Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events
- Thread starter Poitier
- Start date
I remember you.
Sounding just like a conservative cac, ol' "it's racist to point out racism" ass muthaphucka. fukk outta here fakkit.
MARCH 1, 2016
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics
BY GUSTAVO LÓPEZ AND ANA GONZALEZ-BARRERALEAVE A COMMENT
Identity for U.S. Hispanics is multidimensional and multifaceted. For example, many Hispanics tie their identity to their ancestral countries of origin – Mexico, Cuba, Peru or the Dominican Republic. They may also look to their indigenous roots. Among the many ways Hispanics see their identity is their racial background.
A quarter of U.S. Hispanics identify as Afro-LatinoAfro-Latinos are one of these Latino identity groups. They are characterized by their diverse views of racial identity, reflecting the complex and varied nature of race and identity among Latinos. A Pew Research Center survey of Latino adults shows that one-quarter of all U.S. Latinos self-identify as Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean or of African descent with roots in Latin America. This is the first time a nationally representative survey in the U.S. has asked the Latino population directly whether they considered themselves Afro-Latino.
In the U.S., Latinos with Caribbean roots are more likely to identify as Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean than those with roots elsewhere (34% versus 22%, respectively). Those who identify as Afro-Latino are more concentrated on the East Coast and in the South than other Latinos (65% of Afro-Latinos live in these regions vs. 48% of other Latinos). They are also more likely than other Latinos to be foreign born (70% vs. 52%), less likely to have some college education (24% vs. 37%), and more likely to have lower family incomes. About six-in-ten Afro-Latinos reported family incomes below $30,000 in 2013, compared with about half of those who did not identify as Afro-Latino (62% vs. 47%).
How U.S. Afro-Latinos report their raceAfro-Latinos’ views of race are also unique. When asked directly about their race, only 18% of Afro-Latinos identified their race or one of their races as black. In fact, higher shares of Afro-Latinos identified as white alone or white in combination with another race (39%) or volunteered that their race or one of their races was Hispanic (24%). Only 9% identified as mixed race.
These findings reflect the complexity of identity and race among Latinos. For example, two-thirds of Latinos (67%) say their Hispanic background is a part of their racial background. This is in contrast to the U.S. Census Bureau’s own classification of Hispanic identity – census survey forms have described “Hispanic” as an ethnic origin, not a race.
The multiple dimensions of Hispanic identity also reflect the long colonial history of Latin America, during which mixing occurred among indigenous Americans, white Europeans, slaves from Africa and Asians. In Latin America’s colonial period, about 15 times as many African slaves were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies than to the U.S. Today, about 130 million people of African descent live in Latin America, making up roughly a quarter of the total population, according to estimates from the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) at Princeton University.
Afro-descendants in Latin AmericaUntil recently, most Latin American countries did not collect official statistics on ethnicity or race, especially from populations with African origins. However, a recent push for official recognition of minority groups throughout Latin America has resulted in most countries collecting race and ethnicity data on their national censuses.
In 2015, for the first time ever, Mexico allowed people to identify as black or Afro-Mexican through a new question in its mid-decade survey. About 1.4 million Mexicans (or 1.2% of the population) self-identified as black or of African descent based on their culture, history or customs, according to Mexico’s chief statistical agency.
Afro-Latinos make up significant shares of the population in some corners of Latin America. In Brazil, about half of the population is of African descent (black or mixed-race black). In the Caribbean, black Cubans make up about a third of that country’s population. In the Dominican Republic, black identity is much more complicated. Estimates of Afro-descent in the Dominican Republic range from about a quarter to nearly 90% of the population depending on whether the estimates include those who identify as “indio,” a group that includes many nonwhites and mixed-race individuals with African ancestry.
TOPICS: AFRICAN AMERICANS, HISPANIC/LATINO DEMOGRAPHICS, HISPANIC/LATINO IDENTITY, LATIN AMERICA, RACE AND ETHNICITY
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics
BY GUSTAVO LÓPEZ AND ANA GONZALEZ-BARRERALEAVE A COMMENT
Identity for U.S. Hispanics is multidimensional and multifaceted. For example, many Hispanics tie their identity to their ancestral countries of origin – Mexico, Cuba, Peru or the Dominican Republic. They may also look to their indigenous roots. Among the many ways Hispanics see their identity is their racial background.
A quarter of U.S. Hispanics identify as Afro-LatinoAfro-Latinos are one of these Latino identity groups. They are characterized by their diverse views of racial identity, reflecting the complex and varied nature of race and identity among Latinos. A Pew Research Center survey of Latino adults shows that one-quarter of all U.S. Latinos self-identify as Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean or of African descent with roots in Latin America. This is the first time a nationally representative survey in the U.S. has asked the Latino population directly whether they considered themselves Afro-Latino.
In the U.S., Latinos with Caribbean roots are more likely to identify as Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean than those with roots elsewhere (34% versus 22%, respectively). Those who identify as Afro-Latino are more concentrated on the East Coast and in the South than other Latinos (65% of Afro-Latinos live in these regions vs. 48% of other Latinos). They are also more likely than other Latinos to be foreign born (70% vs. 52%), less likely to have some college education (24% vs. 37%), and more likely to have lower family incomes. About six-in-ten Afro-Latinos reported family incomes below $30,000 in 2013, compared with about half of those who did not identify as Afro-Latino (62% vs. 47%).
How U.S. Afro-Latinos report their raceAfro-Latinos’ views of race are also unique. When asked directly about their race, only 18% of Afro-Latinos identified their race or one of their races as black. In fact, higher shares of Afro-Latinos identified as white alone or white in combination with another race (39%) or volunteered that their race or one of their races was Hispanic (24%). Only 9% identified as mixed race.
These findings reflect the complexity of identity and race among Latinos. For example, two-thirds of Latinos (67%) say their Hispanic background is a part of their racial background. This is in contrast to the U.S. Census Bureau’s own classification of Hispanic identity – census survey forms have described “Hispanic” as an ethnic origin, not a race.
The multiple dimensions of Hispanic identity also reflect the long colonial history of Latin America, during which mixing occurred among indigenous Americans, white Europeans, slaves from Africa and Asians. In Latin America’s colonial period, about 15 times as many African slaves were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies than to the U.S. Today, about 130 million people of African descent live in Latin America, making up roughly a quarter of the total population, according to estimates from the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) at Princeton University.
Afro-descendants in Latin AmericaUntil recently, most Latin American countries did not collect official statistics on ethnicity or race, especially from populations with African origins. However, a recent push for official recognition of minority groups throughout Latin America has resulted in most countries collecting race and ethnicity data on their national censuses.
In 2015, for the first time ever, Mexico allowed people to identify as black or Afro-Mexican through a new question in its mid-decade survey. About 1.4 million Mexicans (or 1.2% of the population) self-identified as black or of African descent based on their culture, history or customs, according to Mexico’s chief statistical agency.
Afro-Latinos make up significant shares of the population in some corners of Latin America. In Brazil, about half of the population is of African descent (black or mixed-race black). In the Caribbean, black Cubans make up about a third of that country’s population. In the Dominican Republic, black identity is much more complicated. Estimates of Afro-descent in the Dominican Republic range from about a quarter to nearly 90% of the population depending on whether the estimates include those who identify as “indio,” a group that includes many nonwhites and mixed-race individuals with African ancestry.
TOPICS: AFRICAN AMERICANS, HISPANIC/LATINO DEMOGRAPHICS, HISPANIC/LATINO IDENTITY, LATIN AMERICA, RACE AND ETHNICITY
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics
Now Counted By Their Country, Afro-Mexicans Grab Unprecedented Spotlight
Updated February 6, 2016 5:44 PM ET
Published February 6, 2016 5:16 PM ET
Walter Thompson-Hernandez displays a photograph of his parents, Kerry Thompson and Ellie Hernandez. Thompson-Hernandez identifies as a "blaxican" — another term for Afro-Mexican, the identity soon to be included on the Mexican census for the first time.
Walter Thompson-Hernandez
With February comes Black History Month in the U.S., a time designated to reflect on the history and contributions of people of African descent in this country. And while the month may invite debate among some, one thing rarely does in the U.S.: the idea of calling oneself, or being described as, black or African-American.
In Mexico, however, it is unusual — so unusual, in fact, that up until now, Mexican citizens were unable to officially recognize themselves as "Afro-Mexican" on national censuses. That is set to change in the upcoming 2020 census, though. Already, a preliminary 2015 survey — conducted in preparation for the 2020 census — found that some 1.4 million people identify as Afro-Mexican.
To learn more about what this might mean — and why these changes are only happening now — NPR's Michel Martin spoke with Luisa Ortiz, CEO of Nova Mexico, a nonprofit organization that works with minorities communities.
NPR also spoke with people of mixed Mexican and African descent; their takes on race and identity can be found on the right side.
Interview Highlights
On the history of people of African descent in Mexico
You could say there are actually two big waves of arrival of people of African descent. One of them would definitely be the 16th century, and there is definitely a second wave — and that is in the 1950s and '60s, after the independence of several nations in Africa. Many people arrived in the region and they arrived to Mexico, probably on their way to the United States or not. But some of them stayed.
