like I
went up on that I was that's my excitement coming out.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I felt it.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, the bar is said, Hi, this season, I'm pleased
to report very special episodes is now a two time
winner in the Signal Award Podcast category Best Commute Podcast.
Heck yeah, so yeah, it's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
That's also kind of the best time to listen to
a podcast. I don't want to brag, but like commute
podcast is sort of a real category.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Yeah, that is the window. I mean, you have undivided
attention and the people who are sitting there in traffic
or on a subway waiting for like any good distraction
in there, we are. You know, it's like the best.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
If you've been returned to office recently and not thrilled
about it, I feel for you. But at least you
can go back and listen to the archives here. I
know you guys don't do this for the awards.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
I do.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So this has meant a lot to me.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
I'm right there with you. I was very stoking. We
got back to back too, not just like we won,
but we're holding it down.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Dynasty. Well, we've got a great whole season planned. We'll
be here every Wednesday through the rest of the year.
We'll be back in January. We've got some Olympics episodes planned,
maybe a Super Bowl episode, maybe something bruin in San Francisco.
So thank you for coming back, and let's get right
into it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Let's do it. In addition to being a country, Panama
is an isthmus, one of those words you learned in
junior high and immediately forgot. If you look at a
map of North and South America, Panama is the narrow
strip of land connecting the two continents. On the northern
(05:53):
coast of Panama is the Atlantic Ocean. On the southern
coast is the Pacific Ocean. At Panama's narrowest point, the
distance between the two oceans is just thirty miles, a
geographic anomaly that wasn't lost on the first Spanish explorers
to land on its shores.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
Panama has been connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans since
the sixteenth century because since the Spanish Empire, goods had
to travel from Europe to South America, goods and people.
So Panama was a route. And that's why Panama. We
have to think about Panama as a five hundred years
(06:34):
old route that connected the oceans.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
That's Marisa Lasso, a Panamanian Historian Marisa says that the
Isthmus of Panama has always been a prized shortcut. For centuries,
people and goods traveled across that narrow passage using a
combination of rivers and mule trails. The Panama Railroad was
(06:59):
built in the eighteen fifties to transport eager prospectors on
their way to the California gold Rush, but the dream
was always to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans directly
via a giant canal. The United States wasn't the first
country to attempt it. The French gave the Panama Canal
(07:19):
a shot in the eighteen eighties. It was a fantastic failure.
More than twenty two thousand workers died during construction, mostly
from tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever. In eight
years of digging, they only managed to carve out eleven
miles of canal. Teddy Roosevelt wasn't scared off by the
(07:43):
French fiasco. He really wanted the United States to build
and own the Panama Canal. Owning the canal would give
America economic control of a vital new shipping lane, plus
a strategic stronghold for the US military in Latin America.
The story of how the US won the right to
(08:05):
build the Panama Canal is a saga of its own.
The short version is that Panama wasn't an independent country.
For most of nineteen oh three. It was still part
of Colombia, and Colombia had just emerged from a bloody
civil war in which most Panamanians were on the losing side.
Remember Teddy Roosevelt's famous adage, speak softly and carry a
(08:30):
big stick. This is a perfect example. In nineteen oh three,
Teddy Roosevelt softly approached the Colombian Congress with an offer
to complete the canal. When Colombia rejected that offer, Roosevelt
switched to his proverbial big stick. The Panamanians picked up
(08:50):
that if they revolted against Colombia, America would help make
sure the revolt was a success. From the American side,
knew Panama Canal negotiations would be able to take place
with an independent country.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It was the end of a bloody, bloody civil war
that left many casualties in Panama, and in that moment
of powerlessness, the construction of a Panama Canal was seen
as a great hope and aspiration.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
On November third, nineteen o three, Panama declared its independence.
Fifteen days later, the new nation signed the hey Buonoveria Treaty,
granting the United States full control of the canal zone.
In retrospect, the treaty was a bad deal for Panama.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
This treaty was even worse than the one that the
Columbia and Congress rejected.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
This treaty gave to.
Speaker 8 (09:50):
The US control of the Panama Canal zone five miles
on each side, as if it were sovereign in eternity.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So what happened to the tens of thousands of Panamanians
already living there?
Speaker 7 (10:07):
What are the recurrent ideas about the canal zone and
the canal Is that the US built the canal on
the jungle.
Speaker 9 (10:15):
No.
Speaker 8 (10:16):
No, it built the canal over a densely populated area
filled with towns, people, and fields.
Speaker 10 (10:21):
According to my calculation, there were around forty thousand people
expel and all the historic counts were dismantled to replace
them with brand new towns where only canal employees will leave.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Marisa wrote about this massive displacement of Panamanians in her
book Erased the Untold Story of the Panama Canal. The
Panama Canal is widely recognized as one of the greatest
engineering achievements of the twentieth century, and deservedly so. When
(10:57):
the gargantuan project was finished in nineteen fourteen, ships from
both oceans could cross the fifty one mile route through
a series of gravity fed locks filled by two massive
man made lakes. Operation of the canal was eventually handled
by the Panama Canal Company. The Canal Company wasn't a
(11:19):
traditional company in the sense that it wasn't a private business.
It was an extension of the US government. For example,
the president of the Canal Company was also the governor
of the Canal Zone. Kind of weird, right, But that's
because everyone who lived in the canal Zone worked in
(11:40):
some capacity for the Canal Company or the US military. Basically,
the Canal Zone was a government run company town inside
another country, perhaps the only one of its kind in
the world. The Canal Company provided everything for its workers,
comfortable housing for families, free high quality education for the kids,
(12:06):
and American style groceries at the company commissary. In short,
life in the Canal Zone was good.
Speaker 9 (12:14):
The canal Zone was a tropical paradise for the Americans
that used to live there during the twentieth century. Most
of them worked the civil part, worked for the canal
and all the businesses that surrounded it, like maintenance of
the canal zone, which was a beautiful area. I mean,
full of trees, very organized, very structured, very orderly. You
(12:39):
would find a speck of garbage in the zone, and
everything was taken care for you by the US government.
You also got a very nice salary. You got paid
something called the tropical differential for the sacrifice of living
in the tropics.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
That's Wendy Tribaldos, a Panamanian historian and writer. Wendy's written
a great book about the history of the tensions between
the American residents of the Canal Zone and the rest
of Panama. Her description of the canal Zone as a
tropical paradise is echoed by the Americans who lived there
in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
It was a glorious place to grow up in. I
felt free.
Speaker 11 (13:22):
We could go into the jungles and I would.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Travel all over the area. I thought nothing of it.
I loved fish, I loved hiking, loved swimming, and all
these activities we could do outdoors.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That's Jim Jenkins. His family moved to the Canal Zone
in the nineteen forties when he was two years old.
Jim's dad was in the Navy and his mom was
a budget analyst for the canal company. Jim says that
life in the Canal Zone was similar in many ways
to small town life in the States. His high school,
for example, Balboa High, sounds like it could have been
(14:00):
flown in brick by brick from Iowa.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
We'd have our sock cops, we have our sporting events
during the sock cops with hap sodas, and I'd helped
sell the sodas for the student union. During the football games,
we'd be out.
Speaker 11 (14:18):
There cheering you.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I wasn't much of an athlete, but I sure did
enjoy going.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
The fact that a high school in Panama fielded an
American football team should be a sign of just how
American this place was.
Speaker 12 (14:36):
It definitely felt like I was an American because you
spoke English, we'd use American customs, and you know, like
high school, we played football. We didn't play soccer. You
think when not soccer, you're in Panama. No one else
has football. Two high schools, one in the Avanta side
one of the Pacific side. Both played football, but no soccer.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
That's Joe Bremmer, president of the Balboa High School class
of nineteen sixty four and a classmate of Jim Jenkins.
Joe's mother was Panamanian and he had family in Panama City,
which gave Joe a unique perspective on life in the
Canal Zone.
Speaker 12 (15:14):
Absolutely a different country. Yeah, I mean, we had our
own police force, we had our own traffic laws, some
speed limits, etc. It's definitely a different country. When my
relatives came to visit us in the Coal Zone, they
were stopped there and they had to give the address
and the person they were visiting. And sometimes they recall
(15:35):
us and say you expect this so and so, and
we'd say, sunder Man.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Getting stopped by the Canal Zone police was a regular
occurrence for Panamanians, especially young people. Rimsky Sukra was one
of those young Panamanians. Rumsky attended high school at the
prestigious Institute on Nacional or National Institute, located right on
the border with the Canal.
Speaker 13 (15:59):
Zone crossing the street. It was like entering a completely
different territory. They had a surveillance system where every Zonian
was an informant, so if you dropped even the smallest
piece of paper somewhere, it'd be reported. So there was
a lot of resentment. We felt like even approaching the
canal zone or having any relationship with the canal zone
(16:22):
was almost like bullying. It's like they were saying, you're
worthless here if you don't have special permission.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
The resentment that Rimsky felt wasn't just about him and
his friends getting hassled by the canal zone police. It
was a resentment shared by most Panamanians. Resentment over being
treated like a foreigner in your own country, resentment over
America's paternalistic attitude toward Panama, and resentment over the US
(16:49):
government's refusal to renegotiate the bad treaty that created the
canal zone in the first place.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
It was very complex relationship between the paname and the
US because we understand when they're stood the privilege of
having the canal within our territory, but we also felt
that we did not get what we deserved, and in
terms of sovereignty, it was a big issue for US.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Sovereignty means self rule. As long as the canal zone existed,
Panama was not a sovereign nation. For Rimsky and his friends,
sovereignty was the number one issue. It was a constant
topic of debate in class at the Instituto Nacional.
Speaker 10 (17:33):
World Person.
Speaker 13 (17:36):
Since nineteen oh three. When that agreement was signed, the
most important Panamanian figures and the people immediately opposed it
and we called it the ignominious Agreement.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
When would Panama truly achieve independence? Only when the Americans
finally left the Canal Zone. But for Americans like Jim
and Joe, the canal zone was their home too. Some
of their classmates were third generation Zonians, that's the name
for Americans born and raised in the Canal Zone. As
(18:08):
Whndy Tarbaldos explains, Zonians were very proud of their place
in Panama's history.
