the Caribbean, often from Barbados and Jamaica. American whites seeking work as laborers, which were almost entirely silver roll positions, were discouraged from applying. In the early days of the system, bosses could promote exceptional workers from silver to gold, but this practice soon ceased as race came to be the determining factor. As a result of the initial policy, there were several hundred skilled blacks and Southern Europeans on the gold roll. In November 1906, Chief Engineer John Stevens ordered that most blacks on the gold roll be placed on the silver roll instead (a few remained in such roles as teachers and postmasters); the following month, the Canal Commission reported that the 3,700 gold roll employees were "almost all white Americans" and the 13,000 silver roll workers were "mostly aliens". On February 8, 1908, President Roosevelt ordered that no further non-Americans be placed on the gold roll. After Panamanians objected, the gold roll was reopened to them in December 1908; however, efforts to remove blacks and non-Americans from the gold roll continued. Until 1918, when all employees began to be paid in US dollars, gold roll employees were paid in gold, in American currency, while their silver roll counterparts were paid in silver coin, initially Colombian pesos. Through the years of canal construction, silver roll workers were paid with coins from various nations; in several years, coin was imported from the United States because of local shortages. Even after 1918, both the designations and the disparity in privileges lingered. "Diasporization" in the Panama Canal Zone Until the end of World War II in 1945, the Panama Canal Zone operated under a Jim Crow society, where the category of "gold" represented white, U.S. workers and the title "silver" represented the non-white, non-U.S. workers on the Zone. There were even separate entrances for each group at the Post Office. After the strike of 1920, the Afro diasporic workers were banned from unionizing by the U.S. Canal officials. As a result, the Panama Canal West Indian Employees Association (PCWIEA) was created in 1924 to fill this vacuum of representation. The PCWIEA did not garner much support on the Canal Zone because of its restrictive membership policies and the haunting of the 1920 strike and its damaging consequences. However, in 1946, the PCWIEA summoned the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for representation and the establishment of a local union. In July of