And I would probably even think now there could be a third wave of people of African descent arriving, coming from Haiti, coming from Cuba, coming from Venezuela or even from Colombia.
On why Mexico is adding the category "Afro-Mexican" to the census only now
There has never been that option. The last time people of African descent were counted was in the 19th century. The Mexican federal government is arriving late to the party.
Dora Careaga-Coleman
Dora Careaga-Coleman, a professor at the University of New Mexico, is from an Afro-Mexican community in the Mexican state of Veracruz.
Courtesy of Dora Careaga-Coleman
People looked at me and asked if I was Brazilian, Cuban, Colombian, things other than Mexican — because in Mexico, it's difficult for people to recognize that there are Afro-descendants. Because of that, I became interested in finding my roots.
Dora Careaga-Coleman
I believe that this is the result of a bottom-up movement. Many, many organizations for years now have worked with communities in the coast, and organizations that are mostly international found out, and they saw that people happen to be of African descent.
So this is the result of many, many years of philanthropy that bring to the fore organizations that today are becoming politically very active. I think that the government, the federal government, is reacting to the politicization of civil society that happens to be of African descent.
On whether Afro-Mexicans feel as if they've faced discrimination
Absolutely — and they even feel discrimination from their indigenous brothers and sisters. It is not easy; it is not an easy debate.
Until last year, until 2015, black Mexicans requested to be identified as indigenous because there was no category in the census, and they were asked if they spoke an indigenous language and they would have to say yes. But when they would have to clarify which language it was, you would come to interesting results — such as, "We speak some patois, some Haitian, a form of French, some Yoruba" or else.
On what she thinks will result from allowing this designation
I envision, on the positive side, a lot of young men and young woment who are feeling comfortable with who they are. And definitely there is some sense of pride in seeing somebody you actually look like making it big, making a movie, winning an Oscar, being president of a country, a senator. So, on the one hand, the result is that people globally are recognizing with pride and dignity who they are and what they can achieve.
On the not so positive side, I believe this is definitely a political maneuver. Black Mexicans live in territories where there's politics and the acceptance of their ethnicity could probably pigeonhole them to be members of different political parties in the coming elections. So I don't think it is so romantic. It is definitely far more nuanced and complex.
Mexico Black History
Now Counted By Their Country, Afro-Mexicans Grab Unprecedented Spotlight
Updated February 6, 2016 5:44 PM ET
Published February 6, 2016 5:16 PM ET
Walter Thompson-Hernandez displays a photograph of his parents, Kerry Thompson and Ellie Hernandez. Thompson-Hernandez identifies as a "blaxican" — another term for Afro-Mexican, the identity soon to be included on the Mexican census for the first time.
Walter Thompson-Hernandez
With February comes Black History Month in the U.S., a time designated to reflect on the history and contributions of people of African descent in this country. And while the month may invite debate among some, one thing rarely does in the U.S.: the idea of calling oneself, or being described as, black or African-American.
In Mexico, however, it is unusual — so unusual, in fact, that up until now, Mexican citizens were unable to officially recognize themselves as "Afro-Mexican" on national censuses. That is set to change in the upcoming 2020 census, though. Already, a preliminary 2015 survey — conducted in preparation for the 2020 census — found that some 1.4 million people identify as Afro-Mexican.
To learn more about what this might mean — and why these changes are only happening now — NPR's Michel Martin spoke with Luisa Ortiz, CEO of Nova Mexico, a nonprofit organization that works with minorities communities.
NPR also spoke with people of mixed Mexican and African descent; their takes on race and identity can be found on the right side.
Interview Highlights
On the history of people of African descent in Mexico
You could say there are actually two big waves of arrival of people of African descent. One of them would definitely be the 16th century, and there is definitely a second wave — and that is in the 1950s and '60s, after the independence of several nations in Africa. Many people arrived in the region and they arrived to Mexico, probably on their way to the United States or not. But some of them stayed.
And I would probably even think now there could be a third wave of people of African descent arriving, coming from Haiti, coming from Cuba, coming from Venezuela or even from Colombia.
On why Mexico is adding the category "Afro-Mexican" to the census only now
There has never been that option. The last time people of African descent were counted was in the 19th century. The Mexican federal government is arriving late to the party.
Dora Careaga-Coleman
Dora Careaga-Coleman, a professor at the University of New Mexico, is from an Afro-Mexican community in the Mexican state of Veracruz.
Courtesy of Dora Careaga-Coleman
People looked at me and asked if I was Brazilian, Cuban, Colombian, things other than Mexican — because in Mexico, it's difficult for people to recognize that there are Afro-descendants. Because of that, I became interested in finding my roots.
Dora Careaga-Coleman
I believe that this is the result of a bottom-up movement. Many, many organizations for years now have worked with communities in the coast, and organizations that are mostly international found out, and they saw that people happen to be of African descent.
So this is the result of many, many years of philanthropy that bring to the fore organizations that today are becoming politically very active. I think that the government, the federal government, is reacting to the politicization of civil society that happens to be of African descent.
On whether Afro-Mexicans feel as if they've faced discrimination
Absolutely — and they even feel discrimination from their indigenous brothers and sisters. It is not easy; it is not an easy debate.
Until last year, until 2015, black Mexicans requested to be identified as indigenous because there was no category in the census, and they were asked if they spoke an indigenous language and they would have to say yes. But when they would have to clarify which language it was, you would come to interesting results — such as, "We speak some patois, some Haitian, a form of French, some Yoruba" or else.
On what she thinks will result from allowing this designation
I envision, on the positive side, a lot of young men and young woment who are feeling comfortable with who they are. And definitely there is some sense of pride in seeing somebody you actually look like making it big, making a movie, winning an Oscar, being president of a country, a senator. So, on the one hand, the result is that people globally are recognizing with pride and dignity who they are and what they can achieve.
On the not so positive side, I believe this is definitely a political maneuver. Black Mexicans live in territories where there's politics and the acceptance of their ethnicity could probably pigeonhole them to be members of different political parties in the coming elections. So I don't think it is so romantic. It is definitely far more nuanced and complex.
Mexico Black History
Now Counted By Their Country, Afro-Mexicans Grab Unprecedented Spotlight
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Afro-Mexicans recognized in Mexico
Nearly 1.4 million Mexicans identified themselves as Afro-Mexicans or Afro-descendants in Mexico's 2015 national survey.
Javier Cortez, Staff Reporter
February 23, 2016
Filed under News, Showcase, UTEP and the community
At the tail end of 2015, in mid-December, the Mexican census bureau made history by recognizing their black citizens in their latest national census survey. The inclusion represents the first official recognition of African heritage within Mexico.
In November 2015, a Black-Mexican activist group called Mexico Negro launched a campaign to have Afro-Mexicans listed in the national census. Since the turn of the 20th century, Afro-Mexican identity has been pushed aside.
The all-encompassing term—Mestizaje—was used to cloak any Mexican of interracial ancestry, while African lineage was swept under the rug. Prior to the national survey that went out on Dec. 8, Mexico was one of the last Latin American countries to recognize its black population.
Nearly 1.4 million Mexicans identified themselves as Afro-Mexicans or Afro-descendants in Mexico’s 2015 national survey. The total comes out to 1.2 percent of the population, but Afro-descendants make up a bigger piece of the pie in the Americas.
According to the Department of International Law (DIL), there are approximately 200 million people of African descent in the Americas, with Brazil having the largest black populous of any Latin American country. Mexico finally acknowledging African descendants is a step in the right direction to start retelling Afro-Mexican history.
“Other Mexicans tend to see visible Afro-descendants as foreign because Afro-Mexico history has been erased from the textbooks and our memory,” said interim director of the African American Studies Program, Selfa A. Chew Melendez. “We don’t know that ‘we are them’— that Mexico is African also.”
Going back as far as the 16th and 17th century, there were men and women of African descent. Arguably, history’s most forgotten Afro-descendant figure is Vincente Guerrero, the second president of Mexico, who was called “El Negro.”
Most would consider 2008 a landmark date in North American history, as Barack Obama became the first black president of the United States, but 179 years earlier, Guerrero was the first black president of a North American country.
More notably, Guerrero fought to abolish slavery, while Mexico gained its independence from Spain in the Mexican War of Independence.
“He (Guerrero) made sure the constitution he helped write included the right to freedom,” Chew-Melendez said. “Erasing racial categories was considered a path towards democracy; however, the colonial hierarchy had already institutionalized racism and Afro-Mexicans (today) have very limited resources.”
According to Chew-Melendez, three of the largest Afro-Mexican populated states, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz, rank amongst the poorest states in the country, due to limited access to education, productive land, employment opportunities and medical care.
The 2012 statistical annex of poverty in Mexico showed that Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz ranked as the second, fourth and ninth poorest states in the country, respectively. Chew-Melendez attributed the correlation of Afro-Mexican populated cities and poverty to structural racism.
“It is the same case with indigenous communities,” Chew-Melendez said. “Across this border the Raramuri community is a displaced indigenous group with huge problems. The 43 teacher students from Ayotzinapa, most of them are from Afro-Mexican communities, were denouncing the extreme inequality in the state of Guerrero because of their own experiences with structural racism.”
As defined by the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, structural racism is a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways, to perpetuate racial group inequity.
