Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events

[Poitier]

Frances Negron-Muntaner
yesterday9 min read
Why Do Americans Find Cuba Sexy — but Not Puerto Rico?

The history of why the American imagination treats two Caribbean islands very differently.

By Frances Negrón-Muntaner

Cartoon in the Boston Globe, May 1898. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
The editor of a leading publishing house was not moved by my impassioned pitch: to write a major English-language biography of Julia de Burgos, a Puerto Rican poet and national icon whose name or likeness can be found in dozens of murals, buildings, and street signs across Latino neighborhoods. To my proposal, he simply said: “Nah. It wouldn’t sell. The only Latin biography I’d publish is José Martí.”

“José Martí?” I repeated, incredulous. Certainly, the renowned Cuban poet and pro-independence hero merits not one but many biographies. The categorical tone of his reply, however, puzzled me: “Why only Martí?” The editor smiled: “Martí comes from a sexy country.” “But he’s not sexy,” I countered.

The double standard made little sense. Yet, it could be explained — and should. For how Americans view Cuba and Puerto Rico has both history and consequences, including now when the U.S. government just imposed a fiscal control board on Puerto Rico and Cuba warily embraces American investment.

Since the islands first entered the young republic’s field of vision in the 19th century, Cuba has always been the more attractive of the two. It was bigger. It was more elegant. But, above all, it was closer. In the American imagination, Cuba appeared as emotional boundary and vulnerable national border, an Achilles’ heel whose possession by another could bring about the destruction of the United States itself. In fact, the American fear that a different country than Spain would govern Cuba reached such heights that, between 1823 and 1897, the U.S. made no fewer than four attempts to purchase the island. To be in control of Cuba’s destiny grew into an obsession.

If Cuba is a colorful fantasy that lasts and lasts like a Life Savers lollipop, Puerto Rico is a nuisance, like a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
When the U.S. finally took up arms in the matter during the Spanish-American War of 1898, its fixation with Cuba intensified. Invoking libidinous and political fantasies, the press represented the island in numerous caricatures and narratives as a beautiful young woman or a starving mother, crying out for a savior who could rescue her from Spain. That Cuban pro-independence fighters were largely missing from the picture leaves little doubt that Uncle Sam was interested solely in saving Cuba — not Cubans.

Up until the U.S. readied to invade Puerto Rico, the island was hardly mentioned in the nation’s war coverage. Yet as the military campaign there advanced, references to Puerto Rico in the American press increased. Unlike with Cuba, however, the taking of “Porto Rico” is often described in cold imperial terms: Politicians and experts agreed on the island’s strategic advantages and business potential; they also assured readers that Puerto Rico was too small to be independent and would benefit from American guidance. Journalists likewise reported, in short articles underlining the island’s lack of importance, that it was Puerto Ricans and not Americans who were “excited” about the invasion.

Once in control of the islands after the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the U.S. imposed military governments in Cuba and Puerto Rico. In print, the Cuban belle morphed into a black boy who, similar to his Puerto Rican cousin, needed Uncle Sam to forever teach him the art of self-government. Nevertheless, whereas Americans saw themselves as superior to both Cubans and Puerto Ricans, the ethos of independence made them feel closer to Cubans. In the words of influential congressman Henry Teller, author of the amendment precluding the U.S. annexation of Cuba: “I don’t like the Puerto Rican. They are not fighters like the Cubans. They were under Spanish tyranny for centuries without showing enough manhood to oppose it. Such a race is unworthy of U.S. citizenship.”

The next step was as creative as it was crafty. While the desire to annex Cuba culminated in the American “concession” of independence in 1902, the U.S. viewed it as theirs. Puerto Rico, however, is legally possessed outright, even as the Supreme Court decided the island, like a superfluous accessory, belongs to — but is not part of — the U.S. Although the U.S. eventually extended citizenship to Puerto Rico’s residents in 1917, this formality had little to do with integration or civil rights. As colonial governor Arthur D. Yager put it, the U.S. citizenship of Puerto Ricans simply indicated that, “we have determined … the American flag will never be lowered in Puerto Rico.” Consequently, islanders entered the equivalent of political limbo: they could serve in the U.S. military but not vote for the president nor have a voting congressional representation.

By the 1920s, America’s attraction to Cuba eagerly returned to its primal idiom: sex. From the Roaring Twenties to the “lost decade” of the 1950s, Americans made Havana their go-to destination for the three Ds: dancing, drinking, and dealing. Puerto Rico, despite having spectacular beaches and a climate similar to the island next door, could boast only one luxury hotel, the Condado Vanderbilt, until 1949, when the Caribe Hilton was built — at the behest of the insular government. If Cuba was triple-D, Puerto Rico was triple-P: poor, puny, and passive. Americans remained hooked on Havana.

At least, until el mambo came to an end. Though the U.S.-Cuba affair was invariably tense, the Cuban Revolution of 1959 abruptly ended America’s romance, yet turned the island into a much more alluring girl. Again, Cuba became the forbidden fruit that must be re-acquired at all costs through invasions, embargoes, and assassination attempts — and no wonder: By 1958, Cuba was not just a popular adult amusement park for Americans. U.S. capital controlled a large portion of the island’s economy, including 90 percent of the electric and telephone industries, 83 percent of the railway commerce, and 43 percent of the sugar business.

