"The rise of the Afro-Cuban musical genre commonly known as son is representative
of Cuban society’s ability to affirm through art its primary cultural influences: Europe and Africa. Despite the successful transculturation within the music, however, the events surrounding the creation and acceptance of son reiterate the struggle between Cuban elites and the masses to define lo cubano. In this essay, I will show how the social and political conditions under which son became a representation of popular culture in Cuba served as a catalyst for the affirmation
of Cuba’s African roots, despite attempts on the part of the elite to exclude Afro-Cubans from establishing any connection to Cuban national identity." --The Author
Estimates the prevalence, persistence, treatment, and disability of depression. Finds that the chronicity of Major Depressive Disorder was higher for both black groups (56.5% for African Americans and 56.0% for Caribbean blacks) than for whites (38.6%)
Examined the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among Black Caribbean immigrant ("Caribbean Black") and African American populations and the correlates of psychiatric disorders among the Caribbean Black population
El artículo sostiene que la ideología nacionalista de armonía e igualdad racial -lo que los académicos contemporáneos han llamado el "mito de democracia racial"- surgió durante las guerras anticoloniales hispanoamericanas de principios del siglo XIX. Factores como la participación de los negros y mulatos en el ejército patriota, el miedo de la elite a la guerra de razas y la poderosa ideología nacionalista que surgió durante las guerras, llevaron a que las nuevas naciones hispanoamericanas "resolvieran" sus conflictos raciales con la creación de un mito nacionalista de armonía e igualdad racial. Este artículo examina el lado intelectual e ideológico de este proceso. A lo largo del texto la autora narra cómo en las Cortes Constitucionales de Cádiz se negó la ciudadanía a los afro-descendientes y cómo, como resultado de estos debates y de la movilización de patriotas negros y mulatos, el discurso patriota empezó a equiparar los derechos de los pardos con la lucha en contra del sistema colonial y el patriotismo con la armonía racial. Es así como se forja una nueva y poderosa ideología nacionalista que afectará las relaciones raciales de los próximos dos siglos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR];
The article reviews several books including The Potbellied Virgin, by Alicia Yáñez Cossío, A Taco Testimony, by Denise Chávez and Dancing to Almendra, by Mayra Montero.;
Las mujeres negras y mulatas de La Habana de las décadas de 1830 y 1840 "negociaron" su lugar en la sociedad Habanera. Ellas negociaron su inserción en todos los espacios de la ciudad, desde los públicos, como los espacios de la ley, hasta los más íntimos, como los espacios que forjaron con su propia sexualidad. En gran parte estas negociaciones estuvieron enmarcadas dentro de su papel decisivo como agentes mediadoras entre negros y blancos: como esposas, amantes, maestras, nodrizas, cuidanderas y sirvientas, pero también como dueñas de propiedad, empresarias y perseguidoras de sus propias causas legales. Ellas negociaron su participación social y económica en la ciudad a través de sus prácticas diarias, a menudo al margen de reglas urbanas y de tradiciones sociales. Estas prácticas estuvieron en tenso y continuo diálogo con los discursos de las elites modernizadoras tanto criollas como peninsulares. Tales reformadores, que consideraron la creciente participación de estas mujeres en la vida diaria como uno de los aspectos más desordenados de la ciudad, desarrollaron fuertes discursos de orden social y reformas urbanas con el propósito de disciplinar la ciudad en crecimiento. Muchos de estos discursos estuvieron orientados a establecer límites sociales y raciales más claramente delineados (y racionalizados) que trataran de contener, si no las actividades mismas de estas mujeres, por lo menos su influencia en la población capitalina. Fue en este diálogo, siempre desigual y muchas veces violento, que se fue dibujando la geografía moderna de La Habana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR];
his essay reads Madison Smartt Bell's Haitian trilogy in the context of contemporary Haitian literature, and considers why Haitian writers have tended not to evoke the revolution in their work, and why it is an American author has produced the most ambitious work of Haitian historical fiction of recent times.;
The article focuses on the African words included in Puerto Rico's version of the Spanish language. Prominently inscribed on a first-floor wall of the Museum of Our African Roots in Old San Juan, these words illustrate the pivotal role that African immigrants have played over the last five centuries in the social and cultural development of this onetime Spanish colony in the Greater Antilles. First-floor rooms are dedicated, in part, to African geography and social history and culture;
Diferentes países latinoaméricanos, Colombia incluida, han declarado ser naciones multiculturales. En el proceso, estos han reestructurado los derechos legales de acuerdo con líneas de distinción cultural, y han proveído a los grupos étnicos con derechos especiales bajo nuevas constituciones políticas. Una dimensión crucial de este cambio legal ha sido la consagración de una cierta conceptualización de etnicidad. En este artículo la autora se concentra en los procesos que permiten y que también limitan la pertenencia étnica en Colombia, para comprender el concepto de indigeneidad sobre el cual dichos nuevos ideas de etnicidad están basados. Examina el uso de ideas específicas de indigeneidad en un conflicto territorial entre comunidades indígenas y negras en los Andes, y también el fallo de la Corte Constitucional de la Tutela 422 de 1996, caso en el que se trata de los derechos de los afro-colombianos. Estos ejemplos muestran cómo en Colombia ciertas ideas locales y globales de indigeneidad establecen quién pertenece a un grupo étnico y quién está incluido en un grupo racial. Además, estos dos casos demuestran el papel trascendental que tiene el territorio en la construcción de los conceptos de indigeneidad y de grupo étnico. palabras claves: indigeneidad, Colombia, territorio, raza, etnia.;
"The political discourse surrounding the terms postcolonial, post-colonial or Post Colonial is one that tries to define the experiences and the quality of life that former colonies share. Do the colonies that speak the same language share a common experience that differs from colonies that do not share that language? Did the colonies that speak one of the European languages such as French, Spanish or Dutch inherited from their colonizers experience a colonization that is in any way different from the colonies of the British Empire? If not what are the commonalities?";
"Transgression and taboo which have a symbolic meaning in Caribbean societies are used in one of her short stories, “De sueur, de sucre et de sang” to articulate a social and feminist discourse. She uses the highly symbolic figure of the Nègre marron and ideology of marronnage to create a marronnage en abîme that has an aesthetic and ideological significance.
