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