Simultaneously, if the masculinity of young Cuban men-at-arms was a turnoff for the American political elite, it attracted leftist and minority intellectuals, who understood the revolution as a direct challenge to the racist and colonial policies of the U.S. at home and abroad. Even further, the revolution raised Cubans to the level of international sex symbols, models of how a small and poor nation could confront the most powerful military in the world and win. This development immediately affected Puerto Rico.

To counter the rise of Cuba rebelde as a sexy global brand, the U.S re-fashioned Puerto Rico as a plain but attractive alternative by offering corporate incentives and tax breaks. The new look is evident in a 1958 cover of Time magazine, featuring the island’s gray-haired governor Luis Muñoz Marín. Once more, Puerto Rico is sold in clinical terms, this time, as a laboratory “about democracy in Latin America.” According to the magazine, Puerto Rico demonstrates how good capitalism can be when Latin America embraces U.S. investment and rejects nationalism. Clinical or otherwise, the experiment soon lost funding and went into crisis. Not only did the ensuing Puerto Rican “economic miracle” last less than two decades, it required the exportation of over 700,000 Caribbean souls to cities such as New York to serve as cheap and expendable labor.

The motivation now is less to restore the border with Cuba than to recover lost time and re-conquer the last nearby market not deeply penetrated by American capital.
Ironically, even though many New Yorkers regarded Puerto Rican migrants as “tropical scum,” their origin “somewhere down there,” made it possible for a handful to be assimilated through the Latin Lover and sexy spitfire stereotypes. After 1959, the situation for Cubans fleeing to the U.S. is reversed: Although they received a warmer welcome, for Americans, the heat stayed behind. Whether considered model minorities as the first wave of exiles or riffraff after the 1980 Mariel boatlift, Cubans in America rarely earn the “most sexy” title–with the exception of those who work really hard at it like Pitbull. As always, the crown of sexy is reserved collectively for those who remain or live in Cuba — and Che, of course.

It is, then, not surprising that, in the last two years, as relations between the U.S. and Cuba have “thawed” and President Barack Obama became the first American president to visit since 1928, sexual rhetoric has returned as a vital component of the rapprochement, foreshadowing conflicts to come. In the first few months of 2015 alone, dozens of influential American magazines, from GQ to The New Yorker — and hundreds of Web and television images — depict this new era of American infatuation as a dance, accompanied by, what else, rum, cars, cigars, and mulattas. No doubt the party is back on.

The motivation now is less to restore the border with Cuba than to recover lost time and re-conquer the last nearby market not deeply penetrated by American capital. In this new climate, everything Cuban is hot. To learn how the Cuba Libre (and not the Piña Colada) came about is sexy. To invest in run-down urban areas (in Havana, not in San Juan) is sexy. It is also sexy to invite university students to study the biosphere. “Cuba is inaccessible,” the professor observes. “It makes the trip sound much sexier, don’t you think?”

Even Cuban poverty is sexy — at least on the front page of the New York Times. This past March 20th, 2016, the paper made the unusual choice of running stories about both islands. As scholar Rima Brusi quickly noted, the Cuban article was not only above the fold — it similarly included striking photographs of Havana’s ruins resembling realist paintings. Furthermore, while Cuba’s poverty may cause “aching despair,” the Times re-assures its readers that Cubans “brim with so much life. They wait, coiled with anticipation” (yet again). In contrast, Puerto Rico’s poverty and landscape are, in addition to ugly, repellent, and dangerous: the island is a “warm, wet paradise veined with gritty poverty, the ideal environment for the [Zika] mosquitoes carrying the virus.”

Many see little wrong with these depictions for at least two reasons. While the revolution was, in part, a response to U.S. domination, the formal rupture between governments and the fact that Fidel Castro took over allow the Americans to return as if they had nothing to do with Cuba’s fortunes. With Puerto Rico, denial is impossible, particularly now, when, to a large extent due to American failed policies, the country is emptying out by the thousands and the economy is near collapse.

After 118 years, it is clear that the self-designated greatest democracy in the world failed to provide what it promised upon arrival — prosperity and freedom — making Puerto Rico an uncomfortable matter for Americans. If Cuba is a colorful fantasy that lasts and lasts like a Life Savers lollipop, Puerto Rico is a nuisance, like a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. It is also a damning mirror reflecting back an image of the U.S. as just another country imposing its power — not for the good of humanity, but to advance its own interests.

Ultimately, the irony is that being considered sexy or not, and following different paths of reform and revolution under its good neighbor, Cuba and Puerto Rico have ended up in a similar place: ruined. Though, once more, the U.S. mostly has eyes for one. The danger for Cuba is that, to quote philosopher Gilles Deleuze: “If you’re trapped in the dream of another, you’re screwed.” In other words, as Puerto Ricans know, possession without passion adds salt to the wound. But there are amores que matan — loves that kill — and looks too.

Why Do Americans Find Cuba Sexy — but Not Puerto Rico?

 

[Yehuda]

Aurelio Martínez & the Garifuna People: A History of African Resistance in the Americas

09.14.16

by PABLO MEDINA URIBE

Aurelio Martinez at Afro Latino Fest NYC. Photo: Redens Desrosiers.

