Garifunas Carry on King's Dreams and Their Successes Part III

Not All Blacks in Honduras are Garifuna—The Black English speakers of Honduras

The Black English speaker who spoke at the Central American Linguist’s Congress in Tegucigalpa, Honduras in August 2013, Dinah Bennett of Roatan, first sang the Honduran national anthem in English, to show that she was Honduran and that Black English speakers do exist in Honduras. There are reports of Black English speakers in Honduras beginning the colonial period, but there were more who settled in Honduras on the North Coast and the Bay Islands after slavery ended in Gran Cayman, Jamaica and Belize in 1839. There was a kind of underground railroad between Belize and Central American countries between 1821 when slavery was ended in Central America and 1839 when slavery was ended in Belize, where Belizean slaves would run away across the border to be free.

 

That Hondurans in 2013 do not know that Black English speakers or the Pech Indians even exist shows a serious problem in intercultural education, which under ILO Convention 169 is supposed to be given to all the citizens of the country to avoid prejudice against them. Even the  Garifunas are not clear if the mulattos of Yoro or Olancho are descendants of Garifunas, which they are not, or what is the history of these blacks brought to work in the mines and in the indigo works, where it was against the law for Indians to work. Indigo is the origin of the blue in blue jeans.

 

There is currently a relaunching of bilingual intercultural education in Honduras, with the Ministry of Education starting a “Dirección General de Educación Intercultural Multilingüe”  (DGEIM)in January 2013, upgrading bilingual education from a program—PRONEEAAH (Programa Nacional de Educación par alas Etnias Autoctonas y Afro-Antillanas de Honduras) to one of the main departments of the Ministry, reported Pech, Miskito and Chorti representatives.  Programs, which are usually funded by international funding, come and go according to the availability of international funding and changes in Honduran politics, while a “Dirección General” is more permanent, and gives the indigenous and Garifuna bilingual education leaders more direct access to the Minister of Education.  However, the Honduran Congress passed a law almost immediately to downgrade the General Directorate (DGEIM) to a Subdirectorate and did not include the Blacks or Indians or the National University UNAH in the Council of Education, which is supposed to have responsibilities similar to those of the Minister of Education.

 

 

Honduran President Honors His Midwife by Supporting Programs for Blacks and Indians

 

The recent Honduran President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo was born in the Garifuna neighborhood of Rio Negro, Trujillo with a Garifuna midwife. According to Garifunas of Trujillo and Honduran newspapers, he still says, “My umbilical cord was cut by a Garifuna woman.” (Griffin and Garica, 2013), and he says this experience caused him to see the importance of preserving traditional Garifuna practices and was why he supported initiatives like bilingual intercultural education, SEDINAFROH, small business in ethnic areas, and medicinal plant projects.

 

One of the Garifuna  midwives who attended Pepe Lobo’s mother at his birth is Tomasa Clara Garcia Chimlio of Trujillo whose grandniece Dorina is a special education teacher in Atlanta and her grandnephew is a sailor on petroleum cargo ships also based out of Atlanta.  The Journal Negritud, which specializes in reporting on Afro-Latin Americans, and which is based at Clark Atlanta University under the guidance of Dr. Luis Miletti of the Spanish Department is planning to publish the biography of this 94 year old Garifuna midwife (partera), healer (curandera), message therapist (sobadora), and shaman or buyei in a special edition of Negritud devoted to Central American blacks.

 

Efforts to Revive and Honor Garifuna Culture and Past in Belize Spreads to other Countries

 

In 1920 Garifuna Thomas Vincent Ramos immigrated with his wife from Honduras to Belize. He was a school teacher, but also a visionary founding the Carib Development and Sick Aid Society (CDS) and later the Carib International Society (CIS). He was partially inspired by the Jamaican Marcus Garvey whose organization sent a mission to the English speaking and Garifuna Blacks between Puerto Cortes and La Ceiba, Honduras reported Honduran historian Dr. Jorge Amaya. Both organizations founded by T. V. Ramos spread and were established in all Garifuna communities of Belize and the CIS has affiliations as well in Guatemala and Honduras. 

 

He also fought to get Garifuna nurses assigned to Dangriga hospital, in a Garifuna community of Dangriga or Stann Creek. He was concerned with the promotion and preservation of the Garifuna cultural heritage.  In 1940 he approached the Governor of the Belize with two other Garifunas and asked for the establishment of a Public and Bank Holiday to observe the arrival of the Garifunas from Roatan, Honduras under Alejo Beni November 19^th.  This was granted and “Settlement Day” was celebrated in Stann Creek District beginning in 1941.  In Punta Gorda or Toledo District it began to be celebrated in 1943.  In 1977 Garifuna Settlement Day became officially a Public and Bank Holiday throughout Belize  T. V. Ramos died 13 November 1955 and every year on November 13, there is a torchlight parade in honor to his contribution to the Garifuna people and Belize. (Sebastian Cayetano in Avila, 2009)

 

Honduras Approves African Heritage Month and Garifuna Day

 

This inspired Guatemalan, Honduran, and US Garifunas.  In Guatemala, they celebrate the settlement of the Livingston area by Honduran Garifunas with a ceremony called “Yarumein” (St. Vincent). Previously they celebrated this together with the fair of San Isidro Labrador, but after the Declaration of National Garifuna Day as 26 November, they moved the event to the 26 November (Arrivillaga Cortes, 2007).    In Honduras, Garifuna organizations like ODECO have sought to have special times set aside to remember the Garifuna arrival, which has resulted since the 1990’s  in “Mes de Herencia Africana” the African Heritage month in April to honor the culture and heritage of all Afro-Hondurans including Garifunas, Bay Islanders, Miskitos and Afro-Mestizos, and later “Garifuna Day” 12 April.

