BOX 25 | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation

When acclaimed labor historian Julie Greene researched her book The Canal Builders, which went on to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, she explored a cache of first-person essays written in 1963 by the Afro-Caribbean people, mainly Jamaican and Barbadian, who migrated to the Isthmus of Panama to work as diggers, track shifters, or domestic servants in the Canal Zone. Held at the Library of Congress and stored in Box 25 of the Isthmian Historical Society Collection, the essays constitute the best primary source in existence on Caribbean workers' experiences during the construction project.

Now Greene returns to this fascinating archive, and in this book, shares what it was like to be a migrant laborer on the construction of the Panama Canal. Caribbean workers faced life-threatening illnesses, accidents, racial discrimination, and culture clashes as well as opportunities to materially improve their lives. Greene offers new details on the strategies of the people who built the canal and examines how colonialism, xenophobia, and racism shaped the process of writing and archiving the testimonies into Box 25.

Julie Greene is joining us on the Busboys stage to talk about why understanding the history of Box 25 is so important right now and dive deeper into this “seemingly mundane and long-buried archive.. just as its subjects dug down mountains to create the Panama Canal” (Olive Senior, author of Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal). Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Greene will be signing following the program.

This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 5:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of BOX 25 will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed. 

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Julie Greene is a historian of labor, race, and global migration. She teaches at the University of Maryland, College Park, and is the author of The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal (Penguin Press, 2009).

Host or Publisher Busboys and Poets