Panama and the 'Purple Heart Battalion'

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Joan Flores-Villalobos, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Southern California, and author of The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal.

First, we hear from a man involved in the handover of the canal from the United States to Panama in 1999. Then, DJ and singer Leonardo Renato Aulder explains how the canal led to the creation of Reggaeton music.

Next we go to Cuba. An old comrade of Fidel Castro recounts the violent start of the Cuban revolution in 1953. And a member of the Obama administration explains how he negotiated better US-Cuba relations in 2014.

Finally, the story of the 442nd US military regiment, made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans, that earned more than 4,000 Purple Heart medals for extraordinary heroism during World War Two.

Contributors: Alberto Aleman Zubieta - Panama Canal administrator. Leonardo Renato Aulder - Reggaeton singer and DJ. Joan Flores-Villalobos - Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California. Agustín Díaz Cartaya - Cuban revolutionary. Ben Rhodes - Speechwriter for US President Barack Obama. Clyde Kusatsu - son of 442nd Regiment veteran.

(Photo: World War Two veterans from the highly decorated 442nd Regiment in 2015. Credit: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)