Speaker 9 (18:15):
They were very proud to be American and also very
proud that the United States built a canal. You must
understand that it was a century's long dream and it
was only accomplished by the US. So their grandfathers and
their fathers were the ones involved in that construction, and
they were very aware of that fact. But they were
also Sonians. They were also different Americans. They were overseas Americans,
(18:40):
sort of those Americans that lived in US bases throughout
the world, but they lived in one particular place, and
it was their home, and it was a very important
place for them.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
To the Zonians, the Canal Zone was a symbol of
American ingenuity, a slice of idyllic and orderly American life
carved out of the Panamanian jungle. To Panamanians, the Canal
Zone was a colonial outpost, a privileged enclave where they
weren't welcome in Panama. Frustrations with the Canal Zone had
(19:12):
been simmering for decades. But what would it take to
change the status quo? Maybe a communist revolution or a
military coup, not exactly. The future of Panamanian independence would
be determined by a fight over a flag. January two,
(19:43):
nineteen sixty four, was a Thursday. It was the first
day of classes after Christmas break for the mostly American
students of Balboa High School in the Canal Zone. There
was the usual excitement of seeing friends after a long
vacation and the start of a new semester. But something
was different, something was missing. Actually, the large flagpole in
(20:06):
front of the school stood empty. Usually it flew the
American flag like all other public buildings in the canal Zone,
but not that morning. The flag was gone. Over Christmas break,
the governor of the Canal Zone found himself in a
no win situation. In order had come down from the
(20:29):
President of the United States to fly both the Panamanian
and American flags at all Canal Zone public buildings. It
was meant as a peace gesture to the Panamanian people,
who were increasingly frustrated with the US presence in Panama.
Flying both flags was supposed to be a symbol of
(20:50):
the enduring partnership between America and Panama that created the
Panama Canal. But the Americans living in the Canal Zone
weren't having it. They picketed outside Governor Robert Fleming's house
and protested the presidential order. The canal Zone was American territory,
why should they have to fly a Panamanian flag. Governor
(21:14):
Fleming was in a pickle. If he defied the president's
order to fly both flags, he could lose his job.
But if he flew the Panamanian flag at Canal Zone
high schools, the students and parents might lose their minds.
So the governor came up with a temporary fix he
thought would buy him time until a permanent solution was found.
(21:39):
Instead of forcing the schools to raise both flags, he
told them not to fly any flags at all.
Speaker 9 (21:46):
And you must understand the rituals that were behind that flag.
I mean, it was very important for them. The IROTC
group used to put it up and down every single
day with high military honors for example, besides having the
flag flown inside of their classrooms and things like that.
So for them was also a very important issue that
(22:08):
tied them together to their American, faraway country, you know.
So for them not having their flag flown in there
was a big show.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Jim Jenkins, a senior at Balboa High, remembers first reading
about the governor's decision in an article in Stars and Stripes,
the Armed Forces newspaper.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Right after Christmas that the article was published saying that
the governor had decided that there would be no flags
at the American courts or schools. So this is where
I said, well, where does the governor get off telling
us that we can't have our flag.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
This was nineteen sixty four, an era of civil rights
demonstrations across the US. Jim read newspapers and watched TV.
He saw how young people were mobilizing and standing up
for causes they believed in. Why couldn't they do the
same thing in the Canal Zone.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
When I got back to school, I had circulated a
petition to the governor to allow us to have our
flag back, and the first two days of passing it
around it's okay, and then the school ad and then
confiscated it, and that kind of ticked us off, because
(23:28):
you know, we do have the right to petition.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
That weekend, Jim and his friends met at the Balboa Clubhouse,
a popular Canal Zone hangout complete with a soda fountain,
a lunch counter, and a swimming pool. Over a round
of cherry cokes and cream sodas, Jim and his friends
formulated a plan.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
So a group of us got together and said, what
can we do. They've taken away our right to petition,
And they said, well, I don't know how we came
up with the idea. Of the idea was we'll raise
the flag as a demonstration of what we want.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Early Tuesday morning, a small crowd of Balboa High School
students assembled at the flagpole. Two Canal Zone police officers
were there too, in case things got rowdy, Jim and
his friends raised the American flag. They knew they were
breaking the rules and disobeying the governor's orders, but that
(24:31):
was kind of the point. Jim says that he was
the ringleader of the operation.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
I got the group together to raise the flag. So
what would you call a lot again? We weren't looking
for trouble. We were looking for a resolution to not
having our flag.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
After the students went to class, some school officials came
out and quietly lowered the flag, hoping the protest had
run its course. Not even close. Seeing the flagpole empty again,
some students ran out and raised a smaller American flag.
This time, about one hundred and fifty Balboa High students
gathered around the flagpole and spontaneously recited the Pledge of allegiance.
(25:14):
They ignored the principal's order to return to class. If
the goal of the Balboa High flag protest was to
get the governor's attention, it worked. Worried about a confrontation,
Governor Fleming told school officials and Canal Zone police not
to break up the protest. Let the teenagers have their moment.
(25:36):
They could take down the flag later. After the students
went home, but the students never went home. After the
school bell rang at three o'clock, even more students joined
the throng at the flagpole. Some of their parents came
to at the Canal Zone commissaries. There was a rush
on American flags. One store sold one hundred and forty
(25:59):
four large verge flags in six hours. American flags were
hung from balconies and waved from car windows. At sundown
that evening, the Zonian students and adults solemnly lowered the
American flag outside the high school, as was custom, but
the protest wasn't over. The governor hadn't changed his mind
(26:20):
about flying the American flag, so they weren't going anywhere.
About twenty five students kept in all night vigil at
the flagpole. Their parents and supporters brought blankets and warm food.
They were prepared to stay as long as necessary to
get the governor to change his mind. News of the
(26:41):
flag protest at Balboa High School spread quickly into neighboring
Panama City, but there the motivation for the student protest
wasn't understood as a patriotic desire to fly the American flag,
but as a colonialist refusal to fly the paname flag.
Jim Jenkins swears that he and his classmates had no
(27:05):
issue at the Panamanian flag. If there were two flagpoles
in front of Balboa, Jim says, they could have raised
both flags. What ticked Jim and his classmates off was
having no American flag at all.
Speaker 11 (27:19):
Well, we were strictly protesting the governor's decision not to
allow an American flag at an American school. You know,
if he had said that we're going to put in
two flagpoles at the schools.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
But until we do, we can't fly the flag, we
would have probably accepted that none of this was anti Panama.
Speaker 14 (27:41):
It was all pro American school, being proud of the canal,
proud of the school, proud of America, and wanting to
have our American flag.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
But again that's not the message that made it to Panama. City.
Stations railed against Canal Zone administrators who refused to follow
an agreement reached a year earlier between the American and
Panamanian presidents. Both flags were supposed to fly at all
public buildings. Panamanian newspaper editorials called out the callous Zonian
(28:20):
students who'd rather skip school than go to class under
a Panamanian flag Rumski Suker says that he and his
classmates at the Instituto nacion now heard about the flag
protests at Balboa High School the next day, Thursday, January ninth.
It was all they could talk about at school.
Speaker 13 (28:39):
Unepuela getenia una tradisium. The Instituto Nacional was a school
that had a tradition of teachers really educating us about
Panama's internal political situations and especially about the relationship between
the US and Panama. There was a lot of emphasis
on that relationship, so I was very involved in student
political activities.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
This wasn't the first time that flags had been a
political flashpoint in Panama. In nineteen fifty eight, a group
of Panamanian college students crossed into the canal zone and
planted dozens of small Panamanian flags in the grass. The
message was clear, the canal zone should belong to Panama.
(29:24):
The nineteen fifty eight flag protests started peacefully, but turned
ugly when Panamanian National Guard troops clashed with the students.
A year later, anti American riots broke out in Panama
City when the US authorities refused to fly the Panamanian
flag alongside the American flag in the zone. The rioters
(29:46):
tore down the American flag outside the US embassy and
marched toward the canal zone, intent on planting more Panamanian flags,
but again they were repelled by armed troops both American
and Panamanian. The clash convinced President Eisenhower that something needed
(30:07):
to be done. It was Eisenhower in nineteen sixty who
made the first pact with Panama to fly both flags
in parts of the canal zone. President Kennedy expanded the
order in nineteen sixty three, but it still wasn't in
place by nineteen sixty four, two months after Kennedy's assassination.
Speaker 13 (30:31):
The flag has always been something very important to Panamanians.
For all six years of high school, the idea of
going back to the canal Zone and planning the flag
was an ever present thought.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
As Rimsky remembers it, the decision that day to march
on the canal zone was completely spontaneous. No one at
the Instituto Nacional organized it, no one planned it. One
minute Rimsky was sitting in chemistry class. The next he
and his friends were asking the teacher if they could leave.
They weren't the only ones. Other Instituto Nacional students had
(31:04):
already met with the school director to get his blessing
for a counter protest. The plan was simple and direct.
The students of the Instituto Nacional would carry a Panamanian
flag into the canal zone and demand it be raised
in front of Balboa High School. I mean, what could
go wrong if any of the Panamanian students or school
(31:28):
administrators thought this was a wildly inflammatory move. No one objected.
The director even gave the students these schools historic Panamanian
flag kept inside a glass case.
Speaker 9 (31:41):
It was a silken flag, saw more delicate than your
regular cotton flag, and it also had the Panamanian seal
in the middle of it and the words Institute National
on top of it. It had been used that some
US protests during the nineteen fifty by the Instituto student
so it was in a very delicate state. But it
(32:02):
was also a very important flag for those Stituto students
because of.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
What it meant. A little before five pm on January ninth,
around two hundred teenagers from the Instituto Nacionale, including our
friend Rimsky, crossed fourth of July Avenue and entered the
canal zone. They carried hand painted signs reading Panama is
(32:26):
sovereign in the canal Zone and only the Panamanian flag.
Leading the pack was a group of students proudly displaying
the school's historic Panamanian flag. The canal zone police were
warned of the approaching students, but told not to engage
with them. The police observed from a distance, ready to
(32:46):
intervene if things got out of hand. The students didn't
want to provoke the police either, so they took pains
to remain calm and respectful as they marched deeper into
the canal zone.