Aurelio Martínez laughs every two sentences, even when he describes the crimes of colonialism and slavery. Maybe, he says, it’s because Garifuna people are happy people. The Garifuna are a community of mixed-race people who inhabit Central America’s Atlantic coast, particularly in Honduras, where Martínez is from.

The Garifuna people originated in the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. In 1635, the survivors of the wreck of a Spanish ship carrying people from Biafra, in modern-day Nigeria, to be sold as slaves in the Americas, were welcomed by the local Caribs. A few years later, another ship, this time Portuguese, suffered the same fate, and would-be slaves from Congo and Ghana joined their fellow Africans in St. Vincent.

The Caribs, originally from nearby modern-day Venezuela, had immigrated to this island before and had killed most of the Arawak locals, but kept their women and started to have families with them. The African men and women joined them and adapted to their customs, creating a culture, which became known as Garifuna, for one of the last free islands in the Caribbean.

However, beginning in 1719, both French and English troops tried to conquer the island and subject its inhabitants. The local resistance was strong, though, and the English were only able to topple the Garifuna in 1795, almost eight decades after their initial attacks. Two years later, the English decided to expel the Garifuna and ship them to Roatán, an island off the coast of what is now Honduras. From there, they expanded to their current territories.

This is the tragic, but proud history that shapes every Garifuna like, and it is the backdrop of his music. He sings exclusively in the Garifuna language, but that is no impediment for his crowds around the world, who never seem to get on his feet and dance to his tunes.

We caught up with Martínez after his presentation at the Afro-Latino Festival in Brooklyn to talk about his music, Garifuna culture, and breaking away from tradition.

Aurelio Martinez at Afro Latino Fest NYC. Photo: Ailyn Robles.

Can you talk a little bit about the Garifuna people?

Aurelio Martínez: The Garifuna represent the resistance of African-ness in the Americas. We were never enslaved, that’s why we still have the structure of our culture, which was born in St. Vincent, in the Antilles, a mixture of Arawak indigenous people with African black people. Garifuna people have remained in Central America for 219 years after being expelled from St. Vincent. After the Caribbean, the Garifuna went to Honduras. From there, we went to all of the Central American Atlantic coast, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Belize, those four countries. Though now we have a lot of exiles and emigrants, like the rest of cultures in the world.

We Garifunas have 46 communities in Honduras, eight in Belize, two in Nicaragua, and two in Guatemala. We still maintain our mother religion, our food, our dances, chants, drums, it all still exists, but it’s dwindling. Me, in particular, I never knew when I spoke Spanish and when I spoke Garifuna, they are two mother tongues to me. I am bilingual.

Garifuna culture is a minority in every country, but it has been dominated by Central America in regards of identity. It was declared by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, but that’s an irrelevant declaration when the Garifuna culture is disappearing. Kids don’t speak Garifuna anymore, their parents are not teaching them. So what we are doing right now is trying to maintain our pride so kids have a role model within their culture, and they can preserve their culture. Our work is very important because in our countries’ radios you can hear more R&B, bachata, merengue, whatever, but not Garifuna music. That’s one of the reasons our culture is in decline.

Yet, we are very happy people. If you ever go to a Garifuna town, people will receive you with open arms, they’ll hug you and love you, that’s who we are.

How did that history of the Garifuna culture influenced the music you do?

Well, Garifuna music first comes through “punta,” which is what we call the traditional rhythm that we Garifunas play, but is really a ceremony we do when someone dies. We believe that there someone new is born to replace the one that dies. Women dance around fire while men watch them, which symbolizes intimacy acts by which a dead Garifuna can be replaced by a new one. It’s a dance that extols human fertility.

There is also “parranda,” a very festive music that talks about daily themes, like if someone has some issues with someone else, they would sing a song mocking them instead of fighting them. We are a peaceful people, our music comes from that. So what I’ve done is to take that music and not only talk about local issues, but also about issues that connect with the rest of the world. It’s socially conscious music, for example talking about migration to the United States, or to the rest of the world, HIV, or other issues. We use music to say things that we wouldn’t usually be able to say in another context.

I have tried to steer this music into a social revolution. That’s what the world needs right now, I think. Garifuna music and culture still have a lot to offer to the world, because of the simple way in which we live.



So why do you write your songs in Garifuna?

Well, first, we do it, as I said, as a way to maintain young Garifunas in our communities proud of our own culture. But, also, when I write in this language, I don’t have to clash with Donald Trump or anyone like that. When I say things in Garifuna I just want to alert our own people about the problems we are facing. And if someone is very interested in my lyrics they’ll have to research deep to figure out what am I saying and will probably learn something from that.

Also, music is an universal language and it has a soul that can connect with anyone, in the way that it is played, in the way that it is performed. So I can’t make a song unless I really feel it. If I don’t feel it, I can’t sing it. I’m a very spiritual person, and that spirituality comes from Baba, the god we Garifunas believe in, the supreme being, the God of Good.

Is your music considered traditional Garifuna music, or are there other elements that you are adding in?

