Black In Latin America, premiering nationally Tuesdays April 19, 26 and May 3, 10, 2011, at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings), examines how Africa and Europe came together to create the rich cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin America is often associated with music, monuments and sun, but each of the six countries featured in Black in Latin America including Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico and Peru, has a secret history. On his journey, Professor Gates discovers, behind a shared legacy of colonialism and slavery, vivid stories and people marked by African roots.
Despite their great numbers, the cultural and social worlds that they created remain largely unknown to most Americans, except for certain popular, cross-over musical forms. [Henry Louis Gates, Jr.] sets out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how the countries 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, Professor Gates unveils the history of the African presence in the countries through art, music, cuisine, dance, politics and religion, but also through the presence of anti-black racism that has sometimes sought to keep the black cultural presence from view.
This spring, Professor [Henry Louis Gates Jr.] returns to PBS with "Black in Latin America," a new four-part, four hour series. Focusing on six Latin American countries - Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico and Peru - the series explores the influence of the African diaspora on Latin America. On his journey. Gates discovers a shared legacy of colonialism, slavery and people marked by African roots. In his new series. Gates sets out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how their countries acknowledge - or deny - their African past.
"Black in Latin America" (NYU Press), by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: This spring, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. produced a four-episode series for PBS tracing the legacy of the slave trade in six Caribbean and Latin American countries. "Black in Latin America" is the book companion to the television series of the same title.
President Obama eventually intervened to defuse the tension by inviting both the professor and the arresting officer to the White House for a glass of beer by Rose Garden. Prior to the media circus surrounding that "Beer Summit," Dr. Gates was already well known as a tenured Professor at Harvard University, as well as director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research.
KW: Dr. Karanja Ajanaku, (executive editor of the Memphis Tri-State Defender, says: "You seem to be making the point that in the U.S., we are mostly unaware, substantively, of "blacks" in Latin America. Would you speak to how aware or unaware, substantively, "blacks" in Latin America are of African Americans? HLG: No, I didn't see any sign of that, because most of those folks' first identity is a national one, as a Brazilian or a Cuban, not as a black person. For instance, in the Dominican Republic episode, Juan Rodriguez says he never even thought of himself as black until he visited New York. One of the points of the series is that identity is a very complex and ever-shifting matter. We might think that these people are obviously black, but they might not identify themselves that way.