Author argues that both processes of fixity and fluidity characterize contemporary racialization and resistance to such racialization in Modern Latin America just as they did during the conquist.;
Este artículo examina los problemas encontrados por un programa estatal sobre multiculturalismo afro-indígena en Perú dentro del marco de la historia intelectual de la nación, sus regiones, y las ideologías que las gobiernan. En vez de presentar un recuento comparativo sobre las políticas aplicadas a afro-descendientes e indígenas a nivel regional Latinoamericano enfatizando "raza" versus "cultura", el autor sostiene que se debe prestar más atención a las formas en las que el multiculturalismo afro-indígena se "peruaniza" en el proceso de la expansión global/regional. El caso peruano es particularmente interesante por la forma en la que el Estado separa sus sujetos multiculturales por región (reconociendo los Andinos, Amazónicos, y Afro Peruanos que son implícitamente de la costa). También analiza cómo la larga fascinación de la nación con la figura del Inca permite que los Andinos tengan un estatus de elite indígena dentro de la imaginación multicultural. La influencia histórica de lo que el autor llama el "espacio Inca" sugiere posibilidades para poder comparar todos aquellos sujetos definidos como no Andinos/no Incas, y particularmente para los Afro-Peruanos e indígenas amazónicos en este contexto.;
Amy Beckford Bailey (1895–1990) was one of the politically engaged women present at the birth of the Jamaican nation in the 1930s and 1940s. Although she is widely known in Jamaica for her outstanding achievements as teacher, social worker, and feminist, what is less known is her large body of public writing. An examination of this writing broadens our sense of her accomplishments and enriches our understanding of this decisive period in the evolution of Jamaican and West Indian history, politics, and intellectual traditions.;
n this paper two gaps in North American immigrant homeownership research are addressed. The first concerns the lack of studies (especially in Canada) that identify changes in homeownership rates by skin color over time, and the second relates to the shortage of comparative research between Canada and the United States on this topic. In this paper the homeownership levels and attainment rates of Black, Chinese, Filipino, White, and South Asian immigrants are compared in Canada and the United States for 1970/1971–2000/2001. For the most part, greater similarities than differences are found between the two countries. Both Canadian and U.S. Chinese and White immigrants have the highest adjusted homeownership rates of all groups, at times even exceeding comparably positioned native-born households. Black immigrants, on the other hand, tend to have the lowest ownership rates of all groups, particularly in the United States, with Filipinos and South Asians situated between these extremes. Most of these differences stem from disparities that exist at arrival, however, and not from differential advancement into homeownershi [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR];
The critical importance of the artist to the anti-slavery agency of the enslaved, is observable in one verse of a song by the enslaved in the USA: Got one mind for the boss to see;Got another mind for what i know is me. The Jamaican expression for this thought is 'plie fuul fi kech wiz'. The philosophy of praxis which these two examples denote ,are rooted in an aesthetcism in which performance became a critically important modus operandi for Black agency during ,and indeed after slavery; The social being the enslaved described themselves to be having one mind for the slvaeholder to see and another mind for what they knew themselves to be , denotes a social being who consciously constructs a (feigned) personality out of the cultural and intellectual fabric of white supremacy to protect and to mask the real personality and intentions of the enslaved through performance rituals of flattery, mimicry and deception and other forms of creative improvisational socio-political acts of becoming.;
Our understanding of multiracial unity needs to go beyond notions of cultural and group rights, to embrace the challenges such unity has posed to the postcolonial status quo in the Anglophone Caribbean. The active creation of multiracial unity in specific political struggles has had a liberatory impact, but we also need to go beyond this to look at it vis-à-vis human relations more generally.