For me, traditional Garifuna music has passed. Even though I sing traditional Garifuna songs, we have tried to insert them in a global context. If you come as a foreigner to our community and listen to our music, you’ll get tired of it quickly, because it’s the same groove all night. But since our people understand the lyrics and the whole structure of the song, the cultural themes within, we don’t get bored. But someone from outside would get annoyed by the repetition. So I have tried to do arrangements and add international influences so I can show this music to other people around the word.

What would you say are your most important influences?

I am a great follower of Afro-Cuban music, in particular trova, I like reggae from Jamaica, also blues, jazz… so many things, even country music. Garifunas have not been static, we have assimilated and evolved with the things we have found in our paths. For example, numbers in garifuna are: aba, biama, üruwa, gadurü, sengü, sisi, sedü, vidü, nefu, disi… you can see some French influence there. There are so many things with which we connect, I can’t really list them all.

Another example is the guitar, which wasn’t an instrument we used, but after the contact with Spaniards, after we were expelled from St. Vincent by the English, flamenco became an important influence in our music. So we have been picking up things from everywhere as a way to advance our culture. Parranda used to be a kind of music with drums, maracas and claves, then the guitar entered and harmony with it. We are not a static people, we keep evolving. I am just a part of that evolution of Garifuna music.



Is the language you sing in a problem to make this music reach a wider audience abroad?

Well, people who know me from before maybe have a problem with it, because in Honduras I also sing music in Spanish, merengue, bachata, all of that. In order to survive by making music you have to be willing to play anything. But when I go abroad, I bear a flag, the Garifuna flag. I don’t have any problems with people around the world. Maybe I’ll find an Honduran that will ask me a song in Spanish, but anyway.

I’m still interested in playing Garifuna music in Garifuna, just as any other culture in the world, people from China, Russia, etcetera, who sing in their own mother tongues. And Europe in particular is a market that is very open to cultures from other parts of the world.

So do you ever sing in Spanish?

Well, if I have to sing popular music… In our community I have to sing everything, because otherwise I’ll be kicked out [laughs]. You have to know what stage are you standing in, and give people what they want. But when it comes to playing abroad, I am not influenced by that, I don’t have anyone telling me in what language I should sing, so I always sing in Garifuna.

 

[Yehuda]

You have said that you feel more part of the Garifuna Nation, than part of the Honduras nation…

Sure. I don’t represent any country in particular, I represent the Garifuna Nation, which is a people that was forcefully removed from Africa, subject in St. Vincent, then mixed with Caribs and Arawaks, and then were expelled, I represent that people, I’m more Garifuna than Honduran, even more Garifuna than Central American.

What I am aiming at by saying this is trying to unite the people and preserve its culture. Many people of the Americas have had their cultures destroyed and replaced with other cultures, and I think each should be able to preserve it. The God of Good is not against any of these cultures, because just as he created Paradise with many colors, and birds of different colors, trees with diverse fruits, he also created humans with different identities. It’s important to respect those identities so we can keep living that diversity that we have in the world.

So is that identification with the Garifuna Nation also reflected in Garifuna music? Is there an unity among Garifuna musicians from different countries?

Language is what unites us, as is our common history, we all come from St. Vincent. Every Garifuna from Central America comes from the same place, all came in the same boat. We are the same people, we are the descendants of Barauda and Satuye, our great leader. That’s our history in Honduras, but it’s the same history for those in Belize, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and everywhere. We are the same family.

Aurelio Martinez at Afro Latino Fest NYC. Photo: Ailyn Robles.

You were playing today with a band made up of Garifunas from the Garifuna community in The Bronx. Are you usually able to find such ensembles in other places where you play?

Yeah. I have a structure in place in Honduras, in Los Angeles, here in New York too. I don’t want to be Aurelio Martínez in front of a project, I want to start a movement of Garifuna music. I want to see Garifuna musicians travelling around the world, bringing our culture abroad, so our children are proud of their identity. Many are playing with me now, and that’s great, because they don’t only carry our music, but also our culture and our history. Today we are the passengers of this project, we are replacement soldiers. Right now maybe I am the captain of this ship, but we must have more sailors and more captains.

And how is that movement going?

Well, I never thought I would be playing in London in front of 40,000 people, I never thought I would see the English, who were the ones who subjected us, singing in our language. That fusion of cultures through art is beautiful. Sometimes we forget about the history of slavery and our enmity when there is music in between. I believe that the most subtle way of entering a human heart is through music, through art.

So what projects are coming up next for you?

Now I’m pushing the development of Garifuna pop. If you had caught my show a few months ago, you would have only seen two drums, maracas, and a clave. Now I added a drum set, so it has a bit more of “punch” and it sounds more pop so it can become more international. Anywhere in the world you can find a drum set, but a Garifuna drum is not so easy to come by. Also, people already connect with the drum set. So my idea is to add the Garifuna drums on top of that. I also want to add some brass now. I’m looking to go beyond the drums and grow so people can grow with us. That’s my project: start at the most traditional and keep going to the most complex of Garifuna music.

Have you been met with any opposition because of this departing from tradition?

