Extremely disappointing. 
Infrastructure in Haiti is a MUST!
Infrastructure in Haiti is a MUST!
Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events
- Thread starter Poitier
- Start date
Maybe they need to focus on development of the north
Never been up there but a lot of folks say it's safer/most stabile there
Haiti needs to work on 1)infrastructure 2) education (in French AND Creole) and 3)encourage folks in Haiti and the diaspora to start businesses there
And my personal wish that they kick out the UN and unhelpful American charities like red cross
I heard about the north too being more stable, but I heard that it is mainly controlled by the mulatto elite. Maybe @Intruder v3.0 can expand. Anyways lets not forget agriculture on the list. Also once infrastructure starts developing Haiti should REALLY start banging out its tourism sector and make it great like it was during the 40s and 50s. It would not only boost the economy but also create MANY jobs. That's how the Bahamas and Barbados became powerhouses of the Caribbean with little resources. Not only that Haiti has a much richer history than those two islands. Haiti should also built up its historic colonial French architecture for tourism to differentiate itself from the other islands.Maybe they need to focus on development of the north
Never been up there but a lot of folks say it's safer/most stabile there
Haiti needs to work on 1)infrastructure 2) education (in French AND Creole) and 3)encourage folks in Haiti and the diaspora to start businesses there
More importantly the NGOs...
Maybe they need to focus on development of the north
Never been up there but a lot of folks say it's safer/most stabile there
Haiti needs to work on 1)infrastructure 2) education (in French AND Creole) and 3)encourage folks in Haiti and the diaspora to start businesses there
And my personal wish that they kick out the UN and unhelpful American charities like red cross
- The mullato elite you speak of is not as powerful as you think. And they are mostly Southern from those areas that were hit hard (Jeremie, Les Cayes) My mom's family are mulatto and they are from Les Cayes. My dad is from NEarby Camp PErrin area.
- Key to infrastructure is expanding AWAY from Port Au Prince. I cant stress this enough. I remember my dad used to say this when i waslike 12 and i didnt understand it but now i get it. We have too much land wasting out in the provinces. If you develop it and make it productive all them fools will stop moving to the city for jobs and clogging up the capital. Believe it or not similar like in the U.S. where you see black people clog up cities but are scarce elsewhere for reasons like safety and jobs. Same thing in HT
- Most of the possible historical attractions (Citadel, Sans-Souci Palace, etc) are in Nothern Haiti whereas most of the party towns that tourists flock to are in Southern Haiti (Jacmel, Port Salut, etc). Develop ROADS that can get to these quickly and make them more accessible to tourist.
My apologies. But there is this sentiment among small countries that bigger countries (USA, France, UK, others) just want smaller countries to not produce anything and just be their vacation spots when they need to get away from their industrial all producing environments. We've seen many economies get tanked like that before.
And this is not me talking as a haitian. While i worked in Costa Rica there were a few people ive spoken to who feel the same way.
No problem.
Barbados and Bahamas became the richest islands based off of tourism, but I did NOT say Haiti only has to pursue tourism but that it would be one of the many vital parts of the Haitian economy. Because it creates jobs easily. That's why the Bahamas and Barbados poverty is so low. Anyways I actually said agriculture should be their biggest priority in that post because it would decrease hunger and they'll be able to export food for trade and thus being self sustaining like you said.
Anyways I don't get why you and those Haitians see the hostility of only a part of Haiti being a vacation spot when MANY Caribbean and Latin American nations have a big tourism sector. Like I said it can create jobs easily. Again no one is saying Haiti should only be tourism, when it has other resources but the reason that these other nations like the Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados rely on tourism because like many Caribbean islands they lack a number of resources. Not because bigger nations want them to be that way.
Anyways moving on from tourism like I said agriculture advancement is a MUST for Haiti. To decrease hunger and they will be able to export food. It is said what happened to Haiti's rice trade. Haiti should export with many other Caribbean and Latin American countries. And like I said before infrusture is even a BIGGER MUST like roads, better building techniques, bridges, etc. Not just for a shield against dangerous weathers for hurricanes but...
- For economic growth.
- Moving around the country easier. I.e "connectivity"
- With connectivity the economy will open to outside world, trade and commerce will flourish.
- With better infrusture we will SLOWLY see better housing, education and health establishments.
You said infrastructure needs to be expanding away from PAP. Is the infrastructure in PAP even update itself?
