SURROUNDING THE PANAMA CANAL
They
live in
Panama with a
sort of
65
permanence, but nine out
of ten do not have families even those advanced in years. Peri
odically some of them take trips to Japan, though, if you watch
their business carefully, you know they could not possibly have
earned enough to pay for their passage. And those in the outly
ing districts don t even pretend to have a business. They just
sit and wait, without any visible means of
support. It is not until
you study
their locations, as in the Province of Chorrera, that
you
find they are in spots of strategic military or naval importance.
Since there were so many barbers in Panama, the need for an
occasional gathering without attracting too much attention be
came apparent. And so the little barber, A. Sonada, who shaves
and cuts hair at 45 Carlos A. Mendoza Street, organized a "labor
union,"
the Barbers
Association.
The
Association will not ac
cept barbers of other nationalities but will allow Japanese fish
ermen to attend meetings. They meet on the second floor of the
building at 58 Carlos A. Mendoza Street, where many of the
fishermen live. At their meetings one guard stands outside the
room and another downstairs
On
at the entrance to the building.
hot Sunday afternoons
when
the Barbers
Association
the diplomatic representatives of other nations are
usually taking a siesta or are down at the beach, but Tetsuo
Umimoto, the Japanese Consul, climbs the stairs in the stuffy
gathers,
atmosphere and
sits
in
on
the deliberations of the barbers
and
visiting fishermen. It is the only barbers union I ever heard of
whose deliberations were considered important enough for a
diplomatic representative to attend. This labor union has an
other extraordinary custom. It has a special fund to put com
petitors up in business. Whenever a Japanese arrives in Panama,
the Barbers Association opens a shop for him, buys the chairs-
provides him with everything necessary to compete with them for
the scarce trade in the shaving and shearing
industryl
At these meetings the barber Sonada, who is only a hired