Yes. Traditional people are used to traditional chords and to see Garifuna music more as dance than music, it’s more percussion than harmony. But I grew up in the border with Misquito music, the music of an indigenous culture with a lot of influence from the English culture. So their music is connected to gospel, which has a lot of harmonies. I had a Misquito teacher in elementary school, and she taught me how to sing harmonies, which was very different from Garifuna music, where everything is unison. So I began to harmonize, to change notes, to try to give Garifuna music a more international context. I have been bold, but I have always respected the bases of my culture. Some of the older people don’t want any of our rhythms to be harmonized, but I have done it, even if it was forbidden, and people have opened to it.

What do you mean it was forbidden?

For example, the dugu, the rhythm of the Garifuna maternal religion, is very solemn, only to be played in temples. But I know and respect the historical bases of our music… Before I go on stage I pay tribute to my ancestors. So I’m changing things, but I respect what came before me.

Has is it made finding Garifuna musicians willing to play with you difficult because of that?

I think that Garifuna musicians who have studied music beyond our tradition have realized that this is the way to go. So I tell Hondurans and everyone: “Today, the world needs music with an identity.” If you play guitar like the most famous guitar player in the world, what’s the point? You have to find your own style, find your own soul. This is what the Garifuna culture offers, it has its own soul, its own color. Simply put, we are music with identity.

Are there other Garifuna musicians touring and promoting this culture in the same way you are?

This is a still tender project. We used to be two, Andy Palacio and myself. Andy Palacio passed away [in 2008] and I was left alone with this responsibility. There are some young people working on this, so I hope they know their culture, so they can then show it to the world. We are always open to help others, to steer them in the right way to make the movement more robust. We believe in education and solidarity, the success of a project depends on that. We are merely guides.

Aurelio Martínez & the Garifuna: A History of African Resistance in the Americas

 

[BigMan]

i don't have any links in English but mi islanan Curacao and Aruba are having a huge debate on Venezuelan refugees. Since we are so close to them we have and are experiencing a huge wave of Venezuelans coming to the islands, many which are illegal and recently invovled in high profile crime (venezuelans murdered a family in aruba recently)

its funny comparing how they feel towards Spanish speaking immigrants vs Americans to Hispanic immigration

@Yehuda @horse. kills is brazil experiencing any immigratino from Venezuela or is Brazil so fukked up no one is going there?

 

[dennis roadman]

i don't have any links in English but mi islanan Curacao and Aruba are having a huge debate on Venezuelan refugees. Since we are so close to them we have and are experiencing a huge wave of Venezuelans coming to the islands, many which are illegal and recently invovled in high profile crime (venezuelans murdered a family in aruba recently)

its funny comparing how they feel towards Spanish speaking immigrants vs Americans to Hispanic immigration

@Yehuda @horse. kills is brazil experiencing any immigratino from Venezuela or is Brazil so fukked up no one is going there?

shyt is so depressing I don't even read the news anymore I don't know any Venezuelans in Brazil tho. But I don't know anyone in the north, it's like someone from Miami knowing about north dakota's Canadian border. I'm ignorant as fukk sadly

That said I'm sure they're there, illegally if nothing else. You're in pretty dense bush along a lot of the border

 

[BigMan]

shyt is so depressing I don't even read the news anymore I don't know any Venezuelans in Brazil tho. But I don't know anyone in the north, it's like someone from Miami knowing about north dakota's Canadian border. I'm ignorant as fukk sadly

That said I'm sure they're there, illegally if nothing else. You're in pretty dense bush along a lot of the border

I'm a ignant ass American lol my bad for assuming you'd know everything in Brazil's north

But yeah it's crazy what's happening in Venezuela and its effect on its neighbors

 

[dennis roadman]

I'm a ignant ass American lol my bad for assuming you'd know everything in Brazil's north

But yeah it's crazy what's happening in Venezuela and its effect on its neighbors

Man I live in DC area when I'm in the states and in Brazil people ask me about Texas and Orlando so it's not just you

All the big cities in Venezuela are closer to your islands too, I'm sure the brunt of it will be felt there first

 

[Yehuda]

is brazil experiencing any immigratino from Venezuela or is Brazil so fukked up no one is going there?

Main people coming here are Haitians/Bolivians/West Africans in general but it's nothing expressive.

 

[BigMan]

Yeah it's funny how no one wants immigrants but dam near everyone is an immigrant or the kids/grandkids of one

 

[Yehuda]

The most densely populated place on Earth is not where you might think

The dead are buried on a neighbouring island, there are no toilets, and the children play in the sea. Lee Williams reports on the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Santa Cruz del Islote

• Lee Williams
• @leeroy112
• Friday 16 September 2016

The island is under threat from climate change and a lack of political will to protect it Shutterstock

If asked to think of one of the most overcrowded places in the world you might come up with a city such as Hong Kong, Delhi or Mumbai, perhaps somewhere in the middle of Tokyo, or a cramped favela in Rio perhaps…

You probably wouldn’t think of a Caribbean island. Yet Santa Cruz del Islote, off the north coast of Colombia, is claimed to be the most densely populated island in the world and one of the most overcrowded places on Earth. With an area of just 0.8 hectares – about the size of a football pitch – and a population of up to 1,200 at peak times, it is easy to see why.

Space is so limited that the dead are buried on a neighbouring island, children play in the sea, and even a kick-around necessitates a boat trip elsewhere. The island’s drinking water has to be brought in by boat from the mainland, and there are no toilets or sewage system – most islanders still use the sea.