Afro-Guyanese organisation, former military chief object to make-up of Guyana Oil and Gas Association
Posted by: Denis Chabrol in News | October 12, 2016
ACDA’s Executive Member, Eric Phillips addressing the African Holocaust commemorative ceremony at the Georgetown Seawall bandstand area.
The African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) on Wednesday objected to the make-up of the Guyana Oil and Gas Association (GOGA) one day after it was formally launched, even as he called on African Guyanese to pressure government into giving into a number of demands.
ACDA’s Executive Member, Eric Phillips questioned the sincerity and integrity of the association’s members. “I saw the announcement of an oil and gas group last night and again it’s just the regular suspects- people who have…(claims that are potentially libelous)…and so they are positioned today to continue the exploitation and to continue to demoralize us and take from us what our ancestors died for,” he said at the African Holocaust Day commemorative event at the Georgetown Seawall.
GOGA was launched at the Marriott Hotel Tuesday with the aims of ensuring Guyanese are employed directly and indirectly in the hydrocarbon sector, training is provided, policies are influenced and a range of other services are provided or facilitated.
Meanwhile, Retired Rear Admiral Gary Best lauded the initiative but expressed concern about the make-up of GOGA. “The Directorship of this good initiative ( GOGA) should be a more balanced reflection of the Guyana’s “inter-social groupings.”
Several attendees place flowers and branches in the Atlantic Sea to commemorate the lives of those who died in the Trans-Atlantic trade of captive Africans to the Caribbean and the Americas.
“As is, it may well be seen as the “haves” representing the “have nots”, and I am sure that’s not the intention. A significant challenge we face in Guyana is reducing inequalities and applying equity, in that order. Therefore, the directorship should reflect participants from all inter-social groupings,” the former Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) said on his Facebook Profile.
Meanwhile, the ACDA official urged Afro-Guyanese to recognise the problems that face them and take the lead in lobbying the government. “If we can’t recognise the problem, we will not step forward to solve it and I find today, speaking honestly, that we are waiting for the government to do things for us instead of us stepping forward to make them do for us. They can’t do for us if we are not agitating for them to do for us,” he said.
Phillips said it was up to the Afro-Guyanese organisations to come together and take up the challenge and craft an action plan for their development in keeping with the goals of the United Nations-designated International Decade for People of African Descent.
Cuffy250, which is said to be spearheading such efforts, was Wednesday afternoon expected to make an announcement.
Afro-Guyanese organisation, former military chief object to make-up of Guyana Oil and Gas Association
Posted by: Denis Chabrol in News | October 12, 2016
ACDA’s Executive Member, Eric Phillips addressing the African Holocaust commemorative ceremony at the Georgetown Seawall bandstand area.
The African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) on Wednesday objected to the make-up of the Guyana Oil and Gas Association (GOGA) one day after it was formally launched, even as he called on African Guyanese to pressure government into giving into a number of demands.
ACDA’s Executive Member, Eric Phillips questioned the sincerity and integrity of the association’s members. “I saw the announcement of an oil and gas group last night and again it’s just the regular suspects- people who have…(claims that are potentially libelous)…and so they are positioned today to continue the exploitation and to continue to demoralize us and take from us what our ancestors died for,” he said at the African Holocaust Day commemorative event at the Georgetown Seawall.
GOGA was launched at the Marriott Hotel Tuesday with the aims of ensuring Guyanese are employed directly and indirectly in the hydrocarbon sector, training is provided, policies are influenced and a range of other services are provided or facilitated.
Meanwhile, Retired Rear Admiral Gary Best lauded the initiative but expressed concern about the make-up of GOGA. “The Directorship of this good initiative ( GOGA) should be a more balanced reflection of the Guyana’s “inter-social groupings.”
Several attendees place flowers and branches in the Atlantic Sea to commemorate the lives of those who died in the Trans-Atlantic trade of captive Africans to the Caribbean and the Americas.
“As is, it may well be seen as the “haves” representing the “have nots”, and I am sure that’s not the intention. A significant challenge we face in Guyana is reducing inequalities and applying equity, in that order. Therefore, the directorship should reflect participants from all inter-social groupings,” the former Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) said on his Facebook Profile.
Meanwhile, the ACDA official urged Afro-Guyanese to recognise the problems that face them and take the lead in lobbying the government. “If we can’t recognise the problem, we will not step forward to solve it and I find today, speaking honestly, that we are waiting for the government to do things for us instead of us stepping forward to make them do for us. They can’t do for us if we are not agitating for them to do for us,” he said.
