Nancy Billings’s dissertation centers on the Chinese in Panama during the canal’s construction (1904-1914). While not formally contracted by the Isthmian Canal Commission, many Chinese resided in and around the greater Canal Zone and operated small businesses in the growing provisioning economy that emerged to sustain the expanding workforce. Her dissertation examines the history of Chinese labor as “provisioners” in the moving of goods, capital, labor, and ideas during this period that became both a condition of possibility for modern capitalism while simultaneously being erased, surveilled, and refused from both US and Panamanian political projects.

Nancy Billings is a PhD candidate in the American studies program at Yale University. Her research focuses on the hemispheric making of race, empire, and capitalism through an analysis of the Chinese on the Panama Canal during its construction. She earned her BA in American studies (high honors) and Hispanic literature and cultures from Wesleyan University in 2019.