Even Omar Escobedo, a native of Chihuahua City has seen how Afro-Mexicans could be treated differently because of the color of their skin.
“I think they struggle more,” said the sophomore industrial engineering major. “It has to do with the color of their skin, they are discriminated against. It’s not that much, but I have seen cases. They can get a hard time, and professionally it can be hard.”
Now that Mexico has taken a step in recognizing neglected minority groups, the next and even broader step, according to Chew-Melendez, is providing the essential needs to all Mexicans, no matter their identity.
“Mexico has taken a step towards recognition of the third root,” Chew-Melendez said. “Now the Mexican government has to work to make sure that every resident of Mexico gets access to higher education, proper medical care, dignified employment and a safe environment to thrive, regardless of racial, ethnic, gender or sexual identities.”
Javier Cortez may be reached at theprospectordaily.news@gmail.com.
Afro-Mexicans recognized in Mexico
Afro-Mexicans recognized in Mexico
The Prospector File Photo
Nearly 1.4 million Mexicans identified themselves as Afro-Mexicans or Afro-descendants in Mexico's 2015 national survey.
Javier Cortez, Staff Reporter
February 23, 2016
Filed under News, Showcase, UTEP and the community
At the tail end of 2015, in mid-December, the Mexican census bureau made history by recognizing their black citizens in their latest national census survey. The inclusion represents the first official recognition of African heritage within Mexico.
In November 2015, a Black-Mexican activist group called Mexico Negro launched a campaign to have Afro-Mexicans listed in the national census. Since the turn of the 20th century, Afro-Mexican identity has been pushed aside.
The all-encompassing term—Mestizaje—was used to cloak any Mexican of interracial ancestry, while African lineage was swept under the rug. Prior to the national survey that went out on Dec. 8, Mexico was one of the last Latin American countries to recognize its black population.
Nearly 1.4 million Mexicans identified themselves as Afro-Mexicans or Afro-descendants in Mexico’s 2015 national survey. The total comes out to 1.2 percent of the population, but Afro-descendants make up a bigger piece of the pie in the Americas.
According to the Department of International Law (DIL), there are approximately 200 million people of African descent in the Americas, with Brazil having the largest black populous of any Latin American country. Mexico finally acknowledging African descendants is a step in the right direction to start retelling Afro-Mexican history.
“Other Mexicans tend to see visible Afro-descendants as foreign because Afro-Mexico history has been erased from the textbooks and our memory,” said interim director of the African American Studies Program, Selfa A. Chew Melendez. “We don’t know that ‘we are them’— that Mexico is African also.”
Going back as far as the 16th and 17th century, there were men and women of African descent. Arguably, history’s most forgotten Afro-descendant figure is Vincente Guerrero, the second president of Mexico, who was called “El Negro.”
Most would consider 2008 a landmark date in North American history, as Barack Obama became the first black president of the United States, but 179 years earlier, Guerrero was the first black president of a North American country.
More notably, Guerrero fought to abolish slavery, while Mexico gained its independence from Spain in the Mexican War of Independence.
“He (Guerrero) made sure the constitution he helped write included the right to freedom,” Chew-Melendez said. “Erasing racial categories was considered a path towards democracy; however, the colonial hierarchy had already institutionalized racism and Afro-Mexicans (today) have very limited resources.”
According to Chew-Melendez, three of the largest Afro-Mexican populated states, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz, rank amongst the poorest states in the country, due to limited access to education, productive land, employment opportunities and medical care.
The 2012 statistical annex of poverty in Mexico showed that Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz ranked as the second, fourth and ninth poorest states in the country, respectively. Chew-Melendez attributed the correlation of Afro-Mexican populated cities and poverty to structural racism.
“It is the same case with indigenous communities,” Chew-Melendez said. “Across this border the Raramuri community is a displaced indigenous group with huge problems. The 43 teacher students from Ayotzinapa, most of them are from Afro-Mexican communities, were denouncing the extreme inequality in the state of Guerrero because of their own experiences with structural racism.”
As defined by the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, structural racism is a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways, to perpetuate racial group inequity.
Even Omar Escobedo, a native of Chihuahua City has seen how Afro-Mexicans could be treated differently because of the color of their skin.
“I think they struggle more,” said the sophomore industrial engineering major. “It has to do with the color of their skin, they are discriminated against. It’s not that much, but I have seen cases. They can get a hard time, and professionally it can be hard.”
Now that Mexico has taken a step in recognizing neglected minority groups, the next and even broader step, according to Chew-Melendez, is providing the essential needs to all Mexicans, no matter their identity.
“Mexico has taken a step towards recognition of the third root,” Chew-Melendez said. “Now the Mexican government has to work to make sure that every resident of Mexico gets access to higher education, proper medical care, dignified employment and a safe environment to thrive, regardless of racial, ethnic, gender or sexual identities.”
Javier Cortez may be reached at theprospectordaily.news@gmail.com.
Afro-Mexicans recognized in Mexico
Nicaraguan indigenous, Afro-Caribbeans sue government over pressure for inter-oceanic canal
LINDSAY FENDT | FEBRUARY 12
Locals swim in the El Tule River near the Nicaraguan community of El Tule. The Chinese firm HKND has chosen this river as a partial path for the immense Nicaragua Canal, a waterway between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. Teake Zuidema/The Tico Times
Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean leaders in Nicaragua filed a lawsuit against government officials last week after they were allegedly coerced into signing a document giving consent for a planned inter-oceanic canal project to pass through their autonomous territory.
According to the Rama-Kriol Territorial Government (GTR-K), public officials called aseries of unplanned meetings in the indigenous territories last month and pressured local leaders to sign a consent document. After GTR-K leaders unanimously refused to sign, government officials presented a second document they said established terms for future negotiations. GTR-K leaders say they were not permitted to review the document, but some were coerced into signing anyway. After signing, the GTR-K was given a copy of the agreement and discovered that it contained several articles granting consent for the construction of the massive Nicaragua Canal.
The GTR-K has now filed a lawsuit with an appeals court in an effort to nullify those signatures. In the complaint, GTR-K leaders allege that public officials – Johnny Hodgson, Michael Campbell, Danilo Chang and Rubén López – jeopardized the self-determination of the Rama-Kriol people by denying their right to legal council, to the presence of international observers and to technical explanations of the proposed canal’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) during the meeting.
The lawsuit is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding the planned $50-billion canal project. Construction, which was originally set to start at the beginning of 2015, has been delayed due to environmental and feasibility questions raised in the ESIA. The project’s financing was also thrown into question after Wang Jing, the project’s Chinese billionaire backer, lost 84 percent of his fortune when the Chinese stock market crashed last August.
The alleged abuse of indigenous rights has now set off a firestorm of criticism in the international community. Last week, Amnesty International condemned the Nicaraguan government’s management of the canal project.
“The fact that Nicaragua is planning to go ahead with a mega project that will destroy the lives of many communities without even properly taking their views into consideration is outrageous,” said Erika Guevara, Americas Director at Amnesty International, in a statement released by the group. “Trading on people’s basic human rights for the sake of money is not only morally questionable but also illegal.”
Read more stories about the controversial Nicaragua Canal here
Indigenous, Afro-Caribbeans sue gov't over Nicaragua canal
LINDSAY FENDT | FEBRUARY 12
Locals swim in the El Tule River near the Nicaraguan community of El Tule. The Chinese firm HKND has chosen this river as a partial path for the immense Nicaragua Canal, a waterway between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. Teake Zuidema/The Tico Times
Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean leaders in Nicaragua filed a lawsuit against government officials last week after they were allegedly coerced into signing a document giving consent for a planned inter-oceanic canal project to pass through their autonomous territory.
According to the Rama-Kriol Territorial Government (GTR-K), public officials called aseries of unplanned meetings in the indigenous territories last month and pressured local leaders to sign a consent document. After GTR-K leaders unanimously refused to sign, government officials presented a second document they said established terms for future negotiations. GTR-K leaders say they were not permitted to review the document, but some were coerced into signing anyway. After signing, the GTR-K was given a copy of the agreement and discovered that it contained several articles granting consent for the construction of the massive Nicaragua Canal.
The GTR-K has now filed a lawsuit with an appeals court in an effort to nullify those signatures. In the complaint, GTR-K leaders allege that public officials – Johnny Hodgson, Michael Campbell, Danilo Chang and Rubén López – jeopardized the self-determination of the Rama-Kriol people by denying their right to legal council, to the presence of international observers and to technical explanations of the proposed canal’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) during the meeting.
The lawsuit is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding the planned $50-billion canal project. Construction, which was originally set to start at the beginning of 2015, has been delayed due to environmental and feasibility questions raised in the ESIA. The project’s financing was also thrown into question after Wang Jing, the project’s Chinese billionaire backer, lost 84 percent of his fortune when the Chinese stock market crashed last August.
The alleged abuse of indigenous rights has now set off a firestorm of criticism in the international community. Last week, Amnesty International condemned the Nicaraguan government’s management of the canal project.
“The fact that Nicaragua is planning to go ahead with a mega project that will destroy the lives of many communities without even properly taking their views into consideration is outrageous,” said Erika Guevara, Americas Director at Amnesty International, in a statement released by the group. “Trading on people’s basic human rights for the sake of money is not only morally questionable but also illegal.”