Discusses the issue of slavery experienced by the Blacks in Latin America. He explores the slave life experienced by the Black community as well as examines the role of gender, culture and ethnicity in evaluating the narrative of slavery and freedom in the country.
The author says that there is a well-kept secret in the Caribbean, the literature that is produced in the islands where English is the dominant language. Due to the limited knowledge about the region, many readers in the U.S. know little about this body of work. According to Caribbean scholar Jorge Emilio Rodriquez, it occurs because literature from the Hispanic Caribbean has dominated scholarship and academia in the U.S., placing the Anglophone territories in a corner.
Examines the relationship between the national economic policy orientation of structural adjustment and political, economic and cultural attitudes of elites in Guyana. The article asserts that the material and ideological interests of elites is highly correlated to the structural adjustment program of the government. The article also establishes the links between the elites' interest and the decision making apparatus of the state.
Investigates the Islamic heritage of the Maroon societies in Jamaica and the Islamic nature of the Baptist Rebellion which brought an end to slavery in Jamaica and in the British West Indies. The Maroons are the enslaved Muslims who took flight or ran away from plantations in Jamaica. An overview of the African diaspora in the Americas, including Jamaica and the West Indies is presented. The strong Islamic faith of the Maroons are manifested in their use of Qur'anic terms, Islamic salutation, Islamic governance, Muslim names and Islamic actions.
Unplanned housing developments in vulnerable communities on steep tropical and subtropical hillslopes in many developing countries pose major problems. The authors present a new low-cost, community-based approach to landslide risk reduction and report on the successful pilot undertaken in the Skate Town community, Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies.
Argues that even in an era of technological innovation and financial sophistication, the basic mobilization and use of society's savings remains the paramount role of the financial sector. In fulfilling this role, different types of financial institutions, with diverse areas of specialization and operational modalities, have distinct relative advantages. The performance of Jamaican financial institutions in fulfilling the basic facets of intermediation is compared, and areas in which particular types of financial institutions have exhibited higher standards of performance relative to the rest of the sector are highlighted.
El artículo estudia el proceso histórico mediante el cual la música y la danza provenientes de África y Europa se mezclaron en los llamados "ritmos nacionales", configurando las identidades nacionales en América Latina. Este proceso implicó en cada país complejas negociaciones en asuntos de raza, etnicidad, género y clase social. A manera de ejemplo, el autor profundiza en el ritmo nacional conocido como el candombe uruguayo, pieza central del Carnaval anual de Montevideo desde mediados de 1800. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR];
Discusses the problems of social exclusion and environmental problems. Also mentions the merits of the community policing and its role in "engaging and empowering communities."
This articles deals with the importance of the Sandinista Revolution and critiques the Latin American's "class-based radical movement." The author as well speaks about events that contradicts Nicaraguan mestizo representations of Creoles as "political passive subjects."
Scholars of Cuba have long linked Afro-Cubans' fate to the revolutionary government. As the government's influence on people's daily lives has declined over the past decade, the question arises of whether Afro-Cubans have sustained the gains they achieved in the revolution's first 30 years. This article uses survey data, collected in December 2000 from 334 Cuban families in Havana, to assess the impact of the post-1993 economic reforms on rising racial inequality in Cuba. It asks whether racial inequities Occur in accessing dollars through state employment, self-employment, or remittances, and whether educational gains are tied to higher income. Results indicate that the structural means through which racial discrimination was once virtually eliminated through equal access to education and employment, and through which income levels became equalized according to educational level regardless of racial group, has lost its equalizing force in contemporary Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR];
This essay examines public discussions around skin bleaching in Jamaica and demonstrates that a discourse of pathology is a dominant frame of meaning used to explain this practice. I argue that the practice of bleaching destabilizes popular conceptions of blackness that rely on an understanding of the body as immutable and naturally marked by race. Depicting skin bleaching as pathological attempts to recenter hegemonic conceptions of blackness and to discipline bodies so that they adhere to them.;
Analyzing the ongoing problem of Caribbean racial exploitation, particularly fear signified through one of the most potent Caribbean symbols, dreadlocks, I argue that Medusa's alterity is altered by Rastafarians' snake-like hair, but the transformative power of Rasta dreadlocks is contested through certain cinematic depictions of dread.;
This article uses 1993 data from the Trinidad and Tobago Continuous Sample Survey of the Population to investigate patterns of remuneration across its public and private sectors. Findings highlight the possibility that the government is using its ability to pay its workers differentially in order to offset private sector ethnic and gender discrimination. Hence, the current move towards privatization of nationalized industries in Trinidad and Tobago is likely to have the impact of increasing ethnic and gender earnings inequity.
