Campaigning in 2007, Barack Obama promised to end restrictions on remittances and family travel to Cuba, resume "people-to-people" contracts, and engage Cuba on issues of mutual interest. As President, Obama has declared his desire to forge a new "equal partnership" with Latin America. Two months later, the 39th General Assembly of the Organization of American States voted to repeal the 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba fro its ranks.
Fischer reviews the two-volume work Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean: social dynamics and cultural transformations, by Norman E. Whitten Jr. and Arlene Torres>
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
"The contributions of a number of First and Third World scholars to the development of the anthropology of the African diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean have been elided from the core of the discipline as practiced in North America and Europe. As such, the anthropology of the African diaspora in the Americas can be traced to the paradigmatic debate on the origins of New World black cultures between Euro-American anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits and African American sociologist E. Franklin Frazier." (AR Journals Annual Reviews)
Discusses the reasons the customs of Africa are being steadily diluted in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Cuba, the centers of significant black minorities
Presents a structural perspective on poverty and inequality in Latin America. Incidence of poverty in the region; Absence of sign of improvements in income distribution in the area; Skewed distribution of wealth from the onset of colonization; Post independence distribution of land and mineral wealth; Skewed distribution of human capital.;
Guyana is often referred to in the literature as the "land of the six races", comprising East Indian, Blacks, Whites, Portuguese, Chinese and Amerindians. This diversity has attracted in the interest of many social science scholars who have labeled Guyana a "plural society". Here, Ramraj examines the aspects of the demographic history of Guyana and current demographic trends, and notes the changes in the ethnic composition of the country's population, and aspects of its spatial distribution especially in relation to the black population. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT];
Reviews several books on Cuban history before 1959. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean 1898-1934, by César Ayala; Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, by Ada Ferrer; Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba, by Rosalie Schwartz.;
A critical analysis of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s PBS documentary film series Black in Latin America. Explores how racial polemics are explicitly entangled with the politics of Revolution in Cuba. Adapted from the source document.
A critical analysis of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s PBS documentary film series Black in Latin America. The author discusses Gates' exploration of the history of early race mixture, the contemporary valorization of Blackness, and racial inequality in Brazil.
A critical analysis of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s PBS documentary film series Black in Latin America. The author discusses the conceptualization of blackness in the Dominican Republic.
A critical analysis of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s PBS documentary film series Black in Latin America. The authors examine Gates' presentation of blackness in Mexico and Peru. Their critique of the film focuses on the themes of national ideology, racial categorization, and portrayals of the 'black' experience.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Semiannual serial, A journal devoted to the scholarly exploration and study of cultural impact among the literary pursuits of Spanish, Portuguese, French, African and American peoples.
The article presents an examination into the history and influence of the Black community of Montevideo, Uruguay during the 19th and 20th centuries. Details are given noting how the African community of Montevideo became a powerful cultural and advocacy hub for the African diaspora in Latin America. Description is provided regarding the various racial identity issues which manifested themselves in the Uruguayan community during the period along with analysis of the means by which they were addressed such as African journalism, social institutionalism and other forms of cultural production.
Since July 4, 1991, a new constitution has allowed Colombians to exercise their citizenship by displaying cultural diversity rather than by concealing it as required by the previous political charter. Paradoxically, invisibility continues not only to impede full ethnic inclusion of Afro-Colombians but to aggravate ethnic asymmetries that, in turn, erode nonviolent coexistence among the black and Indian people who have shared portions of the Baudo River valley (Department of Choco) for at least 150 years.
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.
Argues that although evangelical Christianity involves a variety of beliefs that are incompatible with a strong ethnic identity, this religion also includes a range of ideas and practices that nourish rather than corrode black identity.
" While the black man's paintings or carvings were considered works of the Devil, music, on the other hand, did not cause much inconvenience. The plantation owners in Cuba, for example, allowed their slaves to beat their drums and dance every evening because this showed that they were in good health and that their "ebony flesh' was fit for hard labour. Meanwhile, the slaves listened to what they heard around them. During the sixteenth century, when they were first taken to America, they assimilated Spanish ballads, songs from Portugal and even French square dancing. They discovered musical instruments unknown in their own lands and learned to play them." --The Author
Article is concerned with the relations of Afro-Latin Americans to modes of production (slavery, capitalism, socialism), economic institutions (the plantation, transnational corporations), economic development models, transnational relations, political systems, institutions, behavior, group and class relations (including class struggle), social mobility, and political mobilization.
About a unique case of assimilation: the entry of descendants of nineteenth‐ and early‐twentieth‐century European immigrants to southern Brazil into Afro‐Brazilian religious groups, some as heads of their own centres. The discussion is placed within the framework of the contemporary multiculturalist debate over assimilation. The emigration of Europeans to rural southern Brazil is summarized. African slaves are shown to have been established ‐ with their syncretized Afro‐Catholic religions ‐ in the incipient urban centres. T
"The description of Negro family life in Bahia, Brazil, as given by E. F. Frazier is reviewed. The disintegration of African patterns held to have resulted from white contact, when analyzed in terms of aboriginal tribal family organization, particularly with reference to underlying sanctions, is found to exist to a very slight degree. The Afro-Bahian family manifests traits particular to it, but these are the results of accommodation to an acculturative situation, and are not a sign of demoralization." --The Author
Explores the challenges that Afro-descendants face when trying to claim collective rights in Latin America, focusing specifically on the kinds of collective rights and modes of justification of such rights open to Afro-descendant movements in Latin America today.
When Ernesto Estupinan Quintero was elected mayor of the city of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, in 2000, he was the first self-identifying Black person to reach this position. The city of Esmeraldas is the capital of the only province of the nation where Afro-Ecuadorians are the largest racial and cultural group. Immediately upon his election, Ernesto began commissioning murals and statues that contested traditional representations of Blackness.
