White Supremacy, White Knowledge, and Anti-West Indian Discourse in Panama: Olmedo Alfaro’s El peligro antillano en la América Central

This article provides a comparative analysis of Olmedo Alfaro’s El peligro antillano en la América Central: La defensa de la raza (1925) that situates the work within a transnational discursive and literary tradition. Examining the rhetorical and narrative strategies Alfaro employs to demonize West Indian immigrants in Central America, the study uncovers the location of white knowledge and the manifestations of an epistemology of disavowal within the work. Whereas Alfaro places racism outside of Panamanian borders and history, this essay illustrates the author’s commitment to global politics of racial domination. It shows that El peligro antillano is a testimony to the historical presence and endurance of a transnational white supremacist discourse linking Latin America, the United States, and Europe; the pan-white economic, political, and symbolic interests that shape it; and a long history of enforcing colorblindness in white supremacist literature.