FINISHED: 
Engle, Margarita. (2014). Silver people: Voices from the Panama Canal. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

[The blatant racism and horrific conditions surrounding the monstrous undertaking of the construction of the Panama Canal is told through the voices of characters such as Mateo, a 14-year-old Cuban who lies about his age in order to be able to work on the project; Anita, a young, female herb collector/seller; Henry, a Jamaican hoping to send money back home; and various U.S. historical figures such as U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (“All around me, workers with shovels / are making the mud fly, the white / Americans supervising while black / islanders dig, on hillsides / so steep / and unstable / that it would be a real / waste to risk wrecking / valuable / machines”).  Engle’s devastating free-verse novel eloquently lays out the racial injustice between the whites and Europeans (paid in gold and referred to as “gold people”) who acted in more supervisory capacities, and those of color (paid in silver, they became known as the “silver people”) who had to not only deal with deplorable and dangerous working conditions, but also segregation and horribly inadequate living conditions.  Especially compelling are sections containing poems from the voices of the jungle flora and fauna who also had to endure this environmentally disruptive project, with howler monkeys stating, in all caps, “WE HATE YOUR BOOM / WE FEAR YOUR BLAST / WE ROAR OUR FURY / GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY,” and trees lamenting “but our only movement / is growth / less / and less / growth / after each sunrise / of dynamite explosions / and sharpened blades / of the ruthless / ax.”  There is hope, though, as Henry and Mateo become friends (“Then we sit / together, / medium-dark / and dark-dark, / as if / the bizarre / Canal Zone rules / did not / matter. / They don’t.”), and Mateo and Anita marry.  In the Epilogue, a letter written from a character attending the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, mentions that though there is plenty hailing this new “man-made Wonder of the World,” no mention whatsoever is made of the “silver people” and what they endured. “No one cares because no one knows,” he writes. Well, thanks to Engle’s elegant and affecting novel, more will now know.  Included are a Historical Note and Selected References.]


STARTED:
Sedgwick, Marcus. (2014). She is not invisible. New York: Roaring Brook/Macmillan.

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