There is a saying about Santa Cruz del Islote that the people live so close together, when they sleep they dream the same dream. But not all the challenges on Islote come from its size. The islanders, it seems, have some very powerful enemies. “There is a lot of interest from very important people who want those islands for themselves, ” says Juan Fernando Sanchez Jaramillo, a human rights lawyer from Bogota who fights for the rights of the islanders.

The island lies off the north coast of Colombia (Wikimedia Commons)

Land on the San Bernardo archipelago, of which Islote is a part, is being bought up increasingly by some of Colombia’s wealthiest and most influential citizens, according to the lawyer. And some of the newly arrived glitterati see it as an embarrassment to have what Sanchez Jaramillo calls a “favela in the sea” so close to their homes. This floating favela, three hours’ boat ride from Cartagena, is home to an Afro-Colombian community of fisher people, who settled here shortly after the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. The surrounding mangrove islands were plagued by mosquitoes but the barren rock of Islote offered the fishermen and their families a home that was mercifully free of the pests. Today the inhabitants still scrape a living from fishing but they have no rights over the tiny patch of land that has been their home for more than 150 years.

Most black and indigenous communities in Colombia are given rights called '‘collective titling'’, Sanchez Jaramillo explains, which allows the community as a whole to own the land. But these rights have never been extended to the inhabitants of Islote. One reason for this, the lawyer believes, is institutional racism. “Islote is part of the jurisdiction of Cartagena,” he says, “and Cartagena has never been interested in the islands. It never invested money in the islands because of this racism, which is especially strong in Cartagena.”

Antipathy and political apathy have meant that Islote is excluded from many basic human rights as well. Although drinking water is supposed to be delivered in a weekly boat from Cartagena, in reality the ship might not return for weeks or even months. Instead islanders have been forced to turn to the skies. Most residents have built structures on their homes to collect rainfall but the water is untreated leading to problems of stomach infections and skin diseases, especially in the island’s population of 300 children.

Similarly waste should be collected weekly from Cartagena but the boat often goes unseen for periods of up to a month. The build-up of rubbish began to lead to health problems until the islanders took matters into their own hands, shipping it to a nearby island. To combat such health problems Islote has a single medical centre with a few pieces of rusting equipment and a solitary, underpaid nurse. A visiting doctor comes every two weeks but any serious illness or emergency sees all the islanders chip in to pay for a boat to the mainland. That’s if a boat is available or the seas are not too rough for the crossing. In any case the journey takes three quarters of an hour. “Forty-five minutes in an emergency, maybe the person is dead, ” Sanchez Jaramillo points out.

Until last year the only electricity on Islote came from a diesel-powered generator that the islanders could only afford to operate part of the day. Each day a designated islander would collect money from all the families to run the generator that evening. If he didn’t collect enough money the electricity didn’t come on. There wasn’t even enough power to run the medical centre’s forlorn x-ray machine.

The waters around Islote were made a national park in 1996

In 2015, thanks to a public legal action, the government was forced to install solar panels on the island but even this has led to unforeseen problems according to Lavinia Fiori, an anthropologist from the nearby island of Isla Grande, who also fights for the islanders’ rights. “In one month there were not two TVs on all the island, but 20 TVs,” says Fiori. “And the lights are always on. Now all the people are buying electrical equipment and there will not be enough electricity. The innovation arrived but didn’t come with education.”

Education is another thing the island struggles with. The ramshackle three-storey Public School only teaches up to primary age. For secondary school the children have to travel to Cartagena where they invariably find themselves far behind the other students. Instead, many choose to stay on Islote and take up the traditional family business of fishing. The problem is that, thanks to climate change and unsustainable fishing practices, the fish have more or less run out. Irresponsible industrial fishing – sometimes even involving dynamite – has destroyed the coral reefs and so depleted stocks that fishermen from Islote can now go several days without catching a single fish.

As a solution the waters around Islote were made a national park in 1996 and industrial fishing was banned. But the Rosario and San Bernardo Corals National Natural Park has brought its own set of problems, limiting islanders’ livelihoods to subsistence fishing and banning them from building any further structures, effectively shackling their development.

“The National Park arrived but without any clever methodology, ” says Fiori. “They said you cannot fish, you cannot take mangroves, you cannot, you cannot. They are trapped in ancient legislation.”

The situation is so bad that many residents now see no other solution than to leave the island – an eventuality that Sanchez Jaramillo believes the authorities have secretly intended since a legal bid to remove them failed two years ago. “Cartagena isn’t going to evict them,” he says, “but because they have public policies to protect the environment but not the communities, it’s an invisible way to exclude them. ”

Islanders want to build platforms in the sea to create more living space

With their homes and way of life under threat, many islanders are turning to drugs as a form of escapism. “The only thing you can do for recreation is drugs and alcohol,” says Fiori. “It’s a question of freedom,” adds Sanchez Jaramillo, “people of the city have the freedom to consume or not but here it’s a question of addiction. ”

Yet despite all the problems, there are signs that things might be looking up. To fight the legal eviction in 2014 the islanders, with the help of Sanchez Jaramillo, formed a ‟consejo comunitario” or community council, a political body used by black and indigenous communities to negotiate with the government. Now campaigners such as Sanchez Jaramillo and Fiori are able to use the community council to fight for further rights such as, ultimately, collective ownership of the island.