Speaker 9 (33:00):
The way they marched towards the sony was so orderly,
so calm, so peaceful. When they came close to Gorga's hospital,
they even stopped and kept a moment of silence for
the people that were sick in the hospital. They sent
the Panamanian national hymn in front of the Governor's mansion,
very quietly, very respectful, very respectful, very much into knowing
(33:23):
what they were doing and offering sound arguments on why
they were doing it to the people that were involved there.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
In a celebratory moment, the Panamanian students walked up the
steps of the Canal Zone Administration building and posed for
a group photo. In the black and white picture, they
looked like a bunch of kids on a field trip.
Down the hill. Just a short walk from the administration
building was Balboa High School. The Zonians had no idea
(33:53):
the Panamanian students were coming. It would not be a
pleasant surprise. The flag test at Balboa High School began
as an emotional response to the governor's order. Students like
Jim Jenkins just wanted the American flag to fly in
front of his school. He says he had no gripe
(34:13):
with Panama, but that's not how the Panamanian students.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Read it to them.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
The Balboa High protest was the latest in a long
line of insults against their country and their flag, and
now the two groups of teenagers were headed towards a
historic confrontation. Looking back more than sixty years later, Jim
wishes things could have turned out differently.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
If I could go back to the first week in January,
I probably would have thought a little bit more about
how we handle it. It would have been great if
we could have joined forces come in and say hey,
let's fly both flags. We would not have objected. We
(35:02):
would have had to figure out how to do it.
If I could have figured a way to do it,
I would have.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
But instead of finding a peaceful resolution, a schoolyard scuffle
over a flag was about to trigger an international political incident.
January ninth, nineteen sixty four, was day three of the
(35:28):
flag protests at Balboa High School in the Canal Zone.
After school, the crowd around the flagpole swelled to its
largest size yet. There were between four hundred and five
hundred Zonians of all ages, adults, teenagers, grade school kids.
They held American flags and sang patriotic songs, giddy with
(35:51):
their collective act of civil disobedience. The whole point of
the protest was to convince the Canal Zone governor to
let them fly the American flag in front of the
high school, but as of Thursday afternoon, the governor wasn't budging.
At six fifteen pm, Governor Fleming broadcast a statement.
Speaker 15 (36:12):
The flag agreement is a valid commitment of our government.
We Americans in the Zone have an obligation as citizens
to support that commitment, regardless of our personal beliefs. A
hope that we Americans will conduct ourselves with reason and
in an emotional situation, successfully avoid emotionalism.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Governor Fleming had no idea how emotional the situation was
about to get. To the Zonian's great surprise, they weren't
the only ones protesting that day. Marching down the hill
from the Canal Administration building came a large group of
Panamanian high school students carrying their protest signs. On a
(37:01):
normal day, the Panamanian students would have been stopped immediately
by Canal Zone police the second they stepped onto Zonian soil.
But today, in hopes of avoiding a conflict, they were
allowed to enter. And now the uniformed students from the
Instituto Nacional were within sight of their destination, Balboa High School.
(37:27):
The mood around the flagpole shifted dramatically. The Zonians booed
and shouted at the Panamanian students, and the Panamanian students
hollered back, each in their own language, neither side truly
understanding each other, each assuming the worst intentions. That's when
the Canal Zone police finally stepped in.
Speaker 9 (37:50):
It was incredibly tense, and not only what you describe,
but also add to that mixture that the Panamanias did
not speak English and the Sonia spoke little or no Spanish,
so the communications between the police commander Gaddis Wall and
the Instituto students were done by an interpreter, and when
(38:10):
you interpret things kind of get lost in the mixture. Finally,
the captain of the police decided to allow a small
delegation of Instituto student close to where the American flag
was flying in the staff of Balboa High School. So
that meant escorting those students in the middle of a
very aggressive, very tense crowd of adults and also high
(38:34):
school kids to get to the flag.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
As the rest of the Panamanian students stood back. Five
or six senior boys from the Instituto Nacion now approached
the circle of Zonians around the flag pole. They must
have been terrified, but they wore stern looks of defiance
as they gripped their school's historic Panamanian flag. Jim Jenkins
(38:59):
was part of the delegate of Balboa High students and
administrators who met with the Panamanians.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
They wanted to raise their flag. Obviously, with only one flagpole,
that wasn't going to happen, and I explained it to
them that that wouldn't happen, but they were more than
welcome to stand on the steps with their flag, sing
their national anthem. We had no objection to them stating
their case that the country was cannibal.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
The situation was volatile. The Zonians roared with disapproval as
the Panamanians approached the base of the flagpole. The delegates
from the Instituto Nacionale later said that they were booed, pushed,
and insulted as they tried to make their way through
the crowd. As Jim said, the hastily negotiated agreement was
(39:50):
that the Panamanian students would hold up their flag, sing
Panama's national anthem and go home. At least that's how
the Americans understood, whether due to poor translation or not.
The Panamanians decided to make a historic statement, like the
college students did back in fifty eight. They wanted to
(40:12):
raise the Panamanian flag alongside the American one. A heated
discussion ensued between Captain Wall and the Panamanian students. Tensions
ratched it even higher. The crowd of Zonians squeezed in
tightly around the Panamanian delegation and began to sing the
(40:32):
American national anthem. Exactly what happened next is a matter
of great contention. Fearing an outbreak of violence, Captain Wall
abruptly pulled off the ceremony and ordered the Panamanian delegation
to leave, but they weren't having it. Instead, the Panamanian
students tried to push forward poured the flagpole. That's when
(40:57):
Captain Wall ordered his Canal Zone policemen batons in hand,
to quote escort the Panamanian student delegation back to their classmates.
The police formed a line and with shouts of go go,
they began to slowly push the Panamanian students backward. According
(41:20):
to some reports, the police were joined by Balboa students
and Zonian adults in the crowd, who punched and shoved
the Panamanian teens.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I don't understand what was going on because as far
as I could tell, there were no canals On students
involved in that pushing and shoving. I know I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
No one knows exactly what happened next. Every eyewitness has
a different story. But in the chaos of the moment,
as the Panamanian students were pushed backward through a row
of bushes. Two of them fell to the ground, and
as they fell, the school's historic Panamanian flag was torn.
Speaker 9 (42:03):
It's one of the biggest history mysteries that you can
think of, because you have the Panamanians saying that the
Americans ripped it up, and then you have the Americans
saying that the Panamanians fell as they were led away
by the police from that area where tensions had been rising.
And if you see the pictures, you can see the
(42:25):
policemen that were putting the Panamanian Institute students backwards, pulling
them backwards with their batons, and they were not hitting them,
but just pulling them back. And the students were moving
backwards where the flag in front, and then you had
the very hostile crowd also in the middle of the way.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
However it happened, the Panamanian students were stunned. They had
promised the director of the Instituto that they wouldn't even
let the fragile school flag touch the ground, and now
it was nearly ripped and half again. Jim Jenkins swears
that it was never the intention of him or his
(43:06):
Balboa classmates to desecrate the Panamanian flag.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
I have no idea. I actually have no idea. I'm
sorry that anything like that happened because I respect the
flag too much.
Speaker 11 (43:22):
I respect our flag, I respect their flag.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
The Panamanian students were enraged. They had tried to take
a stand for Panamanian sovereignty and they were attacked by
the Zonians and their police. It wasn't enough to deny
them the right to protest, but the Zonians had literally
trampled on the Panamanian flag, the symbol of everything the
students held sacred. Rimsky secret was right there. He wasn't
(43:51):
part of the student delegation, but he remembers the explosion
of emotions as word spread about what happened at the flagpole.
Speaker 13 (44:04):
They said, they tore our flag, They tore our flag.
We were all angry, we were crying, and we stampeded
towards Panama City from different places. The group I was in,
the one very close to those carrying the flag, was
planning to go to the Instituto Nacional to tell the
rector and the teachers what had happened and to inform
the media.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
News of the incident spread like wildfire. By the time
Rimsky and his classmates made it back to the Instituto Nacional.
There were already Panamanians in the streets. Panamanian radio stations
reported the confrontation at Balboa High School, but the story
got uglier and more violent with every retelling. Historian Wendy
(44:43):
Trabaldos says that the media absolutely threw gasoline on the fire.
Speaker 9 (44:49):
Yes, they had a huge role, especially the radio. At
the time, the media people in Panama grossly exaggerated what
was happening, which contributed to the on risks that happened
during that time, especially during the ninth and the tenth
of January, when things were really very intense in such
(45:09):
a way that the US Army intervened.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Triggered by the torn flag and stoked by the media,
there was an unprecedented explosion of outrage in Panama City
directed at the Americans and the Canal Zone. For three days,
Panama City was engulfed in violence and chaos. Cars with
Canal Zone plates were flipped over and burned. The pan
(45:34):
am Building was vandalized. Protesters hurled rocks and molotov cocktails.
Rooftop snipers took aim with hunting rifles. The US Army
and Canal Zone police fired back with tear gas and
live ammunition. Tragically, at least twenty one Panamanians and four
(45:58):
Americans died in the fighting. The first Panamanian casualty was
a student named Ascanio a Rosamena.
Speaker 9 (46:06):
He was a true leader in a youngster kind of way.
He was a great dancer, and he was captain of
the football team, and he was a volunteer for the
Red Cross. And he was actually there helping his former
Instituto friends during the riots that the bullet got to him.
So yes, he was a case of a true martyrdom
(46:28):
for the country.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
In Panama. January ninth is observed every year as the
Day of the Martyrs. That's how Ascanio and the other
Panamanians who died in the nineteen sixty four riots are
remembered as martyrs for Panamanian sovereignty. That's the craziest part
of this whole, wild and tragic story. When Jim Jenkins
(46:52):
and his friends met in the Balboa Clubhouse and planned
their patriotic flag protest, they never set out to change
Panamanian history, but that's exactly what happened. Because they didn't
know that a few miles away, another group of impulsive
teenagers was going to grab their own flag and march
(47:13):
into history. I'm looking at the cover of Life magazine
from that week. It's a photograph taken of Fourth of
July Avenue during the riots. It shows three young Panamanian
men climbing a canal zone streetlight. Below them is a
(47:35):
car in flames. The man at the top of the
street light uses his belt to attach a large Panamanian
flag for Rimsky Sukra. That image brings back visceral memories,
memories of three days of chaos that galvanized Panama like
no other moment in its short history.