Phillips said it was up to the Afro-Guyanese organisations to come together and take up the challenge and craft an action plan for their development in keeping with the goals of the United Nations-designated International Decade for People of African Descent.
Cuffy250, which is said to be spearheading such efforts, was Wednesday afternoon expected to make an announcement.
Afro-Guyanese organisation, former military chief object to make-up of Guyana Oil and Gas Association
Call for completion of independence trajectory
14 OCTOBER 2016
THE HAGUE--The trajectory to achieve full independence for Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten should be completed. The Dutch Government should approach the United Nations (UN) to discuss this.
The liberal democratic VVD party and the Socialist Party (SP) made this call during the second day of the handling of the 2017 Kingdom Relations budget in the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament on Thursday.
Members of Parliament (MP) André Bosman (VVD) and Ronald van Raak (SP) submitted a joint motion at the end of a lengthy debate in which they requested the Dutch Government to consult the UN, together with Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten, to arrive at a “definite fulfilment of the right of self-determination of all countries in the Kingdom.”
In the motion, Bosman and Van Raak made mention of the UN decolonisation process that started after 1945, and the fact that the Kingdom Charter of 1954 was “the first step in the decolonisation process.” According to the motion, the Charter was never the end goal to do justice to the full right of self-determination of all countries within the Kingdom.
Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk tried to convince Bosman that it was a “futile exercise” to go to the UN without the consent of the Dutch Caribbean countries on this matter, especially if the countries voiced their objections to the UN.
The Minister said that he would first have to discuss this important step in the history of the Kingdom with the three countries before going to the UN. Bosman subsequently agreed to shelve the motion for now in order to give the Minister the chance to enter into discussions with the overseas countries. Plasterk promised a reply before December 31 this year.
The issue of independence sparked a debate between Plasterk and Bosman who had opposing views on the matter. “We don’t agree on the end goal,” said Plasterk, who made clear that he did not think independence of Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten was such a great idea.
Product of history
The Minister pointed out that it was up to the countries to take the decision if, and so when, they wanted to step out of the Kingdom. “Whether that is a wise decision is another matter. Letting go entirely would not be a good thing for the people there. The Kingdom is a product of history including the black page of slavery and colonialism. In my opinion, together we should try to make the best of it in the interest of the people.”
Plasterk said the Dutch Government had “no intention” to end the current constellation and that the Dutch Caribbean countries so far had not made a decision either to go independent. MP Sietse Fritsma of the Party for Freedom PVV objected to the Minister’s line of thinking and made a point that the Netherlands should achieve the right to unilaterally get out of the Kingdom. He submitted a motion to this extent.
Bosman urged Plasterk to proceed on giving content to the trajectory of complete independence described in the Kingdom Charter. He said it was the task of the Dutch Government to actively assist in the developing of the self-governance of the islands, as was stated in article 73 of the UN Charter.
“We have to talk about that with the countries,” said Bosman. Plasterk emphasized that the Dutch Caribbean countries had a right to self-determination and that this was not conflicting with article 73 of the UN Charter.
Van Raak said that the Kingdom Charter had a “smothering” effect on the relations within the Kingdom because the relations were not equal, and there was no way for the Netherlands to unilaterally decide to step out of the Kingdom. Van Raak and Bosman are in favour of a commonwealth structure where, in their opinion, the relations would be more equal.
Hybrid system
“We are in a hybrid system. Nobody has the power to see things through. The polder model doesn’t work in the Caribbean. We need to create clarity,” Bosman said about the current Kingdom structure. He said that while the overseas countries have their own autonomous responsibilities down the line it was the Kingdom, meaning the Netherlands, that was held responsible internationally.
Plasterk noted that there were also good things happening in the Kingdom. He said that Curaçao had a stable government for the past few years. A government which had created sound government finances and had achieved a budget that was truly balanced.
The Minister said that in St. Maarten the concerns about the links between the upper world and underworld remained, but that St. Maarten Governor Eugene Holiday, who has just been reappointed for another six years, had performed a “very strict screening” of the last cabinet. “He did that very well.”
Plasterk said that in the Kingdom it always remained a matter of seeking a balance, of giving space to the local governments, while keeping an eye on the responsibility of the Kingdom Government. “Of course we are not there yet. There is still much room for improvement, but many things are moving in the right direction.”
