Review also covers Whither Thou Goest -- Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country by Carl A. Brasseaux and others; and 'Who Set You Flowin'?' by Farah Jasmine Griffin
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
259 p, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. set out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how the countries of their acknowledge—or deny—their African past; how the fact of race and African ancestry play themselves out in the multicultural worlds of the Caribbean and Latin America. Starting with the slave experience and extending to the present, Gates unveils the history of the African presence in six Latin American countries—Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and Peru—through art, music, cuisine, dance, politics, and religion, but also the very palpable presence of anti-black racism.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
221 p., Chronicling the period from the abolition of slavery in 1888 to the start of Brazil's military regime in 1964, Romo uncovers how the state's nonwhite majority moved from being a source of embarrassment to being a critical component of Bahia's identity.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
365 p, Discussion of the experience of blackness and cultural difference, black political mobilization, and state responses to Afro-Latin activism throughout Latin America. Its thematic organization and holistic approach set it apart as the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of these populations and the issues they face currently available.