Speaker 13 (48:01):
Every time someone climbed a fence with a flag, there
was a cheer. Every time they climbed a pole, there
was a cheer. The Panamanian people united like never before.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
In the wake of the flag riots, the President of
Panama briefly severed diplomatic relations with the United States, a
bold move for a small Latin American country, but a
line had been crossed, and Panama refused to go back
to the status quo. For decades. The US had ignored
calls to renegotiate the Canal Treaty with Panama. The presidential
(48:34):
order to fly both flags at Canal Zone buildings was
supposed to smooth things over, but it backfired spectacularly. The
riots were a wake up call.
Speaker 9 (48:45):
It came to this point this had to happen, sadly,
where people lost lives, both Panamanian lives and also American lives,
and you also had all the physical destruction that accompanied
the riots, that this had to happen for the US
to react and think, Okay, we might need to do
(49:05):
something in Panama and try to not be the colonial
power that we are.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
The US government did come to the negotiating table and
through a long and arduous process, the Canal Zone Treaty
of nineteen oh three was replaced with a historic new agreement.
In nineteen seventy nine, the US dissolved the Canal Zone,
returning the contentious strip of land to Panama, and on
(49:32):
New Year's Eve in nineteen ninety nine, full control of
the Panama Canal was finally handed over to Panama. Historian
Maurice Alasso was ten years old when the Canal Zone
was finally opened to all Panamanians. She and her family
went for a picnic to a hilltop park that Panamanians
(49:54):
hadn't been able to access for seventy five years.
Speaker 7 (49:58):
I remember remiately the happiness around me, my family, happiness,
everybody so happy that finally we.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Could anchor in the Canal Zone.
Speaker 7 (50:10):
So this was a moment where people could go to places, parks,
to swim in certain beaches that you could not go before.
Every Panaminian family will have a different story of how
they entered the canal Zone in nineteen seventy nine, how
they fellow we're going back to this important piece of
(50:30):
our land.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
As Jim Jenkins said before, he wished things had gone
differently in January nineteen sixty four. He wished there were
two flagpoles outside the high school. He wished that his
Balboa classmate and the Panamanian kids could have kept cooler
heads and come to an agreement. When the Balboa High
(50:52):
flag protest blew up into an international incident, Jim's name
was all over the press. The situation became unbearable for
him in the Canal Zone, a seventeen year old kid
being blamed for a political firestorm. Jim left the Canal
Zone and went to live with a relative in Ohio.
(51:13):
He didn't get to graduate with the rest of the
Balboa High class of nineteen sixty four. Jim later joined
the military and has two master's degrees. Rumski Suker is
now doctor Suker, a physician with a successful practice in
Panama City. He's in his late seventies, but when he
talks about politics, he still sounds like the teenage firebrand
(51:37):
who marched into the canal zone with a hand painted
sign and a crazy plan. Today Panama is a sovereign nation.
The Canal Zone is no longer a country within a country,
just a parklike neighborhood in Panama City. Under Panama's management,
the Panama Canal has been humming along now for twenty
(51:58):
five years. Our historian Wendy Trabaldo's it never ceases to
amaze her that one of the most monumental geopolitical events
in Panama's history was set in motion by teenagers being teenagers.
Speaker 9 (52:14):
And you must understand teenagers, they are very much into.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Fighting for causes.
Speaker 9 (52:19):
And that's true yesterday and true today. They really believed
in each other causes. Even if you do not agree
with their position, whether Sonian position or with a Panemanian position,
you can understand why they were thinking, they were thinking
and why they were behaving the way they were behaving. Yeah,
you can see that teenagerism in both sides in different ways.
(52:44):
But yes, you can see a typical teenage behavior. I
guess into two separate mind frames, two separate nationalities, to
separate educational systems and way of looking at things. But yes,
still teenagers.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
How about that episode guys and I wanted to ask you,
do you have a favorite world flag?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Ooh, that's a good question. Flags. Were you a flag kid?
I was not a flag kid, but some kids love flags.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
No, but I had a neighbor who was who you
could show him a flag and he could tell you
even like the hardest ones. And he's the reason why
I have my favorite flag, which was the flag of Gibraltar.
It has this castle on it and then it sits
above this field of red, and then it has this
golden key kind of dangling from the gates of the castle,
which looks like it's almost like a zipper that you
could unzip the castle. It's one of the wildest flags
(53:33):
there is.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
I think I like the fun fact that Jamaica is
the only flag without red, white, or blue, and then
like Jamaica's flag is just green, yellow, and black. Yes,
so that's like a fun flag.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Fact, yes, that is I did not know that one.
The Isle of Man flag, Oh yes, looks to me
like three legs, yeah, like bent nye right, that's like
yea yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
I'm also from Chicago, and I feel like in terms
of a city with a flag, Chicago has a really
good one that just makes a lot of appearances like
maybe it is like I'm biased because I'm from Chicago,
but it is the only city with a flag that
personally I that is true.
Speaker 5 (54:11):
The same.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
So, in the past, we've done very special characters. Everyone's
always welcome to pick a very special character, but you
can also pick a very special moment. This year, we're
amending the rules who does a Zarin improvement for year three?
So does anyone have either a very special character or
a very special moment from this one?
Speaker 5 (54:32):
Well, I would say for me, the very special moment
obviously is that moment of peak conflict and Drama's when
the Panamanian high schoolers are marching to the Canal Zone
with their silken Panamanian flag, their eyes all filled with
ardor and like pride. I really love that. But then
there's obviously the question of was their flag torn up
and I've watched nineteen sixties like civil rights footage, so
(54:53):
I have to believe that there's a high likelihood that
the Americans did see that flag and rip it up.
So that was my favorite.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
That was kind of my instinct too, that people get heated.
I was going to say, if you asked about very
special characters, I was going to say that original Panamanian flag.
It sounds beautiful.
Speaker 5 (55:10):
Yeah, it doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
I could put this in either category special character or
a special moment. If we're going special character, I want
to add historian Marisa Lasso, who I like. How we
do this often here where we'll have an expert historian
and then they become part of the story. They kind
of crawl into the script and we get more of
them in the third act. And so her talking about
(55:33):
being ten and being able to go into the canal
zone for the first time, that was a very nice scene.
Speaker 5 (55:40):
Also, I'd never heard the term Zonians for people in
the canal Zone. I love that it sounds like a
sci fi name of off world people. It's like something
from like Alien Earth.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
Yeah, it does. Zonians.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Now, if you are new to this show, what we
do here at the end, we have an in house
casting director Zarin, and we like to say these episodes
often like this should be a movie, and Zaren takes
it one step further and says, who should be in
that movie? Did you cast any of the key roles
in this one?
Speaker 4 (56:10):
I did.
Speaker 5 (56:11):
And starting with the historic figure of Teddy Roosevelt who
gives us the Panama Canal, I thought Andy Cirkis but
with false teeth.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Whoo, that's interesting because Andy Serkis is sort of like
a small guy, and I feel like people always think
of Teddy Roosevelt as a big guy, but I'm like
he can rise to the challengel totally.
Speaker 5 (56:27):
Thank you, thank you for seeing it. And then for
Jim Jenkins, the American who's on the side of the
Zonians Alex Lothor, who if you don't know him, he's
the principled rebel kid from the Andor the series. He's
the one who gives all the speeches about fascism. I
thought he had just the right earnest energy because I
did believe Jim Jenkins, like you know, meant well when
he was telling the story and recounting events. And then
(56:47):
for Rimsky Sukra that I thought, uh, there's this kid,
Justice Smith. He's a Latin kid from Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom,
and I think he'd be perfect. He also has that
same kind of like earnestness. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Actual casting directors take notes. Zaren' stune the work for you.
Speaker 5 (57:03):
Yes, it's right there.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Dave Rus. Our
senior producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sam design by
Chris Childs. Additional editing by Mary Doo, Mixing and mastering
(57:27):
by Chris Childs. Original music by Elise McCoy. Research and
fact checking by Dave Rus and Austin Thompson. Show logo
by Lucy Kintonia special thanks to our voice actors Chris
Childs and Josh Fisher. I am your executive producer. We'll
see you back here next Wednesday. If you'd like to
email the show could reach us at Very Special Episodes
(57:47):
at gmail dot com. Very Special Episodes is a production
of iHeart Podcasts.
Once upon a time, there was a country within a country.
If you visited Panama City in the nineteen sixties, you'd
find a bustling Latin American community, downtown streets packed with
department stores, fruit vendors hawking and banadas and shaved ice,
advertisements plastered on billboards and telephone polls, tourist bars playing
(00:27):
salsa music late into the night. In other words, Panama
City in the nineteen sixties was a lively, messy, slightly
chaotic place. In western Panama City was a street called
Fourth of July Avenue. It was the first sign you
were entering a different part of Panama. Realistically, it wasn't
(00:50):
part of Panama at all. Crossing Fourth of July Avenue,
the noise and chaos of Panama City faded into the background.
On the other side of the street was something completely different,
a lush, suburban paradise, handsome single family homes and apartment buildings,
(01:11):
manicured lawns, and pristine streets. It looked like a mid
century American town had been dropped into the Panamanian jungle,
because that's exactly what it was. When the United States
struck a deal with Panama to build the Panama Canal
in nineteen oh three. It also created something called the
(01:32):
Canal Zone. To build and operate the canal, the United
States needed a place for the Canal Company workers to live.
That was the Canal Zone, a ten mile wide strip
of land running the full length of the Panama Canal.
For the next seventy five years, the Canal Zone was
(01:54):
a slice of America smack in the middle of Panama,
a country with a country. By the early nineteen sixties,
there were thirty six thousand Americans living in the Canal Zone,
both civilians and military personnel. Life in the Canal Zone
looked a lot like life in any nineteen sixties American town.