Refineries
The responsibility of the Kingdom also came up during the debate in relation to the extensive pollution caused by the Isla refinery in Curaçao and the deal that Aruba has made with Citgo Petroleum to reopen the refinery in San Nicolas.
MP Roelof van Laar of the Labour Party PvdA remarked that in Curaçao school children were fainting because of the toxic fumes and that the closing of the school in question was not redressing the actual problem. He urged the Minister to accomplish a real solution in short term. Plasterk said that the Isla refinery had the attention of the Curaçao Government and that with the help of Dutch expertise a solution was being sought.
MP Alexander Pechtold of the Democratic Party D66 criticised the lack of action of the Dutch Government to tackle the pollution caused by the Isla refinery. He said the Dutch Government did not truly see the urgency of the matter. “If the Dutch tourists were affected at their hotel, we would all cry out that this was unacceptable.”
Van Raak was highly critical of the Citgo agreement with Aruba. “Everyone can see that this is a bad deal that will create large debts. The promises of Venezuela are soft as butter,” he said. Plasterk said it was not up to him to judge the Citgo deal. He emphasized that Aruba carried the full financial responsibility for this agreement.
14 OCTOBER 2016
THE HAGUE--The trajectory to achieve full independence for Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten should be completed. The Dutch Government should approach the United Nations (UN) to discuss this.
The liberal democratic VVD party and the Socialist Party (SP) made this call during the second day of the handling of the 2017 Kingdom Relations budget in the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament on Thursday.
Members of Parliament (MP) André Bosman (VVD) and Ronald van Raak (SP) submitted a joint motion at the end of a lengthy debate in which they requested the Dutch Government to consult the UN, together with Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten, to arrive at a “definite fulfilment of the right of self-determination of all countries in the Kingdom.”
In the motion, Bosman and Van Raak made mention of the UN decolonisation process that started after 1945, and the fact that the Kingdom Charter of 1954 was “the first step in the decolonisation process.” According to the motion, the Charter was never the end goal to do justice to the full right of self-determination of all countries within the Kingdom.
Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk tried to convince Bosman that it was a “futile exercise” to go to the UN without the consent of the Dutch Caribbean countries on this matter, especially if the countries voiced their objections to the UN.
The Minister said that he would first have to discuss this important step in the history of the Kingdom with the three countries before going to the UN. Bosman subsequently agreed to shelve the motion for now in order to give the Minister the chance to enter into discussions with the overseas countries. Plasterk promised a reply before December 31 this year.
The issue of independence sparked a debate between Plasterk and Bosman who had opposing views on the matter. “We don’t agree on the end goal,” said Plasterk, who made clear that he did not think independence of Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten was such a great idea.
Product of history
The Minister pointed out that it was up to the countries to take the decision if, and so when, they wanted to step out of the Kingdom. “Whether that is a wise decision is another matter. Letting go entirely would not be a good thing for the people there. The Kingdom is a product of history including the black page of slavery and colonialism. In my opinion, together we should try to make the best of it in the interest of the people.”
Plasterk said the Dutch Government had “no intention” to end the current constellation and that the Dutch Caribbean countries so far had not made a decision either to go independent. MP Sietse Fritsma of the Party for Freedom PVV objected to the Minister’s line of thinking and made a point that the Netherlands should achieve the right to unilaterally get out of the Kingdom. He submitted a motion to this extent.
Bosman urged Plasterk to proceed on giving content to the trajectory of complete independence described in the Kingdom Charter. He said it was the task of the Dutch Government to actively assist in the developing of the self-governance of the islands, as was stated in article 73 of the UN Charter.
“We have to talk about that with the countries,” said Bosman. Plasterk emphasized that the Dutch Caribbean countries had a right to self-determination and that this was not conflicting with article 73 of the UN Charter.
Van Raak said that the Kingdom Charter had a “smothering” effect on the relations within the Kingdom because the relations were not equal, and there was no way for the Netherlands to unilaterally decide to step out of the Kingdom. Van Raak and Bosman are in favour of a commonwealth structure where, in their opinion, the relations would be more equal.
Hybrid system
“We are in a hybrid system. Nobody has the power to see things through. The polder model doesn’t work in the Caribbean. We need to create clarity,” Bosman said about the current Kingdom structure. He said that while the overseas countries have their own autonomous responsibilities down the line it was the Kingdom, meaning the Netherlands, that was held responsible internationally.
