Discusses the oral and written life histories and other personal testimonies of African Americans. It clears up the realities behind invisible enclaves and spotlight of the immigrant's own history. Professor John H. McWhorter argues that modern America is the home to millions of immigrants who were born in Africa. He notes that their cultures and identities are separated between Africa and the U.S. However, his vision of an unencumbered, native-born black ownership of black is considered optimistic. Transnational identities of immigrants and their children are formed, negotiated and projected primarily within their experiences.
Within sectors of North America's African-American community, the colloquial expression "being touched by the brush" describes a multi-ethnic individual that possesses subtle Negroid physical features which are only detectable by close inspection by a "trained eye." Here, Edison discusses the historical factors in Puerto Rico and Panama that make up the foundation upon which Francisco Arrivi's "Los Vejigantes" and Carlos Guillermo Wilson's "Chombo" were constructed.;
Reviews several books regarding Cuban history which focused on the areas of race, identities, ideology and nationhood. Between Race and Empire: African-Americans and Cubans Before the Cuban Revolution, by Lisa Brock and Digna Castaneda; `El Directorio Central de las Sociedades Negras de Cuba, 1886-1894,'by Oilda Hevia Lanier; Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-1940, by Robin Moore.;