(02:18):
The teenage kids of the canal workers attended Balboa High School.
They had Friday night football games, went to sacops, and
watched midnight movies at the local theater. But not to
everyone was happy with this country in a country arrangement.
From the very beginning, many Panamanians protested the Canal Zone's existence.
(02:43):
They thought that giving the Americans control of the Panamanian
territory was an affront to Panamanian sovereignty. Panamanians were restricted
from entering the Canal Zone unless they worked for the
canal company or were hired as maids or nan for
the American families. The canal Zone had its own police force,
(03:06):
armed American and quick to hassle anyone who didn't look
like they belonged. By nineteen sixty four, Panamanian resentment of
the canal Zone was at an all time high. Over
the world, colonialism was being dismantled, but here in the
middle of Panama was a de facto American colony. What
(03:30):
would it take to get the Americans to leave and
for Panama to finally be its own country, in charge
of its own canal. The answer, it turned out, was
a bunch of teenagers. Welcome to very special episodes and
iHeart original podcast. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and this
(03:54):
is how a Panama Canal high school brawl changed history.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We are so back.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
She's Danish Schwartz, He's Aaron Burnett, I'm Jason English. Josh
Fisher is on the other side of the glass.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Here.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We're back for another season of very special episodes. Welcome everybody,
glad to be back.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I'm so excited to be back. I felt like I
went up on that I was that's my excitement coming out.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I felt it.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, the bar is said, Hi, this season, I'm pleased
to report very special episodes is now a two time
winner in the Signal Award Podcast category Best Commute Podcast.
Heck yeah, so yeah, it's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
That's also kind of the best time to listen to
a podcast. I don't want to brag, but like commute
podcast is sort of a real category.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Yeah, that is the window. I mean, you have undivided
attention and the people who are sitting there in traffic
or on a subway waiting for like any good distraction
in there, we are. You know, it's like the best.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
If you've been returned to office recently and not thrilled
about it, I feel for you. But at least you
can go back and listen to the archives here. I
know you guys don't do this for the awards.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
I do.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So this has meant a lot to me.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
I'm right there with you. I was very stoking. We
got back to back too, not just like we won,
but we're holding it down.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Dynasty. Well, we've got a great whole season planned. We'll
be here every Wednesday through the rest of the year.
We'll be back in January. We've got some Olympics episodes planned,
maybe a Super Bowl episode, maybe something bruin in San Francisco.
So thank you for coming back, and let's get right
into it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Let's do it. In addition to being a country, Panama
is an isthmus, one of those words you learned in
junior high and immediately forgot. If you look at a
map of North and South America, Panama is the narrow
strip of land connecting the two continents. On the northern
(05:53):
coast of Panama is the Atlantic Ocean. On the southern
coast is the Pacific Ocean. At Panama's narrowest point, the
distance between the two oceans is just thirty miles, a
geographic anomaly that wasn't lost on the first Spanish explorers
to land on its shores.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
Panama has been connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans since
the sixteenth century because since the Spanish Empire, goods had
to travel from Europe to South America, goods and people.
So Panama was a route. And that's why Panama. We
have to think about Panama as a five hundred years
(06:34):
old route that connected the oceans.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
That's Marisa Lasso, a Panamanian Historian Marisa says that the
Isthmus of Panama has always been a prized shortcut. For centuries,
people and goods traveled across that narrow passage using a
combination of rivers and mule trails. The Panama Railroad was
(06:59):
built in the eighteen fifties to transport eager prospectors on
their way to the California gold Rush, but the dream
was always to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans directly
via a giant canal. The United States wasn't the first
country to attempt it. The French gave the Panama Canal
(07:19):
a shot in the eighteen eighties. It was a fantastic failure.
More than twenty two thousand workers died during construction, mostly
from tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever. In eight
years of digging, they only managed to carve out eleven
miles of canal. Teddy Roosevelt wasn't scared off by the
(07:43):
French fiasco. He really wanted the United States to build
and own the Panama Canal. Owning the canal would give
America economic control of a vital new shipping lane, plus
a strategic stronghold for the US military in Latin America.
The story of how the US won the right to
(08:05):
build the Panama Canal is a saga of its own.
The short version is that Panama wasn't an independent country.
For most of nineteen oh three. It was still part
of Colombia, and Colombia had just emerged from a bloody
civil war in which most Panamanians were on the losing side.
Remember Teddy Roosevelt's famous adage, speak softly and carry a
(08:30):
big stick. This is a perfect example. In nineteen oh three,
Teddy Roosevelt softly approached the Colombian Congress with an offer
to complete the canal. When Colombia rejected that offer, Roosevelt
switched to his proverbial big stick. The Panamanians picked up
(08:50):
that if they revolted against Colombia, America would help make
sure the revolt was a success. From the American side,
knew Panama Canal negotiations would be able to take place
with an independent country.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It was the end of a bloody, bloody civil war
that left many casualties in Panama, and in that moment
of powerlessness, the construction of a Panama Canal was seen
as a great hope and aspiration.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
On November third, nineteen o three, Panama declared its independence.
Fifteen days later, the new nation signed the hey Buonoveria Treaty,
granting the United States full control of the canal zone.
In retrospect, the treaty was a bad deal for Panama.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
This treaty was even worse than the one that the
Columbia and Congress rejected.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
This treaty gave to.
Speaker 8 (09:50):
The US control of the Panama Canal zone five miles
on each side, as if it were sovereign in eternity.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So what happened to the tens of thousands of Panamanians
already living there?
Speaker 7 (10:07):
What are the recurrent ideas about the canal zone and
the canal Is that the US built the canal on
the jungle.
Speaker 9 (10:15):
No.
Speaker 8 (10:16):
No, it built the canal over a densely populated area
filled with towns, people, and fields.
Speaker 10 (10:21):
According to my calculation, there were around forty thousand people
expel and all the historic counts were dismantled to replace
them with brand new towns where only canal employees will leave.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Marisa wrote about this massive displacement of Panamanians in her
book Erased the Untold Story of the Panama Canal. The
Panama Canal is widely recognized as one of the greatest
engineering achievements of the twentieth century, and deservedly so. When
(10:57):
the gargantuan project was finished in nineteen fourteen, ships from
both oceans could cross the fifty one mile route through
a series of gravity fed locks filled by two massive
man made lakes. Operation of the canal was eventually handled
by the Panama Canal Company. The Canal Company wasn't a
(11:19):
traditional company in the sense that it wasn't a private business.
It was an extension of the US government. For example,
the president of the Canal Company was also the governor
of the Canal Zone. Kind of weird, right, But that's
because everyone who lived in the canal Zone worked in
(11:40):
some capacity for the Canal Company or the US military. Basically,
the Canal Zone was a government run company town inside
another country, perhaps the only one of its kind in
the world. The Canal Company provided everything for its workers,
comfortable housing for families, free high quality education for the kids,
(12:06):
and American style groceries at the company commissary. In short,
life in the Canal Zone was good.
Speaker 9 (12:14):
The canal Zone was a tropical paradise for the Americans
that used to live there during the twentieth century. Most
of them worked the civil part, worked for the canal
and all the businesses that surrounded it, like maintenance of
the canal zone, which was a beautiful area. I mean,
full of trees, very organized, very structured, very orderly. You
(12:39):
would find a speck of garbage in the zone, and
everything was taken care for you by the US government.
You also got a very nice salary. You got paid
something called the tropical differential for the sacrifice of living
in the tropics.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
That's Wendy Tribaldos, a Panamanian historian and writer. Wendy's written
a great book about the history of the tensions between
the American residents of the Canal Zone and the rest
of Panama. Her description of the canal Zone as a
tropical paradise is echoed by the Americans who lived there
in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
It was a glorious place to grow up in. I
felt free.
Speaker 11 (13:22):
We could go into the jungles and I would.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Travel all over the area. I thought nothing of it.
I loved fish, I loved hiking, loved swimming, and all
these activities we could do outdoors.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That's Jim Jenkins. His family moved to the Canal Zone
in the nineteen forties when he was two years old.
Jim's dad was in the Navy and his mom was
a budget analyst for the canal company. Jim says that
life in the Canal Zone was similar in many ways
to small town life in the States. His high school,
for example, Balboa High, sounds like it could have been
(14:00):
flown in brick by brick from Iowa.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
We'd have our sock cops, we have our sporting events
during the sock cops with hap sodas, and I'd helped
sell the sodas for the student union. During the football games,
we'd be out.
Speaker 11 (14:18):
There cheering you.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
I wasn't much of an athlete, but I sure did
enjoy going.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
The fact that a high school in Panama fielded an
American football team should be a sign of just how
American this place was.
Speaker 12 (14:36):
It definitely felt like I was an American because you
spoke English, we'd use American customs, and you know, like
high school, we played football. We didn't play soccer. You
think when not soccer, you're in Panama. No one else
has football. Two high schools, one in the Avanta side
one of the Pacific side. Both played football, but no soccer.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
That's Joe Bremmer, president of the Balboa High School class
of nineteen sixty four and a classmate of Jim Jenkins.
Joe's mother was Panamanian and he had family in Panama City,
which gave Joe a unique perspective on life in the
Canal Zone.
Speaker 12 (15:14):
Absolutely a different country. Yeah, I mean, we had our
own police force, we had our own traffic laws, some
speed limits, etc. It's definitely a different country. When my
relatives came to visit us in the Coal Zone, they
were stopped there and they had to give the address
and the person they were visiting. And sometimes they recall
(15:35):
us and say you expect this so and so, and
we'd say, sunder Man.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Getting stopped by the Canal Zone police was a regular
occurrence for Panamanians, especially young people. Rimsky Sukra was one
of those young Panamanians. Rumsky attended high school at the
prestigious Institute on Nacional or National Institute, located right on
the border with the Canal.