Plasterk noted that there were also good things happening in the Kingdom. He said that Curaçao had a stable government for the past few years. A government which had created sound government finances and had achieved a budget that was truly balanced.
The Minister said that in St. Maarten the concerns about the links between the upper world and underworld remained, but that St. Maarten Governor Eugene Holiday, who has just been reappointed for another six years, had performed a “very strict screening” of the last cabinet. “He did that very well.”
Plasterk said that in the Kingdom it always remained a matter of seeking a balance, of giving space to the local governments, while keeping an eye on the responsibility of the Kingdom Government. “Of course we are not there yet. There is still much room for improvement, but many things are moving in the right direction.”
Refineries
The responsibility of the Kingdom also came up during the debate in relation to the extensive pollution caused by the Isla refinery in Curaçao and the deal that Aruba has made with Citgo Petroleum to reopen the refinery in San Nicolas.
MP Roelof van Laar of the Labour Party PvdA remarked that in Curaçao school children were fainting because of the toxic fumes and that the closing of the school in question was not redressing the actual problem. He urged the Minister to accomplish a real solution in short term. Plasterk said that the Isla refinery had the attention of the Curaçao Government and that with the help of Dutch expertise a solution was being sought.
MP Alexander Pechtold of the Democratic Party D66 criticised the lack of action of the Dutch Government to tackle the pollution caused by the Isla refinery. He said the Dutch Government did not truly see the urgency of the matter. “If the Dutch tourists were affected at their hotel, we would all cry out that this was unacceptable.”
Van Raak was highly critical of the Citgo agreement with Aruba. “Everyone can see that this is a bad deal that will create large debts. The promises of Venezuela are soft as butter,” he said. Plasterk said it was not up to him to judge the Citgo deal. He emphasized that Aruba carried the full financial responsibility for this agreement.
Independence is not a good idea rnAfter 40 Years, New York’s Caribbean Cultural Center Finds a Permanent Home in East Harlem
ARTSY EDITORIAL
BY TESS THACKARA
OCT 14TH, 2016 11:43 PM
Rendering of the new CCCADI home in Harlem. Image courtesy of CCCADI.
New York has a triumphant new space dedicated to global black culture. Last night, the 40-year-old Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) reopened in a disused firehouse near the borderland between East and West Harlem, a few blocks from Marcus Garvey Park. It adds one more space to the city’s tiny roster of cultural institutions dedicated to communities of color, and joins the neighborhood’s Studio Museum and El Museo del Barrio by putting down roots in a region with a long and rich history of African-American and Latino cultures.
It’s a small and intimate space, but one that represents an enormous achievement and far-reaching implications—and it’s a project that has been some nine years in the making. “We are here, in El Barrio, can you hear me Harlem?” Nyoka Acevedo, a board member, called out to a packed crowd just hours after the institution’s ribbon-cutting, which was attended by New York City’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Tom Finkelpearl, the First Lady of New York City, Chirlane McCray, and numerous other officials who have helped to secure a permanent home for the institution, and to amass $9.3 million (a combination of tax-payer money and individual donations) for its renovation. “Here we stand, in our home, in Harlem, in this landmark building, one of the few institutions of color to have a landmark building in the city.”
Ribbon-cutting of the new CCCADI home in Harlem. Image by Rex Desrosiers, courtesy of CCCADI.
The significance of the moment was not lost on anyone in the room. The arrival of CCCADI in Harlem marks the end of the institution’s odyssey through three different spaces, beginning in a building in the East 80s in 1976, before moving to 58th and 9th, and now East Harlem. “The process has been a difficult one,” the institution’s firebrand founder and former El Museo director Dr. Marta Moreno-Vega, who is Afro-Puerto Rican, said over the phone a week before the opening. Difficult, she explained, “because having people invest in an idea that addresses the articulation of a vision that is anti-racism, anti-discrimination, and pro-African and African Diaspora cultures, is one that even for our own is not always embraced. The whole notion that you’re building an institution to a vision of liberation is one that is hard to grasp, and we were fortunate to get people who understood and invested in different ways, and now we’re here.”
