Blacks and Latinos have numerous historical connections. The moors of North Africa occupied Spain from about 700-1400 A.D., about the time of the Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Additionally, the slave trade which began with [Henry Louis Gates] the Navigator flourished from the 1440s, taking Africans into Portugal and Spain as servants. Many conquistadors of the New World brought with them free men of African ancestry. Finally, the Transatlantic Slave Trade sealed Afro-Hispanic connections as slaves intermingled voluntarily and involuntarily with their captors, creating variations in our color palate. Thus, our connections are longstanding. My point is that the African Diaspora experience, as was evidenced on Oscar night, is diverse and includes influences of blacks in Europe, Africa and all the Americas and the Caribbean. There are strands of the Diaspora in the Middle East, including Arab nations, and in places as unlikely as Mexico and China. So, blacks in America must begin to embrace our global heritage and we must also learn that our experiences are not superior but mere pieces of a wider tapestry of "colors." All are worth celebrating, researching and understanding. We are one great people cast to the winds by emigration and immigration, historical slavery, war, racial mixing and chance.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
344 p., Essays that reopen the concept of possession in order to examine the relationship between African religions in the Atlantic and the economies that have historically shaped--and continue to shape--the cultures that practice them. Exploring the way spirit possessions were framed both by material things--including plantations, the Catholic church, the sea, and the phonograph--as well as by the legacy of slavery, they offer a powerful new way of understanding the Atlantic world.
Willaarts,Bárbara A. (Editor), Garrido,Alberto (Editor), and Llamas, Manuel Ramón (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
2014
Published:
Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
432 p., Provides an analytical and facts-based overview on the progress achieved in water security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region over during the last decade, and its links to regional development, food security and human well-being. Focuses on four key themes: setting out the background to water, nature and food in the region; drivers of changing conditions; pressures and challenges; and responses and enabling conditions."
