| Sumario: | The article examines particularly Panamanian attitudes toward the fifty thousand Negroes of West Indian birth or ancestry, the group to which Panamanians refer when they speak of a "race problem." The typical Panamanian attitude toward this group is at present a non violent antipathy, with extremes of repulsion and of easy-going tolerance. Prejudice against the West Indians is not part and parcel of a historic race conflict, as in some countries, nor is it held indiscriminately against all blacks. Panamanian prejudice against the West Indians arises because of competition, real or imagined, in an economy dominated by white Americans on the Canal Zone. The rejection of the West Indians is not based primarily on biological grounds, though it is rationalized in terms of physical differences. This Prejudice is not a function of class differences, though it is sometimes rationalized in terms of class. The chief basis for prejudice against the West Indians is cultural difference. As the cultural visibility of the West Indians declines, prejudice against them as a group is declining. There are indications that the dominance of Americans in Isthmian economy is giving new weight in Panamanian minds to biological characteristics.
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