Since its founding, the institution has been as much a locus for activism, and a meeting ground for people of African descent from around the globe, as it has been a platform for art. Lowery Stokes Sims, a former museum director and longtime advocate for artists of color, who has co-curated the CCCADI’s inaugural show “Home, Memory, and Future,” recalls the institution’s early days, when Dr. Moreno-Vega had just conceived the space. “I met a very global group of people there,” says Sims, “and we’re talking in the ’70s and ’80s before globalization became a widespread notion. It was Southern black people, Caribbean black people, African black people, Latin American black people, who came together for commonalities.”
She remembers a conference Moreno-Vega organized that brought together Yoruba priestesses from Nigeria, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. “While they couldn’t speak each other’s languages,” Sims says, “they could communicate with each other in Yoruba, which is the original language for Santeria.” Back then, despite the Civil Rights movement that had roiled through the 1960s and defined the era, consciousness around systemic racism was only nascent—particularly in the culture sector.
“The art world, as you know, is one of the most racist, discriminatory, and marginalizing experiences because it’s grounded in a Eurocentric vision as opposed to a global vision,” says Dr. Moreno-Vega. “So when we started, people really didn’t understand what we were doing. In time, because of the Black Art Movement, and the Eureka Movement, and the Native American Movement, and all of the movements that branched out of the Civil Rights movement, you begin to get people who are conscious of these movements.”
Today, that increased consciousness has put a spotlight on the rampant inequities of the art world—as well as bringing attention to numerous under-recognized artists of Latino and African descent, such as Carmen Herrera and Archibald Motley—but Moreno-Vega stresses the constant labor and vigilance that is necessary to keep moving the dial. “Finding a multigenerational audience is part of our reality, because we need to train the next generation,” she says. “We have to think about the future, and continuity. We have to think about what we’re putting into our kids’ brains, because they have to know who they are.”
The strength of Latino and African-American voices across the culture sector, one imagines, can only benefit from the spirit of diversity and inclusivity that characterizes the CCCADI. “We’re talking about black and Latino solidarity,” Acevedo remarked at the opening, noting that there has historically been tension between the two communities in West and East Harlem, often considered to be divided along 5th Avenue.
Installation view of work by Amalia Mesa-Bains at the opening of CCCADI. Image by Rex Desrosiers, courtesy of CCCADI.
The great diversity represented by Harlem, and by the African Diaspora more broadly, is on view in the institution’s powerful inaugural exhibition, which explores the idea of what constitutes “home.” One aspect of belonging somewhere is feeling a connection to its history. And so the show opens with iconic photographers of the neighborhood from the 1970s—Dawoud Bey’s gorgeous portraits of musicians, shoemakers, barbers, and other individuals around Harlem; the quiet, peaceful images that Chester Higgins Jr. took of members of the Black Muslim community at a time when the Black Power Movement had drawn national attention; and Hiram Maristany’s pictures of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican liberation movement that he served as official photographer to, starting in 1969.
But it’s on the second floor, where the works of six contemporary artists are on view, that the exhibition really sings. It’s dominated by installations that conjure a warm, imaginative atmosphere, including the work of the brilliant Chicana artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, now in her seventies, who has configured the furnishings and tchotchkes of a Mexican household—votive paintings and ornaments, portraits, the skulls and glitter known for Dia de Los Muertos, and a chest of drawers, all of which form an altar set against a wall of mottled, colorful paint that dissipates into a somber grey and hanging letters that spell out B-O-R-D-E-R-S.
Elsewhere, African-American artist Abigail DeVille has created a magical shelter from scraps salvaged around Harlem. Visitors can go inside and find walls lined with buckets containing glass bottles, and a flickering light that momentarily catches their glistening surfaces. It calls to mind the subterranean home of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, decorated with lightbulbs. DeVille’s work and that of Adrian Roman, who presents an assemblage exploring the histories and migrations of his two Puerto Rican grandfathers and a panel in which a makeshift boat composed of newspaper undertakes a voyage across an ocean, suggest the psychological underpinnings of belonging. “Home is an idea, rather than physical, tangible things,” Roman told me at the opening.
Pepón Osorio, A mis adorables hijas, 1990. Image by Rex Desrosiers, courtesy of CCCADI.
Perhaps the most moving of all the installations, though, is Puerto Rican artist Pepón Osorio’s A mis adorables hijas (1990), a purple sofa affixed to a wall, invoking a domestic space. Stitched into its upholstery is a tender goodbye message from a mother to her daughters, bringing into sharp relief the impact that migration and border politics have in dismantling families.