Read more stories about the controversial Nicaragua Canal here
Indigenous, Afro-Caribbeans sue gov't over Nicaragua canal
Enegrecendo (blackening) YouTube: doing what TV has never done – Afro-Brazilians use the internet for a black representation that the media pretends doesn’t exist
Note from BW of Brazil: It’s really not hard to see. This very blog has been talking about it from nearly the beginning. What are we talking about? Brazil’s mainstream media’s insistence on making its Afro-Brazilian population either non-existent, highly stereotyped or unimportant. Now some might look at some material on this blog and say we are blowing the issue out of proportion. Well, obviously those people haven’t seen much Brazilian TV. Because besides Afro-Brazilians who have spoken on the issue for a number of years, prominent African-Americans such as director Spike Lee andprofessor/activist Angela Davis, Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane and recentlyBritish journal The Guardian have all voiced similar opinions about Brazil’s television programming. And in recent years, black Brazilians have been finding their own creative ways to address this media “blackout”. The online video sharing network You Tube has played a huge role in addressing this lack of blackness on Brazil’s networks.
As the old saying goes, “if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself”, and that’s exactly what a number of talented and driven Afro-Brazilian video producers have been doing. In the same manner that has seen a surge in “black theater” productions, video producers such as Ouriçado, the producers of the Empoderadas series and producers of the series ‘Tá Bom Pra Você’ among countless others, are part of rising trend of Afro-Brazilians bringing their opinions, issues and talent to a world platform through the most popular online video channel on the internet. In fact, YouTube’s 1st Black Beauty Encounter seminar brought numerous black Brazilian women who are addressing the absence of black beauty techniques and tips in the media together under one roof. It’s all very exciting to see and today we bring you more of these producer/ activists who doing their part to enegrecer (blacken) You Tube, bringing exposure to the Afro-Brazilian community in innovative, exciting and entertaining way that the mainstream media has repeatedly shown it is not willing to do.
Enegrecendo (blackening) YouTube: doing what TV has never done
Television is losing more and more space to the internet and for us blacks it could be a great opportunity to reverse the lack of diversity in the media that still persists in the XXI century. We live in a black country, and despite the on duty uninformed insisting, we are not the minority. The national media – and traditional – is concentrated in the (lily white) hands of people who constructed the image of Brazil as what they would like it to be, drawing inspiration in white-majority countries, by racism or an inferiority complex, or both. At 65 years, Brazilian TV does not reflect its population and its major consumers.
By Silvia Nascimento
Globo TV mocking criticism of its overly white programming. See more on this scene from a Globo TV novela here
Intellectual laziness and cultural limitations (of those groups who think we are minorities) doesn’t see the blackening of the media as beautiful. They associate blackness to poverty, violence and hyper-sexuality. No one better than blacks themselves to re-construct black representation and showcase the talents that racism impedes from flourishing. And the Internet is the way.
With relatively low cost, depending on the type of production, but equipped with creativity and dedication, anyone can use their phone’s camera and create a channel on YouTube, a platform that allows you to share videos for free.
13-year old Pedro Henrique Cortes aka PH Côrtes created a series called “Meu heróis negros brasileiros” meaning ‘my black Brazilian heroes’. The photo of famed writer Machado de Assis was edited and given an afro. For many years Brazilian history has attempted to whiten the writer and a few years ago a white actor portrayed him in a TV commercial.
The Mundo Negro (website) recently published a text on vlogueiras negras (black female) bloggers, who are the girls who use YouTube to share their knowledge of black beauty. A subject that deserves attention now and again on TV, but that interests at least 51% of the population. The vlogger PH Côrtes channel that talks about black history in a very original way made news in dozens of media outlets in Brazil. There is a demand.
The PH Côrtes channel series “Meu heróis negros brasileiros”. This clip features famed writer Machado de Assis
Hosts, journalists, mother, children, comedians, actresses, producers, historians and black musicians. Timidly, but increasingly, black people are making their own revolution through the largest video site on the planet.
Technical quality, nerd content and creativity of the periphery
Although most of YouTube content producers, not only blacks, but in general, suffer with technical limitations, resulting in lighting and sound problems, you can find videos worthy of prime time on TV, as is the case with the newly launched channel Bola 8oito.
Actor Eduardo Silva portrays Paulo Lumumba in a Bola 8oito video
“Lazaro Gianecchini and Tais Dieckmann, you are doing a beautiful job for your race.” This is the comment of Paulo Lumumba, a fictional celebrity represented by actor Eduardo Silva in the video “O que não vi da Vida” (What I saw of Life), a sarcastic version and strongly critical on race with a similar visual format to (the Globo TV news journal) Fantástico segment “O que vi da vida” . This is the first work of the channel.
“The requirement in first place is the visual quality. Fiction reference on YouTube today is Porta dos fundos. It is there that we should guide our quality. The idea of composing the staff of each video with black professionals in the area of audiovisual area is to show that we are there and have other skills in addition to loading the van,” explains Newman Costa, 30, Audiovisual Director from São Paulo and responsible for the direction and photography of the channel. The script of the first film is by Rogerio Ba-Senga, production by Issis Valenzuela. Thiago Domingos is responsible for sound and editing and art by Sil Elis.
For Costa the black body is not “common sense” and even YouTube ends up being one of the challenges for black producers. “It’s that racism that’s already have permeated the DNA due to the lag of references of black represented as normal people,” explains the director, regarding the difficulties in projects protagonized by Afro-Brazilians catching on on the platform.
Betina Costa analyzes the blackout of black actors at the 2016 Oscars on her Claquete 16 channel
“This world of pop or nerd culture as some call it, is unwelcoming to minorities. There are few blacks, few women talking about it. I, for one, don’t know any black YouTuber who talks about movies, comics and games,” says Betina Costa, 22, a trainee in IT in Porto Alegre (RS) and host of the Claquete 16 channel, talking about movies, series and pop culture. The channel has been on the air since 2013, initially made in partnership with a friend. After a pause, she resumed the channel alone at the end of last year.
Betina posts new videos every first Tuesday of the month. The long interval between publications is worth it because all videos show the research as much in text as in the images of the young gaúcha (native of state of Rio Grande do Sul) that attempt to reconcile the work of the channel with other activities.
“Normally I choose a theme and I research it, sometimes it’s something “random” as video on translations and in others a topic much talked about at the time, such as the Oscars. After I make a script combining content with a little humor, I record (with the help of a friend to facilitate, where possible), do the editing and publish on the Channel,” Betina reports on the production process.
Valtinho Rege, left, on his channel Energia Positiva
The Globo TV variety show proclaims itself the program of the peripheries, but who makes fun videos and records direct from Laje is Valtinho Rege, of the Energia Positiva channel. The channel’s name shows how the young Paulistano (São Paulo native) overcame aggressions he suffered for being black, gay and poor (he says in one of the videos that he lost baby teeth, at the age of six, beaten up by colleagues who found him very effeminate) in fun and very well edited videos and. The space in addition to being used by the vlogger to omit his opinion on various topics, also includes interviews with artists and people from the community. In the video below he traveled to Rio de Janeiro to show how funk contributes to the self-esteem of favelados (low income regions) in Rio de Janeiro.
All in Portuguse, check out some of their creative work in the links below
Bola Oito
Bola 8ito
Claquete 16
Claquete16
Energia Positiva
Energia Positiva
Source: Mundo Negro
https://blackwomenofbrazil.co/2016/...ntation-that-the-media-pretends-doesnt-exist/
Note from BW of Brazil: It’s really not hard to see. This very blog has been talking about it from nearly the beginning. What are we talking about? Brazil’s mainstream media’s insistence on making its Afro-Brazilian population either non-existent, highly stereotyped or unimportant. Now some might look at some material on this blog and say we are blowing the issue out of proportion. Well, obviously those people haven’t seen much Brazilian TV. Because besides Afro-Brazilians who have spoken on the issue for a number of years, prominent African-Americans such as director Spike Lee andprofessor/activist Angela Davis, Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane and recentlyBritish journal The Guardian have all voiced similar opinions about Brazil’s television programming. And in recent years, black Brazilians have been finding their own creative ways to address this media “blackout”. The online video sharing network You Tube has played a huge role in addressing this lack of blackness on Brazil’s networks.
As the old saying goes, “if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself”, and that’s exactly what a number of talented and driven Afro-Brazilian video producers have been doing. In the same manner that has seen a surge in “black theater” productions, video producers such as Ouriçado, the producers of the Empoderadas series and producers of the series ‘Tá Bom Pra Você’ among countless others, are part of rising trend of Afro-Brazilians bringing their opinions, issues and talent to a world platform through the most popular online video channel on the internet. In fact, YouTube’s 1st Black Beauty Encounter seminar brought numerous black Brazilian women who are addressing the absence of black beauty techniques and tips in the media together under one roof. It’s all very exciting to see and today we bring you more of these producer/ activists who doing their part to enegrecer (blacken) You Tube, bringing exposure to the Afro-Brazilian community in innovative, exciting and entertaining way that the mainstream media has repeatedly shown it is not willing to do.
