ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A neighborhood called El Chorrillo, where you find sparkling new buildings used for Airbnbs alongside crumbling old structures - some of which have bullet holes in them from the time that the Americans invaded this neighborhood and turned it to rubble in 1989.
EFRAIN GUERRERO: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: "They hid us under the bed," says Efrain Guerrero (ph). He was only 5 years old then, but he says he still remembers what the U.S. called Operation Just Cause, when thousands of American troops came to his neighborhood in Panama 35 years ago. In this archival footage, which contains the sound of gunfire, you see families running from bullets, U.S. tanks rolling in the streets. President George H.W. Bush announced the goal - to oust Panama's dictator, a drug lord named Manuel Noriega.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GEORGE H W BUSH: To safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaty.
SHAPIRO: Today, another U.S. president is focused on this place. Panama is the only foreign country besides China that President Trump talked about in his inauguration speech. Speaking about the Panama Canal, Trump said, we're taking it back. The new Secretary of State Marco Rubio was here today. We'll hear more about his visit in another part of the program.
And the boy who hid under the bed from American troops when he was 5 is now a slim, tattooed man who leads walking tours through the neighborhood where he grew up, El Chorrillo.
What does this neighborhood mean to you? Why is this neighborhood so important to you?
GUERRERO: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: "For me, this is where you find Panamanian identity," Efrain Guerrero says. He calls his tour an immersive museum. At street corners, he pulls up images on his tablet, photos that show the same intersection 35 years ago with U.S. troops in the streets or buildings on fire. As we walk, we pass murals depicting the assault. There's recent graffiti that says, I don't forgive, and I won't forget. An older man named Samuel Ricaurte Castaneda joins us. He was 25 when the U.S. invaded.
SAMUEL RICAURTE CASTANEDA: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: "I'll never forget the sound of the bullets detonating right here," he says.
CASTANEDA: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: He adds, "all of El Chorrillo was practically destroyed."
So today, when you hear Trump talk about taking the Panama Canal, what goes through your head?
He pauses for a moment, and then his weathered face crumples.
CASTANEDA: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: "I would defend my country," he says. "I don't want this to happen again. With all my heart, I don't want this to happen again. This is so sad. I would give my life for Panama. I don't want to, but since your president is kind of crazy, it could happen."
Now, to be clear, President Trump has not said he intends to attack Panama. When a reporter asked a few weeks ago whether he'd consider using the military to take back the canal, Trump said this...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm not going to commit to that now. It might be that you'll have to do something.
SHAPIRO: Experts we talked to all said the U.S. is very unlikely to seek out a violent conflict with Panama. But to people living here who survived one American invasion already, those assurances aren't much comfort. Julissa Jaramillo remembers what the grown-ups told her when she was 16 years old.
JULISSA JARAMILLO: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: "They kept telling us the wolf is coming. The wolf is coming," she says. Today, she sits in her tidy apartment, her silver hair in a bob. She says, Operation Just Cause was a dividing line in her life. There was a before and an after. She considers it a massacre.
JARAMILLO: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: "They say it was a just cause. It was not a just cause," she says. "They say it was an intervention, but it was an invasion."
And so today, have you paid attention to the things that Trump says?
JARAMILLO: (Laughter, non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: You laugh.
JARAMILLO: (Non-English language spoken)>
SHAPIRO: She says, "he's Lucifer. The Panamanians are caught between China and the U.S. We're in the middle of this fight, and since we have the canal, we end up caught between these two titans."
While older people in this neighborhood still feel the trauma of what they lived through, a younger generation has also taken up the duty of remembering.
ISA ASHAW: Like, it has been, like, so surprising to hear Trump taking over the canal. That was something that we weren't expecting, you know, in our 2025 Bingo card.
SHAPIRO: Isa Ashaw is about to turn 22. And a couple of days before we met him, he got a new tattoo - two words in fine black capital letters, one below each collarbone.
ASHAW: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: (Non-English language spoken). Never forget.
ASHAW: And it's important for me to - for everybody, to also not to forget what happened, not to forget who we are, not to forget things like we fought for the canal, and now they want to take the canal back.
SHAPIRO: And there's something else he wants people to remember. While Operation Just Cause lasted only a few days, killing hundreds of Panamanians and more than 20 U.S. soldiers, the troops that came to this neighborhood 35 years ago did not capture Manuel Noriega in the assault. He slipped out of the neighborhood and took shelter in the Vatican embassy. On January 3, 1990, he surrendered to U.S. forces two weeks after the invasion of El Chorrillo. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