Speaker 13 (15:59):
Zone crossing the street. It was like entering a completely
different territory. They had a surveillance system where every Zonian
was an informant, so if you dropped even the smallest
piece of paper somewhere, it'd be reported. So there was
a lot of resentment. We felt like even approaching the
canal zone or having any relationship with the canal zone
(16:22):
was almost like bullying. It's like they were saying, you're
worthless here if you don't have special permission.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
The resentment that Rimsky felt wasn't just about him and
his friends getting hassled by the canal zone police. It
was a resentment shared by most Panamanians. Resentment over being
treated like a foreigner in your own country, resentment over
America's paternalistic attitude toward Panama, and resentment over the US
(16:49):
government's refusal to renegotiate the bad treaty that created the
canal zone in the first place.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
It was very complex relationship between the paname and the
US because we understand when they're stood the privilege of
having the canal within our territory, but we also felt
that we did not get what we deserved, and in
terms of sovereignty, it was a big issue for US.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Sovereignty means self rule. As long as the canal zone existed,
Panama was not a sovereign nation. For Rimsky and his friends,
sovereignty was the number one issue. It was a constant
topic of debate in class at the Instituto Nacional.
Speaker 10 (17:33):
World Person.
Speaker 13 (17:36):
Since nineteen oh three. When that agreement was signed, the
most important Panamanian figures and the people immediately opposed it
and we called it the ignominious Agreement.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
When would Panama truly achieve independence? Only when the Americans
finally left the Canal Zone. But for Americans like Jim
and Joe, the canal zone was their home too. Some
of their classmates were third generation Zonians, that's the name
for Americans born and raised in the Canal Zone. As
(18:08):
Whndy Tarbaldos explains, Zonians were very proud of their place
in Panama's history.
Speaker 9 (18:15):
They were very proud to be American and also very
proud that the United States built a canal. You must
understand that it was a century's long dream and it
was only accomplished by the US. So their grandfathers and
their fathers were the ones involved in that construction, and
they were very aware of that fact. But they were
also Sonians. They were also different Americans. They were overseas Americans,
(18:40):
sort of those Americans that lived in US bases throughout
the world, but they lived in one particular place, and
it was their home, and it was a very important
place for them.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
To the Zonians, the Canal Zone was a symbol of
American ingenuity, a slice of idyllic and orderly American life
carved out of the Panamanian jungle. To Panamanians, the Canal
Zone was a colonial outpost, a privileged enclave where they
weren't welcome in Panama. Frustrations with the Canal Zone had
(19:12):
been simmering for decades. But what would it take to
change the status quo? Maybe a communist revolution or a
military coup, not exactly. The future of Panamanian independence would
be determined by a fight over a flag. January two,
(19:43):
nineteen sixty four, was a Thursday. It was the first
day of classes after Christmas break for the mostly American
students of Balboa High School in the Canal Zone. There
was the usual excitement of seeing friends after a long
vacation and the start of a new semester. But something
was different, something was missing. Actually, the large flagpole in
(20:06):
front of the school stood empty. Usually it flew the
American flag like all other public buildings in the canal Zone,
but not that morning. The flag was gone. Over Christmas break,
the governor of the Canal Zone found himself in a
no win situation. In order had come down from the
(20:29):
President of the United States to fly both the Panamanian
and American flags at all Canal Zone public buildings. It
was meant as a peace gesture to the Panamanian people,
who were increasingly frustrated with the US presence in Panama.
Flying both flags was supposed to be a symbol of
(20:50):
the enduring partnership between America and Panama that created the
Panama Canal. But the Americans living in the Canal Zone
weren't having it. They picketed outside Governor Robert Fleming's house
and protested the presidential order. The canal Zone was American territory,
why should they have to fly a Panamanian flag. Governor
(21:14):
Fleming was in a pickle. If he defied the president's
order to fly both flags, he could lose his job.
But if he flew the Panamanian flag at Canal Zone
high schools, the students and parents might lose their minds.
So the governor came up with a temporary fix he
thought would buy him time until a permanent solution was found.
(21:39):
Instead of forcing the schools to raise both flags, he
told them not to fly any flags at all.
Speaker 9 (21:46):
And you must understand the rituals that were behind that flag.
I mean, it was very important for them. The IROTC
group used to put it up and down every single
day with high military honors for example, besides having the
flag flown inside of their classrooms and things like that.
So for them was also a very important issue that
(22:08):
tied them together to their American, faraway country, you know.
So for them not having their flag flown in there
was a big show.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Jim Jenkins, a senior at Balboa High, remembers first reading
about the governor's decision in an article in Stars and Stripes,
the Armed Forces newspaper.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Right after Christmas that the article was published saying that
the governor had decided that there would be no flags
at the American courts or schools. So this is where
I said, well, where does the governor get off telling
us that we can't have our flag.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
This was nineteen sixty four, an era of civil rights
demonstrations across the US. Jim read newspapers and watched TV.
He saw how young people were mobilizing and standing up
for causes they believed in. Why couldn't they do the
same thing in the Canal Zone.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
When I got back to school, I had circulated a
petition to the governor to allow us to have our
flag back, and the first two days of passing it
around it's okay, and then the school ad and then
confiscated it, and that kind of ticked us off, because
(23:28):
you know, we do have the right to petition.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
That weekend, Jim and his friends met at the Balboa Clubhouse,
a popular Canal Zone hangout complete with a soda fountain,
a lunch counter, and a swimming pool. Over a round
of cherry cokes and cream sodas, Jim and his friends
formulated a plan.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
So a group of us got together and said, what
can we do. They've taken away our right to petition,
And they said, well, I don't know how we came
up with the idea. Of the idea was we'll raise
the flag as a demonstration of what we want.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Early Tuesday morning, a small crowd of Balboa High School
students assembled at the flagpole. Two Canal Zone police officers
were there too, in case things got rowdy, Jim and
his friends raised the American flag. They knew they were
breaking the rules and disobeying the governor's orders, but that
(24:31):
was kind of the point. Jim says that he was
the ringleader of the operation.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
I got the group together to raise the flag. So
what would you call a lot again? We weren't looking
for trouble. We were looking for a resolution to not
having our flag.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
After the students went to class, some school officials came
out and quietly lowered the flag, hoping the protest had
run its course. Not even close. Seeing the flagpole empty again,
some students ran out and raised a smaller American flag.
This time, about one hundred and fifty Balboa High students
gathered around the flagpole and spontaneously recited the Pledge of allegiance.
(25:14):
They ignored the principal's order to return to class. If
the goal of the Balboa High flag protest was to
get the governor's attention, it worked. Worried about a confrontation,
Governor Fleming told school officials and Canal Zone police not
to break up the protest. Let the teenagers have their moment.
(25:36):
They could take down the flag later. After the students
went home, but the students never went home. After the
school bell rang at three o'clock, even more students joined
the throng at the flagpole. Some of their parents came
to at the Canal Zone commissaries. There was a rush
on American flags. One store sold one hundred and forty
(25:59):
four large verge flags in six hours. American flags were
hung from balconies and waved from car windows. At sundown
that evening, the Zonian students and adults solemnly lowered the
American flag outside the high school, as was custom, but
the protest wasn't over. The governor hadn't changed his mind
(26:20):
about flying the American flag, so they weren't going anywhere.
About twenty five students kept in all night vigil at
the flagpole. Their parents and supporters brought blankets and warm food.
They were prepared to stay as long as necessary to
get the governor to change his mind. News of the
(26:41):
flag protest at Balboa High School spread quickly into neighboring
Panama City, but there the motivation for the student protest
wasn't understood as a patriotic desire to fly the American flag,
but as a colonialist refusal to fly the paname flag.
Jim Jenkins swears that he and his classmates had no
(27:05):
issue at the Panamanian flag. If there were two flagpoles
in front of Balboa, Jim says, they could have raised
both flags. What ticked Jim and his classmates off was
having no American flag at all.
Speaker 11 (27:19):
Well, we were strictly protesting the governor's decision not to
allow an American flag at an American school. You know,
if he had said that we're going to put in
two flagpoles at the schools.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
But until we do, we can't fly the flag, we
would have probably accepted that none of this was anti Panama.
Speaker 14 (27:41):
It was all pro American school, being proud of the canal,
proud of the school, proud of America, and wanting to
have our American flag.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
But again that's not the message that made it to Panama. City.
Stations railed against Canal Zone administrators who refused to follow
an agreement reached a year earlier between the American and
Panamanian presidents. Both flags were supposed to fly at all
public buildings. Panamanian newspaper editorials called out the callous Zonian
(28:20):
students who'd rather skip school than go to class under
a Panamanian flag Rumski Suker says that he and his
classmates at the Instituto nacion now heard about the flag
protests at Balboa High School the next day, Thursday, January ninth.
It was all they could talk about at school.
Speaker 13 (28:39):
Unepuela getenia una tradisium. The Instituto Nacional was a school
that had a tradition of teachers really educating us about
Panama's internal political situations and especially about the relationship between
the US and Panama. There was a lot of emphasis
on that relationship, so I was very involved in student
political activities.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
This wasn't the first time that flags had been a
political flashpoint in Panama. In nineteen fifty eight, a group
of Panamanian college students crossed into the canal zone and
planted dozens of small Panamanian flags in the grass. The
message was clear, the canal zone should belong to Panama.
(29:24):
The nineteen fifty eight flag protests started peacefully, but turned
ugly when Panamanian National Guard troops clashed with the students.
A year later, anti American riots broke out in Panama
City when the US authorities refused to fly the Panamanian
flag alongside the American flag in the zone. The rioters
(29:46):
tore down the American flag outside the US embassy and
marched toward the canal zone, intent on planting more Panamanian flags,
but again they were repelled by armed troops both American
and Panamanian. The clash convinced President Eisenhower that something needed
(30:07):
to be done. It was Eisenhower in nineteen sixty who
made the first pact with Panama to fly both flags
in parts of the canal zone. President Kennedy expanded the
order in nineteen sixty three, but it still wasn't in
place by nineteen sixty four, two months after Kennedy's assassination.
Speaker 13 (30:31):
The flag has always been something very important to Panamanians.
For all six years of high school, the idea of
going back to the canal Zone and planning the flag
was an ever present thought.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
As Rimsky remembers it, the decision that day to march
on the canal zone was completely spontaneous. No one at
the Instituto Nacional organized it, no one planned it. One
minute Rimsky was sitting in chemistry class. The next he
and his friends were asking the teacher if they could leave.