Enegrecendo (blackening) YouTube: doing what TV has never done
Television is losing more and more space to the internet and for us blacks it could be a great opportunity to reverse the lack of diversity in the media that still persists in the XXI century. We live in a black country, and despite the on duty uninformed insisting, we are not the minority. The national media – and traditional – is concentrated in the (lily white) hands of people who constructed the image of Brazil as what they would like it to be, drawing inspiration in white-majority countries, by racism or an inferiority complex, or both. At 65 years, Brazilian TV does not reflect its population and its major consumers.
By Silvia Nascimento
Globo TV mocking criticism of its overly white programming. See more on this scene from a Globo TV novela here
Intellectual laziness and cultural limitations (of those groups who think we are minorities) doesn’t see the blackening of the media as beautiful. They associate blackness to poverty, violence and hyper-sexuality. No one better than blacks themselves to re-construct black representation and showcase the talents that racism impedes from flourishing. And the Internet is the way.
With relatively low cost, depending on the type of production, but equipped with creativity and dedication, anyone can use their phone’s camera and create a channel on YouTube, a platform that allows you to share videos for free.
13-year old Pedro Henrique Cortes aka PH Côrtes created a series called “Meu heróis negros brasileiros” meaning ‘my black Brazilian heroes’. The photo of famed writer Machado de Assis was edited and given an afro. For many years Brazilian history has attempted to whiten the writer and a few years ago a white actor portrayed him in a TV commercial.
The Mundo Negro (website) recently published a text on vlogueiras negras (black female) bloggers, who are the girls who use YouTube to share their knowledge of black beauty. A subject that deserves attention now and again on TV, but that interests at least 51% of the population. The vlogger PH Côrtes channel that talks about black history in a very original way made news in dozens of media outlets in Brazil. There is a demand.
The PH Côrtes channel series “Meu heróis negros brasileiros”. This clip features famed writer Machado de Assis
Hosts, journalists, mother, children, comedians, actresses, producers, historians and black musicians. Timidly, but increasingly, black people are making their own revolution through the largest video site on the planet.
Technical quality, nerd content and creativity of the periphery
Although most of YouTube content producers, not only blacks, but in general, suffer with technical limitations, resulting in lighting and sound problems, you can find videos worthy of prime time on TV, as is the case with the newly launched channel Bola 8oito.
Actor Eduardo Silva portrays Paulo Lumumba in a Bola 8oito video
“Lazaro Gianecchini and Tais Dieckmann, you are doing a beautiful job for your race.” This is the comment of Paulo Lumumba, a fictional celebrity represented by actor Eduardo Silva in the video “O que não vi da Vida” (What I saw of Life), a sarcastic version and strongly critical on race with a similar visual format to (the Globo TV news journal) Fantástico segment “O que vi da vida” . This is the first work of the channel.
“The requirement in first place is the visual quality. Fiction reference on YouTube today is Porta dos fundos. It is there that we should guide our quality. The idea of composing the staff of each video with black professionals in the area of audiovisual area is to show that we are there and have other skills in addition to loading the van,” explains Newman Costa, 30, Audiovisual Director from São Paulo and responsible for the direction and photography of the channel. The script of the first film is by Rogerio Ba-Senga, production by Issis Valenzuela. Thiago Domingos is responsible for sound and editing and art by Sil Elis.
For Costa the black body is not “common sense” and even YouTube ends up being one of the challenges for black producers. “It’s that racism that’s already have permeated the DNA due to the lag of references of black represented as normal people,” explains the director, regarding the difficulties in projects protagonized by Afro-Brazilians catching on on the platform.
Betina Costa analyzes the blackout of black actors at the 2016 Oscars on her Claquete 16 channel
“This world of pop or nerd culture as some call it, is unwelcoming to minorities. There are few blacks, few women talking about it. I, for one, don’t know any black YouTuber who talks about movies, comics and games,” says Betina Costa, 22, a trainee in IT in Porto Alegre (RS) and host of the Claquete 16 channel, talking about movies, series and pop culture. The channel has been on the air since 2013, initially made in partnership with a friend. After a pause, she resumed the channel alone at the end of last year.
Betina posts new videos every first Tuesday of the month. The long interval between publications is worth it because all videos show the research as much in text as in the images of the young gaúcha (native of state of Rio Grande do Sul) that attempt to reconcile the work of the channel with other activities.
“Normally I choose a theme and I research it, sometimes it’s something “random” as video on translations and in others a topic much talked about at the time, such as the Oscars. After I make a script combining content with a little humor, I record (with the help of a friend to facilitate, where possible), do the editing and publish on the Channel,” Betina reports on the production process.
Valtinho Rege, left, on his channel Energia Positiva
The Globo TV variety show proclaims itself the program of the peripheries, but who makes fun videos and records direct from Laje is Valtinho Rege, of the Energia Positiva channel. The channel’s name shows how the young Paulistano (São Paulo native) overcame aggressions he suffered for being black, gay and poor (he says in one of the videos that he lost baby teeth, at the age of six, beaten up by colleagues who found him very effeminate) in fun and very well edited videos and. The space in addition to being used by the vlogger to omit his opinion on various topics, also includes interviews with artists and people from the community. In the video below he traveled to Rio de Janeiro to show how funk contributes to the self-esteem of favelados (low income regions) in Rio de Janeiro.
All in Portuguse, check out some of their creative work in the links below
Bola Oito
Bola 8ito
Claquete 16
Claquete16
Energia Positiva
Energia Positiva
Source: Mundo Negro
https://blackwomenofbrazil.co/2016/...ntation-that-the-media-pretends-doesnt-exist/
Mi madre es Costa Rican, y padre es Panamanian
...CaC surveys/Self Haters don't speak for Spanish NEGUS that Ovastand slave boat shipped US
to every part of the globe. Just cuz my parents come from Central AmeriKKKa; doesn't mean WE aren't proud Real Africans
BLACKEXCELENCIA
...CaC surveys/Self Haters don't speak for Spanish NEGUS that Ovastand slave boat shipped US
to every part of the globe. Just cuz my parents come from Central AmeriKKKa; doesn't mean WE aren't proud Real Africans
BLACKEXCELENCIA
Last edited:
The numbers in the green are quilombos that, as of February 2 2015, have gone through land titling and the federal government has granted the people there ownership of the land they occupy. The numbers in the red are still going through the process.
Last edited:
Andrew Holness appointed Prime Minister of Jamaica
Thursday, March 03, 2016 | 4:27 PM
Thursday, March 03, 2016 | 4:27 PM
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Andrew Michael Holness, a five-term elected member of Parliament, was a short while ago appointed prime minister of Jamaica at King’s House in St Andrew.He was sworn in by Governor-general Sir Patrick Allen.
Holness, having taken the oath of allegiance and oath of office, also signed the instrument of appointment as prime minister, much to the delight of those gathered to witness his appointment.
The standard of outgoing prime minister Portia Simpson Miller was then lowered and Holness' standard broken.
Andrew Holness appointed Prime Minister of Jamaica
Posted by Stephen Gill on Feb 25, 2016
Afro-Colombian celebrities demand involvement in peace talks
(Image credit: Sounds of the Universe)
Prominent Afro-Colombians asked President Juan Manuel Santos to receive black representatives at the Palace to discuss their now-absent role in peace talks with FARC rebels.
A wide-ranging array of prominent figures, from hip-hop group ChocQuibTown to retired Army General Luis Alberto Moore, expressed the concerns of the sizable Afro-Colombian population in a letter sent last Friday.
The group of popular actors, athletes, models and politicians are still awaiting a response, having demanded inclusion for their ethnic minority in a process that will determine the future of the nation.
“Afro-Colombians want and have the right to be part of the design and consensus of peace, but especially and most importantly, peace needs us and can not be without us, if you are looking for a real peace beyond the formality of signing of an agreement,” the black celebrities said.
“Peace should be the desire of all Colombians, because one way or another we have been victims of a civil war that has painfully existed as the longest armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere,” the letter stated.
The frustrations of the high-profile Afro-Colombians are based on the fact that they have brought notoriety and recognition to Colombia often on the international stage, yet their voices are not heard at home.
As Colombian ambassadors in their respective fields, they have not been judged by race at home or abroad. Representation at the peace talks should be no different.
“This means that our goals, songs, achievements, medals, contributions, and performances have not discriminated against anybody; our triumphs have never distinguished ideologies, races, social class, or any difference. Our achievements are for all Colombians,” stated the letter to Santos.
Their intention is to seek representation for the black community of Colombia that proportionally has been among the most affected by the 51-year-long conflict.
“This war has touched all of us, but in our homelands it was merciless; either on behalf of paramilitaries, guerrillas and sometimes the state itself, the war map expanded miserably where our people live, or rather where our people survive,” said the Afro-Colombians.
Although the letter was filed on February 16, 2016, it “has not yet received an official response,” according to news website Pulzo. This is sparking further debate as to whether Santos cares about minority groups.
Afro-Colombian celebrities demand involvement in peace talks
Afro-Colombian celebrities demand involvement in peace talks
(Image credit: Sounds of the Universe)
Prominent Afro-Colombians asked President Juan Manuel Santos to receive black representatives at the Palace to discuss their now-absent role in peace talks with FARC rebels.
