{"product_id":"the-silver-women-how-black-womens-labor-made-the-panama-canal-politics-and-culture-in-modern-america","title":"The Silver Women: How Black Womens Labor Made the Panama Canal (Politics and Culture in Modern America)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe construction of the Panama Canal is typically viewed as a marvel of American ingenuity. What is less visible  and less understood  is the projects dependence on the labor of Black migrant women. The Silver Women shifts the focus of this monumental endeavor to the West Indian women who travelled to Panama  inviting readers to place womens intimate lives  choices  grief  and ambition at the center of the economic and geopolitical transformation created by the construction of the Panama Canal and U.S. imperial expansion.  Joan Flores-Villalobos argues that Black West Indian women made the canal construction possible by providing the indispensable everyday labor of social reproduction. West Indian women built a provisioning economy that fed  housed  and cared for the segregated Black West Indian labor force  in effect subsidizing the construction effort and the racial calculus that separated pay in silver for Black workers and gold for white Americans. But while also subject to racial discrimination and segregation  West Indian women mostly worked outside the umbrella of U.S. canal authorities. They did not hold contracts  had little access to official services and wages  and received pay in both silver and gold. From this position  they found ways to skirt  and at times subvert  the legal  moral  and economic parameters imperial authorities sought to impose on the migrant workforce. West Indian women developed important strategies of claims-making  kinship  community building  and market adaptation that helped them navigate the contradictions and violence of U.S. empire. In the meantime  these strategies of social reproduction nurtured further West Indian migrations  linking Panama to places like Harlem and Santiago de Cuba.  The Silver Women is thus a history of Black womens labor of social reproduction as integral to U.S. imperial infrastructure  the global Caribbean diaspora  and womens own survival.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946474238005,"sku":"ByrdShop_1512823635","price":114.32,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781512823639.jpg?v=1769951420","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-silver-women-how-black-womens-labor-made-the-panama-canal-politics-and-culture-in-modern-america","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}