They weren't the only ones. Other Instituto Nacional students had
(31:04):
already met with the school director to get his blessing
for a counter protest. The plan was simple and direct.
The students of the Instituto Nacional would carry a Panamanian
flag into the canal zone and demand it be raised
in front of Balboa High School. I mean, what could
go wrong if any of the Panamanian students or school
(31:28):
administrators thought this was a wildly inflammatory move. No one objected.
The director even gave the students these schools historic Panamanian
flag kept inside a glass case.
Speaker 9 (31:41):
It was a silken flag, saw more delicate than your
regular cotton flag, and it also had the Panamanian seal
in the middle of it and the words Institute National
on top of it. It had been used that some
US protests during the nineteen fifty by the Instituto student
so it was in a very delicate state. But it
(32:02):
was also a very important flag for those Stituto students
because of.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
What it meant. A little before five pm on January ninth,
around two hundred teenagers from the Instituto Nacionale, including our
friend Rimsky, crossed fourth of July Avenue and entered the
canal zone. They carried hand painted signs reading Panama is
(32:26):
sovereign in the canal Zone and only the Panamanian flag.
Leading the pack was a group of students proudly displaying
the school's historic Panamanian flag. The canal zone police were
warned of the approaching students, but told not to engage
with them. The police observed from a distance, ready to
(32:46):
intervene if things got out of hand. The students didn't
want to provoke the police either, so they took pains
to remain calm and respectful as they marched deeper into
the canal zone.
Speaker 9 (33:00):
The way they marched towards the sony was so orderly,
so calm, so peaceful. When they came close to Gorga's hospital,
they even stopped and kept a moment of silence for
the people that were sick in the hospital. They sent
the Panamanian national hymn in front of the Governor's mansion,
very quietly, very respectful, very respectful, very much into knowing
(33:23):
what they were doing and offering sound arguments on why
they were doing it to the people that were involved there.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
In a celebratory moment, the Panamanian students walked up the
steps of the Canal Zone Administration building and posed for
a group photo. In the black and white picture, they
looked like a bunch of kids on a field trip.
Down the hill. Just a short walk from the administration
building was Balboa High School. The Zonians had no idea
(33:53):
the Panamanian students were coming. It would not be a
pleasant surprise. The flag test at Balboa High School began
as an emotional response to the governor's order. Students like
Jim Jenkins just wanted the American flag to fly in
front of his school. He says he had no gripe
(34:13):
with Panama, but that's not how the Panamanian students.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Read it to them.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
The Balboa High protest was the latest in a long
line of insults against their country and their flag, and
now the two groups of teenagers were headed towards a
historic confrontation. Looking back more than sixty years later, Jim
wishes things could have turned out differently.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
If I could go back to the first week in January,
I probably would have thought a little bit more about
how we handle it. It would have been great if
we could have joined forces come in and say hey,
let's fly both flags. We would not have objected. We
(35:02):
would have had to figure out how to do it.
If I could have figured a way to do it,
I would have.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
But instead of finding a peaceful resolution, a schoolyard scuffle
over a flag was about to trigger an international political incident.
January ninth, nineteen sixty four, was day three of the
(35:28):
flag protests at Balboa High School in the Canal Zone.
After school, the crowd around the flagpole swelled to its
largest size yet. There were between four hundred and five
hundred Zonians of all ages, adults, teenagers, grade school kids.
They held American flags and sang patriotic songs, giddy with
(35:51):
their collective act of civil disobedience. The whole point of
the protest was to convince the Canal Zone governor to
let them fly the American flag in front of the
high school, but as of Thursday afternoon, the governor wasn't budging.
At six fifteen pm, Governor Fleming broadcast a statement.
Speaker 15 (36:12):
The flag agreement is a valid commitment of our government.
We Americans in the Zone have an obligation as citizens
to support that commitment, regardless of our personal beliefs. A
hope that we Americans will conduct ourselves with reason and
in an emotional situation, successfully avoid emotionalism.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Governor Fleming had no idea how emotional the situation was
about to get. To the Zonian's great surprise, they weren't
the only ones protesting that day. Marching down the hill
from the Canal Administration building came a large group of
Panamanian high school students carrying their protest signs. On a
(37:01):
normal day, the Panamanian students would have been stopped immediately
by Canal Zone police the second they stepped onto Zonian soil.
But today, in hopes of avoiding a conflict, they were
allowed to enter. And now the uniformed students from the
Instituto Nacional were within sight of their destination, Balboa High School.
(37:27):
The mood around the flagpole shifted dramatically. The Zonians booed
and shouted at the Panamanian students, and the Panamanian students
hollered back, each in their own language, neither side truly
understanding each other, each assuming the worst intentions. That's when
the Canal Zone police finally stepped in.
Speaker 9 (37:50):
It was incredibly tense, and not only what you describe,
but also add to that mixture that the Panamanias did
not speak English and the Sonia spoke little or no Spanish,
so the communications between the police commander Gaddis Wall and
the Instituto students were done by an interpreter, and when
(38:10):
you interpret things kind of get lost in the mixture. Finally,
the captain of the police decided to allow a small
delegation of Instituto student close to where the American flag
was flying in the staff of Balboa High School. So
that meant escorting those students in the middle of a
very aggressive, very tense crowd of adults and also high
(38:34):
school kids to get to the flag.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
As the rest of the Panamanian students stood back. Five
or six senior boys from the Instituto Nacion now approached
the circle of Zonians around the flag pole. They must
have been terrified, but they wore stern looks of defiance
as they gripped their school's historic Panamanian flag. Jim Jenkins
(38:59):
was part of the delegate of Balboa High students and
administrators who met with the Panamanians.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
They wanted to raise their flag. Obviously, with only one flagpole,
that wasn't going to happen, and I explained it to
them that that wouldn't happen, but they were more than
welcome to stand on the steps with their flag, sing
their national anthem. We had no objection to them stating
their case that the country was cannibal.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
The situation was volatile. The Zonians roared with disapproval as
the Panamanians approached the base of the flagpole. The delegates
from the Instituto Nacionale later said that they were booed, pushed,
and insulted as they tried to make their way through
the crowd. As Jim said, the hastily negotiated agreement was
(39:50):
that the Panamanian students would hold up their flag, sing
Panama's national anthem and go home. At least that's how
the Americans understood, whether due to poor translation or not.
The Panamanians decided to make a historic statement, like the
college students did back in fifty eight. They wanted to
(40:12):
raise the Panamanian flag alongside the American one. A heated
discussion ensued between Captain Wall and the Panamanian students. Tensions
ratched it even higher. The crowd of Zonians squeezed in
tightly around the Panamanian delegation and began to sing the
(40:32):
American national anthem. Exactly what happened next is a matter
of great contention. Fearing an outbreak of violence, Captain Wall
abruptly pulled off the ceremony and ordered the Panamanian delegation
to leave, but they weren't having it. Instead, the Panamanian
students tried to push forward poured the flagpole. That's when
(40:57):
Captain Wall ordered his Canal Zone policemen batons in hand,
to quote escort the Panamanian student delegation back to their classmates.
The police formed a line and with shouts of go go,
they began to slowly push the Panamanian students backward. According
(41:20):
to some reports, the police were joined by Balboa students
and Zonian adults in the crowd, who punched and shoved
the Panamanian teens.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I don't understand what was going on because as far
as I could tell, there were no canals On students
involved in that pushing and shoving. I know I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
No one knows exactly what happened next. Every eyewitness has
a different story. But in the chaos of the moment,
as the Panamanian students were pushed backward through a row
of bushes. Two of them fell to the ground, and
as they fell, the school's historic Panamanian flag was torn.
Speaker 9 (42:03):
It's one of the biggest history mysteries that you can
think of, because you have the Panamanians saying that the
Americans ripped it up, and then you have the Americans
saying that the Panamanians fell as they were led away
by the police from that area where tensions had been rising.
And if you see the pictures, you can see the
(42:25):
policemen that were putting the Panamanian Institute students backwards, pulling
them backwards with their batons, and they were not hitting them,
but just pulling them back. And the students were moving
backwards where the flag in front, and then you had
the very hostile crowd also in the middle of the way.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
However it happened, the Panamanian students were stunned. They had
promised the director of the Instituto that they wouldn't even
let the fragile school flag touch the ground, and now
it was nearly ripped and half again. Jim Jenkins swears
that it was never the intention of him or his
(43:06):
Balboa classmates to desecrate the Panamanian flag.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
I have no idea. I actually have no idea. I'm
sorry that anything like that happened because I respect the
flag too much.
Speaker 11 (43:22):
I respect our flag, I respect their flag.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
The Panamanian students were enraged. They had tried to take
a stand for Panamanian sovereignty and they were attacked by
the Zonians and their police. It wasn't enough to deny
them the right to protest, but the Zonians had literally
trampled on the Panamanian flag, the symbol of everything the
students held sacred. Rimsky secret was right there. He wasn't
(43:51):
part of the student delegation, but he remembers the explosion
of emotions as word spread about what happened at the flagpole.
Speaker 13 (44:04):
They said, they tore our flag, They tore our flag.
We were all angry, we were crying, and we stampeded
towards Panama City from different places. The group I was in,
the one very close to those carrying the flag, was
planning to go to the Instituto Nacional to tell the
rector and the teachers what had happened and to inform
the media.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
News of the incident spread like wildfire. By the time
Rimsky and his classmates made it back to the Instituto Nacional.
There were already Panamanians in the streets. Panamanian radio stations
reported the confrontation at Balboa High School, but the story
got uglier and more violent with every retelling. Historian Wendy
(44:43):
Trabaldos says that the media absolutely threw gasoline on the fire.
Speaker 9 (44:49):
Yes, they had a huge role, especially the radio. At
the time, the media people in Panama grossly exaggerated what
was happening, which contributed to the on risks that happened
during that time, especially during the ninth and the tenth
of January, when things were really very intense in such
(45:09):
a way that the US Army intervened.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Triggered by the torn flag and stoked by the media,
there was an unprecedented explosion of outrage in Panama City
directed at the Americans and the Canal Zone. For three days,
Panama City was engulfed in violence and chaos. Cars with
Canal Zone plates were flipped over and burned. The pan
(45:34):
am Building was vandalized. Protesters hurled rocks and molotov cocktails.