A wide-ranging array of prominent figures, from hip-hop group ChocQuibTown to retired Army General Luis Alberto Moore, expressed the concerns of the sizable Afro-Colombian population in a letter sent last Friday.
The group of popular actors, athletes, models and politicians are still awaiting a response, having demanded inclusion for their ethnic minority in a process that will determine the future of the nation.
“Afro-Colombians want and have the right to be part of the design and consensus of peace, but especially and most importantly, peace needs us and can not be without us, if you are looking for a real peace beyond the formality of signing of an agreement,” the black celebrities said.
“Peace should be the desire of all Colombians, because one way or another we have been victims of a civil war that has painfully existed as the longest armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere,” the letter stated.
The frustrations of the high-profile Afro-Colombians are based on the fact that they have brought notoriety and recognition to Colombia often on the international stage, yet their voices are not heard at home.
As Colombian ambassadors in their respective fields, they have not been judged by race at home or abroad. Representation at the peace talks should be no different.
“This means that our goals, songs, achievements, medals, contributions, and performances have not discriminated against anybody; our triumphs have never distinguished ideologies, races, social class, or any difference. Our achievements are for all Colombians,” stated the letter to Santos.
Their intention is to seek representation for the black community of Colombia that proportionally has been among the most affected by the 51-year-long conflict.
“This war has touched all of us, but in our homelands it was merciless; either on behalf of paramilitaries, guerrillas and sometimes the state itself, the war map expanded miserably where our people live, or rather where our people survive,” said the Afro-Colombians.
Although the letter was filed on February 16, 2016, it “has not yet received an official response,” according to news website Pulzo. This is sparking further debate as to whether Santos cares about minority groups.
Afro-Colombian celebrities demand involvement in peace talks
Last edited:
An Emerging Entry In America's Multiracial Vocabulary: 'Blaxican'
March 8, 201610:00 AM ET
A selection of participants who identify as black and Mexican in Walter Thompson-Hernandez's Instagram project, Blaxicans of L.A.
Courtesy of Walter Thompson-Hernandez
When Melissa Adams and her sister were growing up in Lynwood, near Compton, California, their black father and Mexican mother taught them to be proud of all aspects of their identity: they were black, and they were Mexican.
At home, that came easy. Publicly, it was harder.Take the time Melissa was named valedictorian of her middle school when she was 13. It was the first time anyone could remember a black student winning that honor at her school.
"Everyone was excited!" she said over breakfast at her family's house recently. "It was the first black valedictorian!" School administrators planned a special ceremony for her, and the dean called Adams into her office to congratulate her.
i
Melissa Adams (left) was a winner at a Pentathlon competition in middle school.
Courtesy of Melissa Adams
But when Adams walked in, the dean's smile melted away.
"She was notably disappointed by what she saw," Adams said, her voice trembling at the memory. "She didn't believe I was black." Adams, who has light skin, long, straight brown hair, and speaks Spanish, is used to people assuming that she's entirely Mexican or even white. She explained to the dean that her father was black, which was why she'd checked the box for that racial category on a school enrollment form. "She told me not to do that again," Adams recalled.
The problem is, Adams feels just as black as she feels Mexican. She grew up eating grits and biscuits andcarne asada and pozole; hearing dad talk about the civil rights era and visiting mom's family in Nayarit, Mexico.Yet while she feels secure in her Mexicanness, she often feels like she's "grasping" for her blackness due to the way people interpret her appearance. "I know that I am black, but how do I present it to other people?" she said.
Twenty-year-old Alex Tillman, a student at UCLA,is also black and Mexican, and growing up she also struggled with how to identify. But in a way, her problem was the inverse of the one Melissa Adams has faced.
"I once had a Mexican person tell me I wasn't Mexican, because I looked black," Tillman said. "I had to choose between one or the other, and because I looked black, I had to be black."
In terms of physical appearance, you could place Adams and Tillman on opposite ends of a spectrum represented by people who are both blackand Mexican. In Los Angeles, there are thousands of people in between. The number of people who have both a black and Mexican parent in that city started ballooning in the 80s and 90s, when Mexican immigrants began moving into South L.A.'s black neighborhoods in large numbers, and people started getting together and creating families.
Like Adams and Tillman, many have struggled to explain their racial identity to the outside world, and sometimes even to understand it themselves.
Much of this has to do with the fact that biracial identity in the United States has often been understood in terms of black and white. And to the extent that labels are helpful for quickly self-identifying, they don't always exist for the diversity of racial possibilities that mixed Americans increasingly want to see recognized. When it comes to mixed-race in America, Mexican-American author Richard Rodriguez has written, we rely on an "old vocabulary — black, white," but, "we are no longer a black-white nation."
This may be why in L.A., many young people who are both black and Mexican are turning to a handy word to describe themselves: "Blaxican."
It's not a new term. Walter Thompson-Hernandez, a researcher at the University of Southern California who focuses on immigration and race, has traced references back to the 1980s. But it'sgained new prominence in the last few years, since he launched a project called "Blaxicans of L.A." It's an Instagram account featuring photos of Blaxicans — with their varied hues, hair textures and facial profiles — accompanied by a quote from each person offering an insight on the Blaxican experience.
"How we're talking about Blaxicans is relatively new," Thompson-Hernandez said, "but it is a racial and ethnic experience that has existed for centuries at least." When it comes to L.A., twenty-six of the 44 Mexicans who founded El Pueblo de Los Angeles in 1781 were Mexicans of African descent, an ethnicity described today as "Afro-Mexican." Today, the city that pueblo became is home to many children born to a Mexican parent and an African-American parent.
Their story often gets lost in the way Angelenos tend to talk about the history of South L.A., and what happened when Mexicans started moving into its black neighborhoods in large numbers beginning in the 1980s. Residents of South L.A. will remember race riots, turf wars and tensions exploding on school campuses, like the time Mexican students at Inglewood High school walked out of a Black History Month assembly in 1990, prompting black students to boycott a Cinco de Mayo celebration:
Families like Melissa Adams' represent instances when, as Thompson-Hernandez puts it, "black people and Mexican people came together and figured it out." But as his interviews make clear, it's not all gravy after that.
"Blacks and Mexicans are two of the most aggrieved groups in our nation's history," Walter-Hernandez said, and packing both of those identities into one person can amplify the struggles associated with being either. Some people he interviewed for the Instagram project have spoken of dealing with a black family member being assaulted by police at the same time that a Mexican family member was struggling with the threat of deportation. Others spoke of being forced to choose sides on the school playground. Or of being rejected by both sides.
Often, family is the source of tension.
Melissa Adams' mother, Manuela, remembered the snark she got from a Mexican sister-in-law when she learned Manuela was marrying a black man.
"She said, 'Oh, you're going to have monkey babies,'" Manuela said.
Thompson-Hernandez said interactions like this offer an opportunity to explore another prominent source of tension within the Blaxican experience: anti-black racism among Mexicans. Though black people have always been a part of Mexican society, Mexicans haven't always embraced that heritage. They've often shunned it, even while priding themselves on being a racially mixed population. It's just that they've tended to focus on mestizaje, the European and indigenous parts of that mixture.
Curator Nathalie Sanchez and Walter Thompson-Hernandez set up an exhibit of his photos at a gallery in Los Angeles.
Adrian Florido/NPR
L.A. County is one place where Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are beginning to reexamine that relationship with blackness, thanks in part to the many Blaxicans who live there. It's hard to say exactly how many, because the U.S. Census makes it notoriously difficult for Latinos to accurately report their ethnic and racial backgrounds. But the 2010 Census counted 42,000 people in L.A. County who identified as Latino and black, many of whom, presumably, are black and Mexican.
Thompson-Hernandez says it's important to note that "Blaxican" is taking off at the same time that the U.S. is becoming a more multiracial society and Afro-Mexicans are gaining greater recognition in Mexico. He said that more and more, mixed-race people "want to be considered full and complete human beings. And by reinventing language, it gives us the ability to represent all that we are."
Melissa Adams, the middle school valedictorian, has longed for a way to do just that. She grew up hearing and internalizing stories about her great-uncles who were lynched in the Jim Crow South — one hung from a tree, the other tarred, feathered and tossed into the Mississippi River. The legacy of racial violence in her family cuts to the core of how and why Adams conceives of herself as black.
Sisters Melissa (left) and Amber Adams grew up in Lynwood, Calif., where their black father and Mexican mother taught them that they were black, and that they were Mexican, and to have pride in being both.i
Sisters Melissa (left) and Amber Adams grew up in Lynwood, Calif., where their black father and Mexican mother taught them that they were black, and that they were Mexican, and to have pride in being both.
Courtesy of Amber and Melissa Adams
But ever since that moment in her middle school dean's office, she's tread carefully when broadcasting her blackness. It's caused her a lot anxiety.
i
Sisters Melissa (left) and Amber Adams grew up in Lynwood, Calif., where their black father and Mexican mother taught them that they were black, and that they were Mexican, and to have pride in being both.
Courtesy of Amber and Melissa Adams
Last year, when Rachel Dolezal, who ran the Spokane office of the NAACP, was lambasted after it was discovered she was a white woman posing as black, Adams, who most people wouldn't immediately think of as black based on her physical appearance, was filled with a sense of dread. She didn't want people to accuse her of what Dolezal seemed to be doing: claiming a blackness to which many said she had no right.