In the meantime they are struggling against some of the oppressive legislation surrounding the national park to provide areas for the islanders to breed and cultivate their own fish. But Fiori has much more ambitious plans. She wants to build platforms in the sea to create more living space, and to generate income and food while at the same time providing structures on the sea bed to help regenerate the lost coral reefs. “We want small-scale development,” says Fiori, “where you can erect restaurants for tourists, you can put cages for mariculture, you can place compost and harvest fruit and vegetables. We have to think in another way. We have to be creative.”

Fiori admits that her dreams are somewhat utopian but the alternative is, to her, unthinkable. Relocation of the community to the mainland with all its problems of paramilitary violence and poverty would destroy one of Colombia’s – and the world’s – most unique societies. “It’s a very rich community, culturally and historically,” says Fiori. “They are sea people. They are the very few Colombian sea people that we have. They should be allowed to continue to live in the sea. ”

The most densely populated place on Earth is not where you might think

 

[Poitier]

 

[Yehuda]

 

[Red Shield]

damn

 

[Yehuda]

A History Lesson, Served as Coconut-Seafood Soup

Eat
By FRANCIS LAM SEPT. 15, 2016

Hudutu. Credit: Davide Luciano for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Gozde Eker.

When Sulma Arzu-Brown’s father traveled from his village in Honduras into the city, people pointed at him, at his black skin. When he spoke his language, people laughed. “They said, ‘Look at that monkey, goo goo gaga,’ ” Arzu-Brown told me. When it was time for her mother to be promoted at her job, she stood out a little too much. “Blanca,” her boss said to her, “I know you’re qualified, but I can’t give the job to you. You have family in the U.S. Go there. You’ll achieve there.”

Arzu-Brown told me these stories in a calm voice; not the calm of acquiescence but, I assume, of understanding that the present outshines the past. Her family is Garifuna, the descendants of intermarried Africans and Caribs who live on the Atlantic coast of Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize and Guatemala. Rejecting the discrimination they faced in Honduras, her family moved to New York in the 1980s, when she was 5.

In the Bronx, where Sulma grew up speaking Spanish and English, she felt unknown. To her black friends, she was black. To others, she was Latina. “Sometimes, I’d be called Afro-Latino, but deep inside, I knew we were something else,” she said. “We were Garifuna.” Her parents, scarred from their humiliations, didn’t teach their daughter to speak their language. “But I knew we were Garifuna because we danced the punta at home,” Arzu-Brown says. “Because we ate hudutu.”

Hudutu is a dish beloved by many Hondurans, but it comes specifically from the Garifuna. You can tell it’s from the tropical coast because it’s a soup of coconut milk, teeming with seafood. But its African roots seem clearer when you consider the fact that it’s always eaten with machuca, sweet and green plantains beaten to a mash that resembles the pounded yams of West Africa.

Arzu-Brown invited me to her mother’s home, and I walked into a party about to be lit. Blanca kept her curls in a hairnet while she cooked, waiting to let them down. We cracked open coconuts, grinding their flesh and squeezing out the cream with our hands. People streamed in, some bringing pans of chewy-soft yucca pies, others bringing drums. We cooked, poured drinks and finally ate the hudutu, a many-faceted thing of deeply seared snapper, just-cooked shrimp, tender conch and a broth of coconut milk infused with their flavors. We dipped in sticky, satisfying little bites of machuca. I knocked out two bowls before I realized I was in the middle of a history lesson.

Davide Luciano for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Gozde Eker.

Arzu-Brown’s friends José Ávila and a man who introduced himself as Dream argued about the finer points of where the Garifuna come from, but they agreed that they are descendants of people from St. Vincent who battled fiercely for their freedom against the British colonizers. When the British finally defeated them, they were deemed too unruly to be slaves and sent to die on the isolated island of Roatán. Escaping, they landed in Central America. And for the past 75 years, more and more Garifunas live in New York.

Arzu-Brown explained to me that the people in this house did not learn their history in school or at home, pointing to a mix of racism and internalized shame. “We all had to find it for ourselves,” she said. While in college, Arzu-Brown decided she wanted to know more about where she came from, and 10 years ago, she became the director of the Garifuna Coalition, an advocacy and community-leadership development organization that Ávila co-founded. “Since then, my parents took my example and started to identify as Garifuna,” she said. “Now we have these dinners, we see younger people coming and learning about their culture, and we’re all so proud.”

One of those young people, Perla Gonzales, was Arzu-Brown’s first intern at the coalition. “I always had to identify as ‘other,’ ” she said, “because I wouldn’t just think of myself as black or Latino or Afro-Latino. Now I know I’ve always been a Garifuna. Well, and because our house always smelled like fish.” We laughed, and another friend, an African-American woman named Michele, took a bite of hudutu and hummed with deliciousness. “Now I want to be an ‘other,’ too,” she said, and then went outside to dance the punta while Dream played his drums.