Rooftop snipers took aim with hunting rifles. The US Army
and Canal Zone police fired back with tear gas and
live ammunition. Tragically, at least twenty one Panamanians and four
(45:58):
Americans died in the fighting. The first Panamanian casualty was
a student named Ascanio a Rosamena.
Speaker 9 (46:06):
He was a true leader in a youngster kind of way.
He was a great dancer, and he was captain of
the football team, and he was a volunteer for the
Red Cross. And he was actually there helping his former
Instituto friends during the riots that the bullet got to him.
So yes, he was a case of a true martyrdom
(46:28):
for the country.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
In Panama. January ninth is observed every year as the
Day of the Martyrs. That's how Ascanio and the other
Panamanians who died in the nineteen sixty four riots are
remembered as martyrs for Panamanian sovereignty. That's the craziest part
of this whole, wild and tragic story. When Jim Jenkins
(46:52):
and his friends met in the Balboa Clubhouse and planned
their patriotic flag protest, they never set out to change
Panamanian history, but that's exactly what happened. Because they didn't
know that a few miles away, another group of impulsive
teenagers was going to grab their own flag and march
(47:13):
into history. I'm looking at the cover of Life magazine
from that week. It's a photograph taken of Fourth of
July Avenue during the riots. It shows three young Panamanian
men climbing a canal zone streetlight. Below them is a
(47:35):
car in flames. The man at the top of the
street light uses his belt to attach a large Panamanian
flag for Rimsky Sukra. That image brings back visceral memories,
memories of three days of chaos that galvanized Panama like
no other moment in its short history.
Speaker 13 (48:01):
Every time someone climbed a fence with a flag, there
was a cheer. Every time they climbed a pole, there
was a cheer. The Panamanian people united like never before.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
In the wake of the flag riots, the President of
Panama briefly severed diplomatic relations with the United States, a
bold move for a small Latin American country, but a
line had been crossed, and Panama refused to go back
to the status quo. For decades. The US had ignored
calls to renegotiate the Canal Treaty with Panama. The presidential
(48:34):
order to fly both flags at Canal Zone buildings was
supposed to smooth things over, but it backfired spectacularly. The
riots were a wake up call.
Speaker 9 (48:45):
It came to this point this had to happen, sadly,
where people lost lives, both Panamanian lives and also American lives,
and you also had all the physical destruction that accompanied
the riots, that this had to happen for the US
to react and think, Okay, we might need to do
(49:05):
something in Panama and try to not be the colonial
power that we are.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
The US government did come to the negotiating table and
through a long and arduous process, the Canal Zone Treaty
of nineteen oh three was replaced with a historic new agreement.
In nineteen seventy nine, the US dissolved the Canal Zone,
returning the contentious strip of land to Panama, and on
(49:32):
New Year's Eve in nineteen ninety nine, full control of
the Panama Canal was finally handed over to Panama. Historian
Maurice Alasso was ten years old when the Canal Zone
was finally opened to all Panamanians. She and her family
went for a picnic to a hilltop park that Panamanians
(49:54):
hadn't been able to access for seventy five years.
Speaker 7 (49:58):
I remember remiately the happiness around me, my family, happiness,
everybody so happy that finally we.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Could anchor in the Canal Zone.
Speaker 7 (50:10):
So this was a moment where people could go to places, parks,
to swim in certain beaches that you could not go before.
Every Panaminian family will have a different story of how
they entered the canal Zone in nineteen seventy nine, how
they fellow we're going back to this important piece of
(50:30):
our land.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
As Jim Jenkins said before, he wished things had gone
differently in January nineteen sixty four. He wished there were
two flagpoles outside the high school. He wished that his
Balboa classmate and the Panamanian kids could have kept cooler
heads and come to an agreement. When the Balboa High
(50:52):
flag protest blew up into an international incident, Jim's name
was all over the press. The situation became unbearable for
him in the Canal Zone, a seventeen year old kid
being blamed for a political firestorm. Jim left the Canal
Zone and went to live with a relative in Ohio.
(51:13):
He didn't get to graduate with the rest of the
Balboa High class of nineteen sixty four. Jim later joined
the military and has two master's degrees. Rumski Suker is
now doctor Suker, a physician with a successful practice in
Panama City. He's in his late seventies, but when he
talks about politics, he still sounds like the teenage firebrand
(51:37):
who marched into the canal zone with a hand painted
sign and a crazy plan. Today Panama is a sovereign nation.
The Canal Zone is no longer a country within a country,
just a parklike neighborhood in Panama City. Under Panama's management,
the Panama Canal has been humming along now for twenty
(51:58):
five years. Our historian Wendy Trabaldo's it never ceases to
amaze her that one of the most monumental geopolitical events
in Panama's history was set in motion by teenagers being teenagers.
Speaker 9 (52:14):
And you must understand teenagers, they are very much into.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Fighting for causes.
Speaker 9 (52:19):
And that's true yesterday and true today. They really believed
in each other causes. Even if you do not agree
with their position, whether Sonian position or with a Panemanian position,
you can understand why they were thinking, they were thinking
and why they were behaving the way they were behaving. Yeah,
you can see that teenagerism in both sides in different ways.
(52:44):
But yes, you can see a typical teenage behavior. I
guess into two separate mind frames, two separate nationalities, to
separate educational systems and way of looking at things. But yes,
still teenagers.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
How about that episode guys and I wanted to ask you,
do you have a favorite world flag?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Ooh, that's a good question. Flags. Were you a flag kid?
I was not a flag kid, but some kids love flags.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
No, but I had a neighbor who was who you
could show him a flag and he could tell you
even like the hardest ones. And he's the reason why
I have my favorite flag, which was the flag of Gibraltar.
It has this castle on it and then it sits
above this field of red, and then it has this
golden key kind of dangling from the gates of the castle,
which looks like it's almost like a zipper that you
could unzip the castle. It's one of the wildest flags
(53:33):
there is.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
I think I like the fun fact that Jamaica is
the only flag without red, white, or blue, and then
like Jamaica's flag is just green, yellow, and black. Yes,
so that's like a fun flag.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Fact, yes, that is I did not know that one.
The Isle of Man flag, Oh yes, looks to me
like three legs, yeah, like bent nye right, that's like
yea yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
I'm also from Chicago, and I feel like in terms
of a city with a flag, Chicago has a really
good one that just makes a lot of appearances like
maybe it is like I'm biased because I'm from Chicago,
but it is the only city with a flag that
personally I that is true.
Speaker 5 (54:11):
The same.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
So, in the past, we've done very special characters. Everyone's
always welcome to pick a very special character, but you
can also pick a very special moment. This year, we're
amending the rules who does a Zarin improvement for year three?
So does anyone have either a very special character or
a very special moment from this one?
Speaker 5 (54:32):
Well, I would say for me, the very special moment
obviously is that moment of peak conflict and Drama's when
the Panamanian high schoolers are marching to the Canal Zone
with their silken Panamanian flag, their eyes all filled with
ardor and like pride. I really love that. But then
there's obviously the question of was their flag torn up
and I've watched nineteen sixties like civil rights footage, so
(54:53):
I have to believe that there's a high likelihood that
the Americans did see that flag and rip it up.
So that was my favorite.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
That was kind of my instinct too, that people get heated.
I was going to say, if you asked about very
special characters, I was going to say that original Panamanian flag.
It sounds beautiful.
Speaker 5 (55:10):
Yeah, it doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
I could put this in either category special character or
a special moment. If we're going special character, I want
to add historian Marisa Lasso, who I like. How we
do this often here where we'll have an expert historian
and then they become part of the story. They kind
of crawl into the script and we get more of
them in the third act. And so her talking about
(55:33):
being ten and being able to go into the canal
zone for the first time, that was a very nice scene.
Speaker 5 (55:40):
Also, I'd never heard the term Zonians for people in
the canal Zone. I love that it sounds like a
sci fi name of off world people. It's like something
from like Alien Earth.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
Yeah, it does. Zonians.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Now, if you are new to this show, what we
do here at the end, we have an in house
casting director Zarin, and we like to say these episodes
often like this should be a movie, and Zaren takes
it one step further and says, who should be in
that movie? Did you cast any of the key roles
in this one?
Speaker 4 (56:10):
I did.
Speaker 5 (56:11):
And starting with the historic figure of Teddy Roosevelt who
gives us the Panama Canal, I thought Andy Cirkis but
with false teeth.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Whoo, that's interesting because Andy Serkis is sort of like
a small guy, and I feel like people always think
of Teddy Roosevelt as a big guy, but I'm like
he can rise to the challengel totally.
Speaker 5 (56:27):
Thank you, thank you for seeing it. And then for
Jim Jenkins, the American who's on the side of the
Zonians Alex Lothor, who if you don't know him, he's
the principled rebel kid from the Andor the series. He's
the one who gives all the speeches about fascism. I
thought he had just the right earnest energy because I
did believe Jim Jenkins, like you know, meant well when
he was telling the story and recounting events. And then
(56:47):
for Rimsky Sukra that I thought, uh, there's this kid,
Justice Smith. He's a Latin kid from Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom,
and I think he'd be perfect. He also has that
same kind of like earnestness. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Actual casting directors take notes. Zaren' stune the work for you.
Speaker 5 (57:03):
Yes, it's right there.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Dave Rus. Our
senior producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sam design by
Chris Childs. Additional editing by Mary Doo, Mixing and mastering
(57:27):
by Chris Childs. Original music by Elise McCoy. Research and
fact checking by Dave Rus and Austin Thompson. Show logo
by Lucy Kintonia special thanks to our voice actors Chris
Childs and Josh Fisher. I am your executive producer. We'll
see you back here next Wednesday. If you'd like to
email the show could reach us at Very Special Episodes
(57:47):
at gmail dot com. Very Special Episodes is a production
of iHeart Podcasts.
Host
Bob Crawford
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