During this so-called era of progress, the ideas of barbarism and civilization prevailed, and the Central American states erased all traces of their Afrodescendent history. The states ceased using census categories that recorded the ethno-racial diversity within their population, thus creating a fantasy of egalitarian societies. On the ground, the different populations were separated according to residential area and access to rights, while the collective memory of their history was being erased.  
In the twentieth century, the migratory policies went beyond the official historical discourse that defined the Central American society as 'white' or 'mestizo' by minimalizing the indigenous populations' role and denying the Africans' contribution. At the same time, governments began to pass restrictive laws against immigrants, designing a legal structure to impede migration and to categorize populations according to their proximity to Caucasian cultures. Central American governments started with Asians and people from the Middle East. In 1897, El Salvador prohibited entry to all Chinese people, and then laws were passed to restrict the entry of Arabs, Malaysians, Libyans, Turks, Gypsies, Syrians and Palestinians. Costa Rica prohibited entry to Chinese people in 1897, and in 1904 to Arabs, Turks, Syrians, Armenians and Gypsies. In 1904, Panama prohibited the immigration of Chinese, Turks and Syrians, and in 1912 it prohibited the entry of Coolies (Putnam, 2010).  
According to Euraque (2004) and Putnam (2010), it was in the 1920s that the region produced anti-black laws that prohibited the entry of Afrodescendent immigrants and limited their ability to be hired, even when they had been born in Central America to immigrant parents. In Honduras, in 1929, the blacks were added to the list of 'restricted races' and in the following decade a new law was passed that prohibited the entry of Coolies, Gypsies and Chinese. In Panama,