It’s no coincidence that the CCCADI has arrived in Harlem during a period of rapid change across the neighborhood, and the message of Osorio’s work points to the human impact of forced migration—whether between countries or neighborhoods. “Gentrification is on steroids, in El Barrio, in Harlem, and globally,” Dr. Moreno-Vega says. “Wherever our communities are, generally, were areas where people didn’t want to be. And now all of our historic communities tend to be on waterfronts. How do we sustain home when people are buying up our historic land, be it the Caribbean, Africa, or here?”
Now that its future is certain, the CCCADI is well-positioned to both preserve the history of Harlem and continue galvanizing communities around current issues. “This institution,” Dr. Moreno-Vega said at the opening, “is not an art institution; it’s a social justice institution. Art is a vehicle, and we use it to talk about issues. We’re talking about the dislocation of our people throughout history.”
Seen together, the work of these artists speaks clearly and forcefully about displacement, but also about the resilient power of culture to withstand change—and sometimes even to transform lives.
—Tess Thackara
New York’s Caribbean Cultural Center Opens in a Landmark Space in Harlem
ARTSY EDITORIAL
BY TESS THACKARA
OCT 14TH, 2016 11:43 PM
Rendering of the new CCCADI home in Harlem. Image courtesy of CCCADI.
New York has a triumphant new space dedicated to global black culture. Last night, the 40-year-old Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) reopened in a disused firehouse near the borderland between East and West Harlem, a few blocks from Marcus Garvey Park. It adds one more space to the city’s tiny roster of cultural institutions dedicated to communities of color, and joins the neighborhood’s Studio Museum and El Museo del Barrio by putting down roots in a region with a long and rich history of African-American and Latino cultures.
It’s a small and intimate space, but one that represents an enormous achievement and far-reaching implications—and it’s a project that has been some nine years in the making. “We are here, in El Barrio, can you hear me Harlem?” Nyoka Acevedo, a board member, called out to a packed crowd just hours after the institution’s ribbon-cutting, which was attended by New York City’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Tom Finkelpearl, the First Lady of New York City, Chirlane McCray, and numerous other officials who have helped to secure a permanent home for the institution, and to amass $9.3 million (a combination of tax-payer money and individual donations) for its renovation. “Here we stand, in our home, in Harlem, in this landmark building, one of the few institutions of color to have a landmark building in the city.”
Ribbon-cutting of the new CCCADI home in Harlem. Image by Rex Desrosiers, courtesy of CCCADI.
The significance of the moment was not lost on anyone in the room. The arrival of CCCADI in Harlem marks the end of the institution’s odyssey through three different spaces, beginning in a building in the East 80s in 1976, before moving to 58th and 9th, and now East Harlem. “The process has been a difficult one,” the institution’s firebrand founder and former El Museo director Dr. Marta Moreno-Vega, who is Afro-Puerto Rican, said over the phone a week before the opening. Difficult, she explained, “because having people invest in an idea that addresses the articulation of a vision that is anti-racism, anti-discrimination, and pro-African and African Diaspora cultures, is one that even for our own is not always embraced. The whole notion that you’re building an institution to a vision of liberation is one that is hard to grasp, and we were fortunate to get people who understood and invested in different ways, and now we’re here.”
Since its founding, the institution has been as much a locus for activism, and a meeting ground for people of African descent from around the globe, as it has been a platform for art. Lowery Stokes Sims, a former museum director and longtime advocate for artists of color, who has co-curated the CCCADI’s inaugural show “Home, Memory, and Future,” recalls the institution’s early days, when Dr. Moreno-Vega had just conceived the space. “I met a very global group of people there,” says Sims, “and we’re talking in the ’70s and ’80s before globalization became a widespread notion. It was Southern black people, Caribbean black people, African black people, Latin American black people, who came together for commonalities.”
She remembers a conference Moreno-Vega organized that brought together Yoruba priestesses from Nigeria, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. “While they couldn’t speak each other’s languages,” Sims says, “they could communicate with each other in Yoruba, which is the original language for Santeria.” Back then, despite the Civil Rights movement that had roiled through the 1960s and defined the era, consciousness around systemic racism was only nascent—particularly in the culture sector.
“The art world, as you know, is one of the most racist, discriminatory, and marginalizing experiences because it’s grounded in a Eurocentric vision as opposed to a global vision,” says Dr. Moreno-Vega. “So when we started, people really didn’t understand what we were doing. In time, because of the Black Art Movement, and the Eureka Movement, and the Native American Movement, and all of the movements that branched out of the Civil Rights movement, you begin to get people who are conscious of these movements.”
