"We're trying to work in compliance with the principles of Durban," Judge [Graciela Dixon], the current president of Panama's Supreme Court, said. "There's an emphasis on establishing the precise policies our countries need to assure inclusion for African descendants in Latin America." Late last year, Congresswoman Campbell hosted some 75 delegates from 20 countries who came to Costa Rica to attend the third Conference of Afro-Descendant Legislators in the Americas and the Caribbean. "I don't come from the activist Afro tradition," [Edgard Ortuno Silva] confesses, "but from the militant tradition of change. I admit that what has happened to me is that I overcame the problems of Blacks in Uruguay, of people of my skin color. And most people who have overcome no longer have a consciousness of being Black. But in my case, the political process I have been a part of made me aware of the African activist movement and I have talked with them and they have made me conscious."
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Journal Title Details:
p. 501
Notes:
This book breaks new theoretical and methodological ground in the study of the African diaspora in the Atlantic world. Leading scholars of archaeology, linguistics, and socio-cultural anthropology draw upon extensive field experiences and archival investigations of black communities in North America, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa to challenge received paradigms in Afro-American anthropology; Yelvington, K.A. (chapter) 'The Invention of Africa in Latin America and the Caribbean: Political Discourse and Anthropological Praxis, 1920-1940.'
Ann Arbor, MI:: ProQuest Information and Learning, Black Studies Center
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
The author explores the history of Afro-Latino history, culture, and politics in the Americas, locating its origins in the invasion of the Iberian peninsula by African Muslims in the 8th century and noting how later Christian Portuguese and Spanish states used proximity to West Africa to develop trade which expanded the slave trade and plantation economies to Europe and throughout the Americas.