Recipes: Hudutu | Sofrito | Machuca

A History Lesson, Served as Coconut-Seafood Soup

 

[Poitier]

Let’s talk about racism in Colombia
PABLO MEDINA URIBE



Last week, a classified ad appeared in a Colombian newspaper. It read, in the broken language of pay-per-word ads:

A female surgeon doctor with college degree Internship in Clinic Inscription. 25-30 years old, of white skin. Needed, a personal interview Dr. Guarín, next July, 22nd, 10 A.m.

Soon every news outlet in the country, as well as social media (including the newspaper which originally published it, El País) got wind of it, writing stories. It was universally, and rightfully, condemned.

The day of its publishing, a small crowd gathered outside of Dr. Guarín’s office to protest the racism of the ad and at least one organization, the Fundación Chao Racismo, announced it would sue the physician for breaking the country’s anti-discrimination laws. The media backlash prompted the managers of the Farallones Clinic, where Dr. Guarín has his private practice, to distance themselves. They did so first by making it clear that the doctor merely rents a space there and is not affiliated with them, and then by asking him to stop renting it.

The whole ordeal was forgotten quickly, though, with Colombia’s relentless news cycle bringing a different scandal each day. Still, it was mildly refreshing that at least this small outburst could have happened in a country where racism is rampant, yet it rarely hits mainstream conversations, where it is easily disregarded and treated as a foreign ailment.

As with everything else in Colombia, our racism is also a problem of elitism. Black and native voices are often dismissed because they tend to come from the periphery. Freed black slaves in the middle of the 19th Century settled in their own neighborhoods or their own towns, away from their previous oppressors, while the native groups that preserved their cultures managed to do so, mainly, by staying away from the European settlers. People who belong to any of these two groups, then, tend to come from remote and depressed areas, forgotten by the government, where basic needs are unmet, public services are lacking and education is of low quality.

Therefore, from the “center”, from the main cities of the country where things are sometimes better, these people are seen as “inferiors.” For example, it is a common assumption among some Colombians that dark skinned people are poor, while fair skinned people are rich, or at least well off.

Of course, there is also the purely racial aspect of it. I have only mentioned “black” and “native” people in the last paragraphs, because those are the only “races” we can think about in Colombia. They are the ones that steer away from what is more common. Most of us (including myself) are mixed-race. We have a word in Spanish for it: “mestizo”. Even people whose skin is very pale declare themselves as “mestizos”. This is what we are taught in school: we are a “mixed” country; this is what the 1991 Constitution declares: we are a “multiethnic, pluricultural nation.”

The Spaniards originally used the word “mestizo” to describe a “half-white, half-indigenous person,” but it is likely that most of us have also black ancestry at some point, though it is hard to know, as often this fact would be hidden from family histories out of shame. Many have changed their names and obscured their lineage in hopes of looking more “European.” So for the majority of us it is hard to tell exactly where we come from and we simply decide to be part of the “raceless” bunch.

The most recent national census, done in 2005, asked about ethnicity, rather than about race. In it, 3.43% of the country’s population identified as “indigenous,” 10.62% as “afro-Colombian” and 85.94% as “without ethnicity” (and 0.01% as “Rom”, which is a whole other story). It is hard to speak about racism in such a place where “race” and “ethnicity” are, largely, not a concept. Modern Colombia lacks the vocabulary for it. “Race,” “ethnicity” and “racism” are things that only apply to others, to that periphery I mentioned before, to those who are not part of that “mixed country.”

It is telling that this ad was published in Cali, the third most populated city in the country and, among the top three (which includes Bogotá and Medellín), by far the one with the biggest black population. As it sits on the Western edge of the Colombian Andes, Cali is just a few hours drive from the country’s Pacific Coast, where most freed slaves decided to settle, and where most of Colombia’s black population is concentrated. It is the first choice for many young black people who want to get a college education, or a chance of a better job. This is somewhere in Colombia where the “mixed country” interacts daily with those people who have an “ethnicity”, where the phrase “white skin” makes some sense, where it means “not black”.

Also telling are the arguments used by Dr. Guarín for his defense. “I am not a racist”, he said, “I asked for those requirements because that is what my partners from Bogotá asked me to do”. We are supposed to disregard the fact that this doctor published a racist ad because people in Bogotá–where there is very little presence of both black and native people–told him to do it, and they don’t understand these things, you see?

He went on to say: “I even have friends who are ‘morenos’.” Not “black”, but “morenos.” It literally means “dark-skinned.” It is not a race or an ethnicity, but just a state of being. When you get tanned, for instance, you become a bit more “moreno.” Sure, you can call black people “morenos,” as they have dark skin, but calling them such devoids them of their racial identity, it places them in the “mixed country,” where racism is meaningless.

That the newsmedia of the country acknowledged that there was something wrong with this ad was a step forward into truly dealing with our discrimination. Nonetheless, El País didn’t hesitate to publish such a thing, nor did it acknowledged any wrongdoing while reporting the story. For now, it seems that the mainstream media (and therefore, the majority of the population) believes that racism is just a problem of a “few bad apples”.

Yet, as more and more black and native artists, musicians, actors, athletes and writers start to become part of the general consciousness, hopefully, we can find a way to truly talk, in the mainstream media, about Colombia’s discrimination.


Let’s talk about racism in Colombia