The Afro-Antillean Museum in Panama City, Panama

Atlas Obscura highlights Panama City's Afro-Antillean Museum, which centers on a chapel built by Caribbean immigrant workers. When the Panama Canal was under construction, hundreds of thousands of workers from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands were brought in and housed in minimal wooden structures on the city's outskirts—shacks raised on posts with communal bathrooms and zinc roofs. During their free time, those workers built the Cristian Mission Chapel from nineteen oh-nine to nineteen ten. The chapel became the spiritual center of their community, hosting services, weddings, and baptisms, even as workers faced post-canal deportation and campaigns to erase their culture. The museum now preserves their story of resilience and eventual recognition.

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