Discussion of the books Caribbean currents: Caribbean music from rumba to reggae (1995), by Peter Manuel, with Kenneth Bilby and Michael Largey; Bachata: a social history of a Dominican popular music (1995), by Deborah Pacini Hernández; and Merengue: Dominican music and Dominican identity (1995), by Paul Austerlitz.
Discusses the deportation of foreign-born youth with criminal convictions to Haiti, other Caribbean countries, and Central America, based on 1996 laws allowing the US Immigration and Naturalization Service to deny due process to non-citizens.
"Dutch Caribbean literature--that is literature written by Caribbean authors in Dutch--is written in Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and the Netherlands. So far, this literature has been reviewed from separate, national points of view. It is true that the countries differ. For centuries, Suriname was an agricultural and plantation economy; the Antilles flourished through trade. Suriname became independent in 1975, while the islands chose to remain part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This article seeks to transcend borders and opposites to approach this four century-old literature as the expression of a common Caribbean culture, a unity." --The Author
Examines the role of abolitionist and feminist ideals in Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's novel Sab. Highlights the power and gender relations in Sab, suggesting that previous interpretations of the novel have not addressed the role of these relations as a function of race relations in the slave colony of Cuba. Discusses the themes of interracial relationships and personal identity.;
Studies of racial subordination in Brazil usually stress the puzzling co-existence of racial inequality with Brazil's self image as a racial democracy. Frequently, they identify the absence of racial conflict and a clear white black distinction as explanations for the low level of black political mobilization. In doing this, these studies unreflectedly take the United Sates as a universal model of racial subordination of which Brazilian difference is a mere variation.
