The Africas in the Americas: Afro-Cubans As Part of the Afro-Latino Family*
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The CIR at the LASA conference, Washington, D.C., 2013 D.C., Washington, conference, The CIR at the LASA The Africas in the Americas: Afro-Cubans as Part of the Afro-Latino Family* Rafel Campoamor Founding president, NGO EmpoderaCuba Member, Citizens’ Committee for Racial Integration (CIR) Cuban. Resident of the United States. Introduction those who were making the decisions justified our new status (Exodus 1; Leviticus 25, 44; Latin America might be the largest Afri- Ephesians 6.5). can country in the world. The most populous Our pagan peoples had their own lan- of African countries, Nigeria, has only 174 guages, cultures, customs, foods and gods. Yo- million inhabitants. The more than 200 mil- ruba, Lukumi, Wolof, Bamileke, Mandingo, lion Afro-descendants in the Americas consti- Bantu, Bambara, Peul, Swahili, Lingala and tute a “minority” that is often invisible, that surely other languages and dialects were spo- is often marginalized. Unfortunately, two ken on the slave ships we were forced to board. hundred years after the end of slavery, they Those who got on those ships were rich, poor, are still on the bottom of the social pyra- royalty, wise men, babalawos [priests], healers mid. Whether we are considering an African- and every other kind of person found in our American, Afro-Cuban, Garifuna or Afro- societies. The traffickers dispersed us all over Aymara, we Afro-descendants of the Americas the continent—and everything changed. This have a great deal in common but share very was all done so we would change, because little amongst ourselves. We all come from what was ours was no good; what we had was Africa, but there are various Africas in Africa. not civilized. The New World would make us Whether it is West, East, Central or South into new people, with a better faith, more cul- Africa, our skin is always darker than that of ture and more education. We had to forget all those who came from other lands. For reasons our Africas. we do not know, it was decided we were uglier Let us take a look at what is still left and and dumber; it was decided we were inferior; was not totally forgotten. I am not offering without our consent, it was decided that we a scientific survey or academic presentation would be slaves. Even the holy books served about Latin Afro-descendants. I just want to partially reflect on my travel experiences (*) Paper presented at the LASA conference (Washington, through all these Afro-Latin communities. D.C., 2013). It is my own personal view as a Cuban Afro- 34 ISLAS descendant discovering the Africas in the and Oaxaca, where they are omitted from so- Americas. cial programs and national holidays. Afro-descendant José María Morelos y Mexico’s black people Pavón is the author of Los sentimientos de la nación [The Nation’s Feelings] and part of My travels through the United Mexican the country’s history, as he was a prominent States (Mexico), from Ciudad Juárez in Chi- insurgent leader. Another Afro-descendant, huahua, to Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, in Chiapas, Vicente Guerrero, was the second president of did not afford me much contact with Mexi- Mexico. The state of Guerrero is named after can blacks. Mexican scholar Hernández-Díaz him. Black prince Gaspar Yanga could be con- wrote: “It is easy to state that there is a group sidered the first Americancimarrón (runaway of people who descend from the people who slave), and the San Lorenzo Uno Olmec head were brought over from the African continent confirms for me what Victor Dama Hernández in Mexico. What is hard is identifying them. wrote in Palenque—that the Africans came It is not possible to confirm who they are or before the Spanish. Despite this, Mexican Af- where they are.” ro-descendants continue to be excluded. They Afro-Mexicans are also called Afro-Mes- have been erased from Mexican history. The tizos, blacks, browns, coastal people—or even dark-skinned heroes have been represented as Cubans! Mexico is not like Cuba, where there browns and called mestizos in order to ignore are blacks everywhere. Afros in Mexico prin- their identity and impose on them a mestizo cipally live on the Gulf coast and river banks one bound for globalization. In Cuba, we all of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Veracruz, know the song “Sabor a mí,” by Álvaro Car- Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatan: where illo, but not everyone knows that this great the land is hot and humid. The word jarocho composer, with his more than 300 songs, also identifies the inhabitants of the Oaxacan could nobly represent the Afro-Mexicans. and Veracruzan Papaloapan basins, who have Negroid features. Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua: For Universidad Nacional Autónoma de the Garifuna Nation México (UNAM) researcher Nemesio Rodrí- guez Mitchell, who coordinates the Mexico It is believed that two Spanish ships Multicultural-Nation University Program loaded with Africans sank on the coast of (PUMC), Mexico accepts itself as a multi- San Vicente Island, in 1635. I would like to cultural nation. Yet, the government does not equally credit a version that says the African constitutionally recognize the black popula- fleet of the Mansa of Mali, Abubakari II, who tion. As in Cuba, Mexico has no official fig- was very interested in the western sea, sent ures on Afro-Mexicans. The National Institute two expeditions to the Atlantic that possible of Statistics and Geography (NEGI) does not reached it way before Columbus discovered catalog or consider them in their censuses and America. Hence, the Black Caribs or Garifu- studies. An estimate puts their number at be- nas (Garinagus), as the result of the mixture tween 250,000 and 300,000, and had them of Africans and indigenous Caribs and Ar- living primarily on the coasts of Guerrero awaks. Around 1797, came their exile to the ISLAS 35 Punta Gorda, Roatán zone. Their arrival in Apparently, it has the same problem that Af- Honduras is celebrated every April 12th, their ro-descendants have in Cuba: it is not known largest concentration living on the Caribbean how many of them there are. Unofficially, the coast. Today, there are many Garifunas living estimate is a million and a half, or 12% of in Livingston (named in honor of Edward all Hondurans. I am very curious about how Livingston, with no connection to the city of many there really are. They exemplify rebel- Livingstone in Zambia), Puerto Barrios (Gua- liousness and courage. temala), and on Nicaraguan Miskito Coast. The Miskita Coast, where Nicaragua’s Many immigrated (and continue to emigrate) Afro-descendants live, is on the Atlantic. When to the United States, fleeing unemployment. the Garifuna arrive, in about 1832, they en- It was from Honduras, from San Pedro countered Miskito zambos (Afro-Indians) de Sula, that Cuban General Maceo wrote the and black criollos (native-born blacks). There famous phrase: “Cuba shall be free when the was a riot on a Portuguese slave ship com- redeeming sword throws its enemies into the ing from the Gulf of Guinea in 1639. It ran sea…But whosoever tries to take Cuba will ashore and hundreds of blacks escaped to the hold the dust of her blood-soaked land in coast, where they were received and accepted his hand, or die in the struggle.” His inspira- as Miskito Indians, with whom they ended up tion might have come from the fact that these mixing. Later, the English founded two cities, people had never been enslaved. and they also mixed with the Miskita popu- I crossed from Puerto Barrios to Punta lation. Yet, most of the British population Gorda (Belize) by ferry, and then returned to moved to Jamaica when the Republic of Nica- Puerto Cortés (Honduras). People on both ragua annexed the territory. The English had sides believe in gubidas (spirits) and remember brought with them slaves who eventually cre- heroic Joseph Satuyé, dance punta (bangidy), ated the area’s criollo communities. Research yancumú, and jungujugu, and cultivate the and publication about the black crollos is ex- Rasta look. Africa is quite present in their re- tremely scarce, unlike work on the Garifuna. ligious practices and music, but they all said the same thing to me: the Garifuna have been El Salvador excluded from all the country’s decisions. For- ty-three percent of them live in poverty, 17% What is the true cultural heritage and in extreme poverty. African genetic makeup of El Salvador? They Before the Garifuna, there were also An- say there are no Afro-descendants because golan and Senegambian Africans in Central it has no Atlantic coast nor did it have large America. According to colonial documents, banana plantations, and because dictator they were Arará people from Ghana, Togo, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez prohibited Benin and Nigeria; Ashanti from Ghana, their entry with the Ley de Migración [Migra- Yoruba from Nigeria, and Congo, Mina and tion Law] (1933). I do not recall seeing many Mandinga from Angola. blacks when I traveled through El Salvador. In July 2013, the National Institute of Those I saw, security guards at clothing stores Statistics (INE) began to survey the entire in San Salvador, told me they were from Tela Afro-Honduran population, which is con- (Honduras). Salvadoran anthropologist centrated on the country’s Atlantic coast. Marielba Herrera Reina wrote that peoples 36 ISLAS such as the Ereguayquín and religious prac- In Spring 2012, a national plan to combat tices like the one found in San Benito de Pal- racism and discrimination was created. ermo, which dates back to 1670, are bastions While visiting the Province of Limón where African influence is clear in a country (where blacks constitute a majority), I was that has always turned its back on its Afro able to confirm that they were the poorest of roots, a place blacks never left and instead are Costa Ricans.