Basketball, Empire, and the Price of the Dream
In this talk, Javier Wallace, author of Basketball Trafficking: Stolen Black Panamanian Dreams, uses basketball to examine race, empire, and migration in the Americas. Focusing on Panama, he shows how the sport took root in Black communities shaped by U.S. imperial presence in the United States Panama Canal Zone. In the Canal Zone, sport became both a site of connection and one of the few avenues for national representation. As basketball has globalized, these racial dynamics have not disappeared. They have evolved.
Today, young Black athletes from Panama and the Global South are pushed to migrate to the United States, often entering poorly regulated systems that expose them to legal uncertainty, discrimination, and exploitation. Drawing from real stories, Wallace reframes basketball as more than a game. He will share how basketball can be a lens into how power, race, and immigration shape whose dreams are supported and whose are put at risk.
Monday, April 13, 2026
3:50 PM to 5:10 PM