"I try to be very careful about how I express myself," Adams said. On the one hand, she wants to identify in a way that captures her life experiences and honors the history of racial injustice in her family. "On the other end, I totally understand that I will never be able to relate to some of the injustices that happened to my family and to other people who look a certain way."
She said the pictures and stories on the Blaxicans of L.A. Instagram account have given her a way to think about her identity in a way she never could before.
Recently a couple hundred people, lots of Blaxicans among them, showed up to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach to hear Thompson-Hernandez talk about his research. The next night, even more streamed in and out of a small gallery in L.A.'s Highland Park neighborhood for the opening of an exhibit featuring his photos.
They were hip events, full of proud, ethnically and racially ambiguous-looking young people. And it's worth noting: conversations about mixed race tend to focus on looks. Thompson-Hernandez said there's a tendency to talk about the "beauty" of mixed people. But that can be a problem, because it allows us to "confuse racial mixing and interracial marriages with being a panacea for racial intolerance."
Alex Tillman has struggled how to identify herself over the years. She has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black.i
Alex Tillman has struggled how to identify herself over the years. She has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black.
Courtesy of Alex Tillman
Instead, he says, the term "Blaxican" and events like these are creating spaces for Blaxicans to explore the diversity and similarities in their experiences. At both the museum lecture and the gallery opening, there was a palpable feeling of inclusion.
i
Alex Tillman has struggled how to identify herself over the years. She has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black.
Courtesy of Alex Tillman
"I'm really excited," one audience member said. "As a Blaxican in L.A., it's just really refreshing to be in a space where this conversation is happening." That seemed to be the overwhelming sentiment among people who showed up.
This momentum is exciting for Alex Tillman, who has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black. She said before a community of people started emerging around the term Blaxican, she had to figure herself out on her own.
"When you're little, you don't realize there's a problem with your identity. Like, you don't realize that you're black or Mexican or anything," she said. "And then when you grow up you learn about all the struggles you have just by being whatever you are. But then, you go through that struggle, and you get to a point where it's like, 'I'm just me.'"
Tillman said she got to that point only recently, around the time she learned about Thompson-Hernandez's project, and heard the word Blaxican for the first time. It gave her a neat if imperfect label for herself. She also saw that there were a lot of people having the same identity struggles that she did.
"Now, it's like a solidarity thing," she said, about the term and the people she's met through Thompson-Hernandez's work. "It's reinforcing what I feel about myself. I can identify with a lot of things that people have said, and that's just beautiful."
March 8, 201610:00 AM ET
A selection of participants who identify as black and Mexican in Walter Thompson-Hernandez's Instagram project, Blaxicans of L.A.
Courtesy of Walter Thompson-Hernandez
When Melissa Adams and her sister were growing up in Lynwood, near Compton, California, their black father and Mexican mother taught them to be proud of all aspects of their identity: they were black, and they were Mexican.
At home, that came easy. Publicly, it was harder.Take the time Melissa was named valedictorian of her middle school when she was 13. It was the first time anyone could remember a black student winning that honor at her school.
"Everyone was excited!" she said over breakfast at her family's house recently. "It was the first black valedictorian!" School administrators planned a special ceremony for her, and the dean called Adams into her office to congratulate her.
Melissa Adams (left) was a winner at a Pentathlon competition in middle school.
Courtesy of Melissa Adams
But when Adams walked in, the dean's smile melted away.
"She was notably disappointed by what she saw," Adams said, her voice trembling at the memory. "She didn't believe I was black." Adams, who has light skin, long, straight brown hair, and speaks Spanish, is used to people assuming that she's entirely Mexican or even white. She explained to the dean that her father was black, which was why she'd checked the box for that racial category on a school enrollment form. "She told me not to do that again," Adams recalled.
The problem is, Adams feels just as black as she feels Mexican. She grew up eating grits and biscuits andcarne asada and pozole; hearing dad talk about the civil rights era and visiting mom's family in Nayarit, Mexico.Yet while she feels secure in her Mexicanness, she often feels like she's "grasping" for her blackness due to the way people interpret her appearance. "I know that I am black, but how do I present it to other people?" she said.
Twenty-year-old Alex Tillman, a student at UCLA,is also black and Mexican, and growing up she also struggled with how to identify. But in a way, her problem was the inverse of the one Melissa Adams has faced.
"I once had a Mexican person tell me I wasn't Mexican, because I looked black," Tillman said. "I had to choose between one or the other, and because I looked black, I had to be black."
In terms of physical appearance, you could place Adams and Tillman on opposite ends of a spectrum represented by people who are both blackand Mexican. In Los Angeles, there are thousands of people in between. The number of people who have both a black and Mexican parent in that city started ballooning in the 80s and 90s, when Mexican immigrants began moving into South L.A.'s black neighborhoods in large numbers, and people started getting together and creating families.
Like Adams and Tillman, many have struggled to explain their racial identity to the outside world, and sometimes even to understand it themselves.
Much of this has to do with the fact that biracial identity in the United States has often been understood in terms of black and white. And to the extent that labels are helpful for quickly self-identifying, they don't always exist for the diversity of racial possibilities that mixed Americans increasingly want to see recognized. When it comes to mixed-race in America, Mexican-American author Richard Rodriguez has written, we rely on an "old vocabulary — black, white," but, "we are no longer a black-white nation."
This may be why in L.A., many young people who are both black and Mexican are turning to a handy word to describe themselves: "Blaxican."
It's not a new term. Walter Thompson-Hernandez, a researcher at the University of Southern California who focuses on immigration and race, has traced references back to the 1980s. But it'sgained new prominence in the last few years, since he launched a project called "Blaxicans of L.A." It's an Instagram account featuring photos of Blaxicans — with their varied hues, hair textures and facial profiles — accompanied by a quote from each person offering an insight on the Blaxican experience.
"How we're talking about Blaxicans is relatively new," Thompson-Hernandez said, "but it is a racial and ethnic experience that has existed for centuries at least." When it comes to L.A., twenty-six of the 44 Mexicans who founded El Pueblo de Los Angeles in 1781 were Mexicans of African descent, an ethnicity described today as "Afro-Mexican." Today, the city that pueblo became is home to many children born to a Mexican parent and an African-American parent.
Their story often gets lost in the way Angelenos tend to talk about the history of South L.A., and what happened when Mexicans started moving into its black neighborhoods in large numbers beginning in the 1980s. Residents of South L.A. will remember race riots, turf wars and tensions exploding on school campuses, like the time Mexican students at Inglewood High school walked out of a Black History Month assembly in 1990, prompting black students to boycott a Cinco de Mayo celebration:
Families like Melissa Adams' represent instances when, as Thompson-Hernandez puts it, "black people and Mexican people came together and figured it out." But as his interviews make clear, it's not all gravy after that.
"Blacks and Mexicans are two of the most aggrieved groups in our nation's history," Walter-Hernandez said, and packing both of those identities into one person can amplify the struggles associated with being either. Some people he interviewed for the Instagram project have spoken of dealing with a black family member being assaulted by police at the same time that a Mexican family member was struggling with the threat of deportation. Others spoke of being forced to choose sides on the school playground. Or of being rejected by both sides.
Often, family is the source of tension.
Melissa Adams' mother, Manuela, remembered the snark she got from a Mexican sister-in-law when she learned Manuela was marrying a black man.
"She said, 'Oh, you're going to have monkey babies,'" Manuela said.
Thompson-Hernandez said interactions like this offer an opportunity to explore another prominent source of tension within the Blaxican experience: anti-black racism among Mexicans. Though black people have always been a part of Mexican society, Mexicans haven't always embraced that heritage. They've often shunned it, even while priding themselves on being a racially mixed population. It's just that they've tended to focus on mestizaje, the European and indigenous parts of that mixture.
Curator Nathalie Sanchez and Walter Thompson-Hernandez set up an exhibit of his photos at a gallery in Los Angeles.
Adrian Florido/NPR
L.A. County is one place where Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are beginning to reexamine that relationship with blackness, thanks in part to the many Blaxicans who live there. It's hard to say exactly how many, because the U.S. Census makes it notoriously difficult for Latinos to accurately report their ethnic and racial backgrounds. But the 2010 Census counted 42,000 people in L.A. County who identified as Latino and black, many of whom, presumably, are black and Mexican.
Thompson-Hernandez says it's important to note that "Blaxican" is taking off at the same time that the U.S. is becoming a more multiracial society and Afro-Mexicans are gaining greater recognition in Mexico. He said that more and more, mixed-race people "want to be considered full and complete human beings. And by reinventing language, it gives us the ability to represent all that we are."
Melissa Adams, the middle school valedictorian, has longed for a way to do just that. She grew up hearing and internalizing stories about her great-uncles who were lynched in the Jim Crow South — one hung from a tree, the other tarred, feathered and tossed into the Mississippi River. The legacy of racial violence in her family cuts to the core of how and why Adams conceives of herself as black.
Sisters Melissa (left) and Amber Adams grew up in Lynwood, Calif., where their black father and Mexican mother taught them that they were black, and that they were Mexican, and to have pride in being both.i
Sisters Melissa (left) and Amber Adams grew up in Lynwood, Calif., where their black father and Mexican mother taught them that they were black, and that they were Mexican, and to have pride in being both.