Today, that increased consciousness has put a spotlight on the rampant inequities of the art world—as well as bringing attention to numerous under-recognized artists of Latino and African descent, such as Carmen Herrera and Archibald Motley—but Moreno-Vega stresses the constant labor and vigilance that is necessary to keep moving the dial. “Finding a multigenerational audience is part of our reality, because we need to train the next generation,” she says. “We have to think about the future, and continuity. We have to think about what we’re putting into our kids’ brains, because they have to know who they are.”
The strength of Latino and African-American voices across the culture sector, one imagines, can only benefit from the spirit of diversity and inclusivity that characterizes the CCCADI. “We’re talking about black and Latino solidarity,” Acevedo remarked at the opening, noting that there has historically been tension between the two communities in West and East Harlem, often considered to be divided along 5th Avenue.
Installation view of work by Amalia Mesa-Bains at the opening of CCCADI. Image by Rex Desrosiers, courtesy of CCCADI.
The great diversity represented by Harlem, and by the African Diaspora more broadly, is on view in the institution’s powerful inaugural exhibition, which explores the idea of what constitutes “home.” One aspect of belonging somewhere is feeling a connection to its history. And so the show opens with iconic photographers of the neighborhood from the 1970s—Dawoud Bey’s gorgeous portraits of musicians, shoemakers, barbers, and other individuals around Harlem; the quiet, peaceful images that Chester Higgins Jr. took of members of the Black Muslim community at a time when the Black Power Movement had drawn national attention; and Hiram Maristany’s pictures of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican liberation movement that he served as official photographer to, starting in 1969.
But it’s on the second floor, where the works of six contemporary artists are on view, that the exhibition really sings. It’s dominated by installations that conjure a warm, imaginative atmosphere, including the work of the brilliant Chicana artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, now in her seventies, who has configured the furnishings and tchotchkes of a Mexican household—votive paintings and ornaments, portraits, the skulls and glitter known for Dia de Los Muertos, and a chest of drawers, all of which form an altar set against a wall of mottled, colorful paint that dissipates into a somber grey and hanging letters that spell out B-O-R-D-E-R-S.
Elsewhere, African-American artist Abigail DeVille has created a magical shelter from scraps salvaged around Harlem. Visitors can go inside and find walls lined with buckets containing glass bottles, and a flickering light that momentarily catches their glistening surfaces. It calls to mind the subterranean home of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, decorated with lightbulbs. DeVille’s work and that of Adrian Roman, who presents an assemblage exploring the histories and migrations of his two Puerto Rican grandfathers and a panel in which a makeshift boat composed of newspaper undertakes a voyage across an ocean, suggest the psychological underpinnings of belonging. “Home is an idea, rather than physical, tangible things,” Roman told me at the opening.
Pepón Osorio, A mis adorables hijas, 1990. Image by Rex Desrosiers, courtesy of CCCADI.
Perhaps the most moving of all the installations, though, is Puerto Rican artist Pepón Osorio’s A mis adorables hijas (1990), a purple sofa affixed to a wall, invoking a domestic space. Stitched into its upholstery is a tender goodbye message from a mother to her daughters, bringing into sharp relief the impact that migration and border politics have in dismantling families.
It’s no coincidence that the CCCADI has arrived in Harlem during a period of rapid change across the neighborhood, and the message of Osorio’s work points to the human impact of forced migration—whether between countries or neighborhoods. “Gentrification is on steroids, in El Barrio, in Harlem, and globally,” Dr. Moreno-Vega says. “Wherever our communities are, generally, were areas where people didn’t want to be. And now all of our historic communities tend to be on waterfronts. How do we sustain home when people are buying up our historic land, be it the Caribbean, Africa, or here?”
Now that its future is certain, the CCCADI is well-positioned to both preserve the history of Harlem and continue galvanizing communities around current issues. “This institution,” Dr. Moreno-Vega said at the opening, “is not an art institution; it’s a social justice institution. Art is a vehicle, and we use it to talk about issues. We’re talking about the dislocation of our people throughout history.”
Seen together, the work of these artists speaks clearly and forcefully about displacement, but also about the resilient power of culture to withstand change—and sometimes even to transform lives.
—Tess Thackara
New York’s Caribbean Cultural Center Opens in a Landmark Space in Harlem