Courtesy of Amber and Melissa Adams
But ever since that moment in her middle school dean's office, she's tread carefully when broadcasting her blackness. It's caused her a lot anxiety.
Sisters Melissa (left) and Amber Adams grew up in Lynwood, Calif., where their black father and Mexican mother taught them that they were black, and that they were Mexican, and to have pride in being both.
Courtesy of Amber and Melissa Adams
Last year, when Rachel Dolezal, who ran the Spokane office of the NAACP, was lambasted after it was discovered she was a white woman posing as black, Adams, who most people wouldn't immediately think of as black based on her physical appearance, was filled with a sense of dread. She didn't want people to accuse her of what Dolezal seemed to be doing: claiming a blackness to which many said she had no right.
"I try to be very careful about how I express myself," Adams said. On the one hand, she wants to identify in a way that captures her life experiences and honors the history of racial injustice in her family. "On the other end, I totally understand that I will never be able to relate to some of the injustices that happened to my family and to other people who look a certain way."
She said the pictures and stories on the Blaxicans of L.A. Instagram account have given her a way to think about her identity in a way she never could before.
Recently a couple hundred people, lots of Blaxicans among them, showed up to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach to hear Thompson-Hernandez talk about his research. The next night, even more streamed in and out of a small gallery in L.A.'s Highland Park neighborhood for the opening of an exhibit featuring his photos.
They were hip events, full of proud, ethnically and racially ambiguous-looking young people. And it's worth noting: conversations about mixed race tend to focus on looks. Thompson-Hernandez said there's a tendency to talk about the "beauty" of mixed people. But that can be a problem, because it allows us to "confuse racial mixing and interracial marriages with being a panacea for racial intolerance."
Alex Tillman has struggled how to identify herself over the years. She has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black.i
Alex Tillman has struggled how to identify herself over the years. She has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black.
Courtesy of Alex Tillman
Instead, he says, the term "Blaxican" and events like these are creating spaces for Blaxicans to explore the diversity and similarities in their experiences. At both the museum lecture and the gallery opening, there was a palpable feeling of inclusion.
Alex Tillman has struggled how to identify herself over the years. She has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black.
Courtesy of Alex Tillman
"I'm really excited," one audience member said. "As a Blaxican in L.A., it's just really refreshing to be in a space where this conversation is happening." That seemed to be the overwhelming sentiment among people who showed up.
This momentum is exciting for Alex Tillman, who has often been told she's not Mexican because she looks black. She said before a community of people started emerging around the term Blaxican, she had to figure herself out on her own.
"When you're little, you don't realize there's a problem with your identity. Like, you don't realize that you're black or Mexican or anything," she said. "And then when you grow up you learn about all the struggles you have just by being whatever you are. But then, you go through that struggle, and you get to a point where it's like, 'I'm just me.'"
Tillman said she got to that point only recently, around the time she learned about Thompson-Hernandez's project, and heard the word Blaxican for the first time. It gave her a neat if imperfect label for herself. She also saw that there were a lot of people having the same identity struggles that she did.
"Now, it's like a solidarity thing," she said, about the term and the people she's met through Thompson-Hernandez's work. "It's reinforcing what I feel about myself. I can identify with a lot of things that people have said, and that's just beautiful."
New Ethanol Plant For Jamaica
Published: Wednesday | March 9, 2016 | 12:01 AM Camilo Thame
JAMPRO and Benchmark Renewable Energy LLC sign an MOU for the company to develop a bio-ethanol plant in Jamaica. Juan Briceno of Benchmark is seated at centre and President of Jampro Diane Edwards is seated right. The others (from left) are: President of Holesinger Farms, Keith Holesinger; manager of manufacturing, energy and mining, at JAMPRO, Ricardo Durrant; president of Capital Solutions Inc, James Carter; and vice-president of Investment Promotion at Jampro, Claude Duncan.
Benchmark Renewable Energy plans to construct a 10 million-gallon ethanol plant and grow the sweet sorghum that it intends to use as feedstock in Jamaica within the next two years.
The Florida-based company also plans to sell the biofuel to Petrojam to replace about 80 per cent of the country's imported ethanol currently blended into gasolene sold at the local pumps.
The biofuel will fire a 6MW electrical generator that will supply the processing facility with its energy needs and provide 3MW to the national grid.
Juan Briceno says it will take around a year to get an ethanol plant up and running, while farming operations need just begin four to five months before the processing facility is commissioned.
But first, the CFO of Benchmark says a lease agreement for 4,000 hectares of land needed to grow the feedstock for the plant has to be inked, followed by an offtake agreement with the state-run refinery, Petrojam, soon thereafter.
A power purchase agreement with the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) would take longer due to engineering requirements, but both SCJ Holdings, which manages thousands of acres of former sugarcane lands on behalf of the Government, and Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, the parent of Petrojam, are already on board.
"We have an MOU," Briceno told Wednesday Business. "We should sign the land lease by early next month."
Some 4,000 hectares can yield up to 400,000 tonnes of sorghum annually from two harvests.
"The variety (of sorghum), which is from Puerto Rico, might be able to do two and half harvests," Benchmark's CFO added.
The project also includes Capital Solutions as the financing company, while Holesinger Farms will offer farming expertise.
In between harvests, the farming operations will rest the land from intensive cultivation - sorghum is greedy for the nitrogen it takes from the soil. Benchmark also plans to rotate the main crop with a variety of mustard seed, which releases nitrogen into the soil, to help replenish the land, and to use as feedstock for producing drop-in aviation jet fuel; about 500,000 gallons a year.
Benchmark is currently looking at Clarendon to locate its ethanol plant and sorghum farm. The project is expected to cost in the region of US$95 million and employ 140 persons directly, and 500 indirectly.
A second phase to develop a further 4,000 hectares and add 10 million gallons capacity to the ethanol processing facility is being considered.
"We would be able to produce 20 million gallons, and through exporting to the US, Jamaica would become a net exporter of biofuel," said Brenico. "We already have an agreement for off-take with Tenaska in the United States."
He also said that the project has a "carbon-negative footprint" in that three tonnes of carbon dioxide is removed from the Earth's atmosphere for every tonne of sorghum produced.
New ethanol plant for Jamaica
Published: Wednesday | March 9, 2016 | 12:01 AM Camilo Thame
JAMPRO and Benchmark Renewable Energy LLC sign an MOU for the company to develop a bio-ethanol plant in Jamaica. Juan Briceno of Benchmark is seated at centre and President of Jampro Diane Edwards is seated right. The others (from left) are: President of Holesinger Farms, Keith Holesinger; manager of manufacturing, energy and mining, at JAMPRO, Ricardo Durrant; president of Capital Solutions Inc, James Carter; and vice-president of Investment Promotion at Jampro, Claude Duncan.
Benchmark Renewable Energy plans to construct a 10 million-gallon ethanol plant and grow the sweet sorghum that it intends to use as feedstock in Jamaica within the next two years.
The Florida-based company also plans to sell the biofuel to Petrojam to replace about 80 per cent of the country's imported ethanol currently blended into gasolene sold at the local pumps.
The biofuel will fire a 6MW electrical generator that will supply the processing facility with its energy needs and provide 3MW to the national grid.
Juan Briceno says it will take around a year to get an ethanol plant up and running, while farming operations need just begin four to five months before the processing facility is commissioned.
But first, the CFO of Benchmark says a lease agreement for 4,000 hectares of land needed to grow the feedstock for the plant has to be inked, followed by an offtake agreement with the state-run refinery, Petrojam, soon thereafter.
A power purchase agreement with the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) would take longer due to engineering requirements, but both SCJ Holdings, which manages thousands of acres of former sugarcane lands on behalf of the Government, and Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, the parent of Petrojam, are already on board.
"We have an MOU," Briceno told Wednesday Business. "We should sign the land lease by early next month."
Some 4,000 hectares can yield up to 400,000 tonnes of sorghum annually from two harvests.
"The variety (of sorghum), which is from Puerto Rico, might be able to do two and half harvests," Benchmark's CFO added.
The project also includes Capital Solutions as the financing company, while Holesinger Farms will offer farming expertise.
In between harvests, the farming operations will rest the land from intensive cultivation - sorghum is greedy for the nitrogen it takes from the soil. Benchmark also plans to rotate the main crop with a variety of mustard seed, which releases nitrogen into the soil, to help replenish the land, and to use as feedstock for producing drop-in aviation jet fuel; about 500,000 gallons a year.
Benchmark is currently looking at Clarendon to locate its ethanol plant and sorghum farm. The project is expected to cost in the region of US$95 million and employ 140 persons directly, and 500 indirectly.
A second phase to develop a further 4,000 hectares and add 10 million gallons capacity to the ethanol processing facility is being considered.
"We would be able to produce 20 million gallons, and through exporting to the US, Jamaica would become a net exporter of biofuel," said Brenico. "We already have an agreement for off-take with Tenaska in the United States."
He also said that the project has a "carbon-negative footprint" in that three tonnes of carbon dioxide is removed from the Earth's atmosphere for every tonne of sorghum produced.
New ethanol plant for Jamaica