 

The Garifunas arrived in Roatan and Trujillo, Honduras  from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent on April 12, 1797 brought by the British who wanted to take their lands on Saint Vincent for planting sugar, and to ensure no Blacks ran away from Barbados by getting on rafts at night and escaping by sea. New research shows escapes of slaves by sea were common in Caribbean, including on Puerto Rico. St. Vincent was the last island in the Caribbean to be conquered by the Europeans. That the Garifunas or Black Caribs fought two wars against the British, which lasted 30 years and also oral history reports victories against the French before that, shows that they were warriors with skill and courage and significant abilities. The Caribbean Sea is named for the Carib Indian ancestors of the Garifunas.

 

Garifuna Day is celebrated in Honduras with parades, cultural presentations, speeches, and sometimes a Garifuna Mass or an arrival of the Garifunas by canoe, used both to represent the arrival of the Garifunas to Honduras and the arrival of the ancestors for the ancestor ceremony dugu since 1997, the bicentennial of the arrival of the Garifunas to Honduras. While most Garifuna communities arrange some sort of event to celebrate Garifuna Day, Garifuna organizations like ODECO also try to arrange one big Garifuna Day event in a different Garifuna community each year.   Some years Honduran presidents like Manuel Zelaya and Pepe Lobo come to Garifuna communities like Trujillo and Santa Fe to celebrate African Heritage month, together with all the Honduran press who follow them, so there is sometimes Honduran  national press coverage of these events.  The 2013 celebration was in Limon, Colon where thousands of Garifunas attended and the whole Council of Ministers of Pepe Lobo’s government was there, besides all the press and the bishop from Trujillo, Colon.  

 

New York Garifunas under the Garifuna Coalition have successfully sought to have 13 March to 12 April declared Garifuna-Honduran heritage month in New York and it is celebrated with a series of events including a mass for the victims of the Happy Land fire, a dinner and cultural presentation and awards to Garifuna community leaders in both New York and Central America (www.Garifunacoalition.org)  Garifunas in New Orleans also celebrate with a Garifuna mass and dances with Garifuna music.

 

The Success of Garifuna Organizing in Belize

 

In 1966 some Belizean Garifunas formed the Waribagaba Dance Group. In 1967, some Karibs from St. Vincent were brought to Belize, the first meeting of Karibs from St. Vincent and the Garifuna in almost 200 years.   In 1972  the Miss Garifuna Belize National Contest was started. In 1979 Garifuna Theodore Aranda assumed the leadership of the United Democratic Party, the highest post ever held by a Garifuna up to that time. The first Garifuna to hold a Permanent Secretary position (a cabinet post similar to Honduran Ministries) was Edmund Zuniga in the Ministry of Defense in 1988. On October 7, 1982 Garifuna Father Martin was ordained Bishop Oswald Peter Martin, the Bishop of Belize and Belmopan. A Garifuna radio show was started in 1980 and the National Garifuna Council of Belize  was formed in 1981. The Garifunas who make up only 6% of the population of Belize were being recognized. The starting of a Garifuna radio program got Garifunas interested in how to write Garifuna to be able to give messages over the radio.

 

The main task of the Garifuna Council is the coordination and enhancement of economic, cultural and social development of Garinagu in Belize. Since Garifunas are descendents of Arawak and Carib Indians who intermarried with Africans who were brought to the Americas to be slaves and maybe from Africans who came before the Europeans, the Garifunas have identified as both Indians and Blacks, and joined organizations to fight for the rights of both.  

 

Garifunas of Belize Help Found an Organization to Fight for Rights of Indigenous People in the English Speaking Caribbean--COIP

 

Together with the Toledo Maya Councilof Belize, the Garifuna Council became a founding member in 1987 of the Caribbean Organization of Indigenous Peoples (COIP), which also included the Karibs of Dominica and St. Vincent and the Indians of Guyana.  The first conference was held in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the theme of the Conference was Caribbean Indigenous Revival: towards Greater Recognition and Development. Dr.  Joseph Palacio, a Garifuna anthropologist, and resident tutor of the University of West Indies, Belize, was the coordinator of the COIP Secretariat in Belize.  His 2005  book The Garifuna a Nation across Borders,  is for sale on Amazon.com.

 

 In 1988, the Garifuna Council was fully legalized and registered in Belize and organized a trip to 10 Honduran Garifuna communities (This entire section on the Belizean Garifunas is from Sebastian Cayetano’s article “Garifuna Re-Settlement in Central America:Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize” in Avila, 2009). There have been many meetings between Belizean Garifuna linguist Roy Cayetano who wrote the People's Dictionary English-Garifuna, Garifuna.English and was a member of the National Garifuna Council of Belize, and the Garifuna teachers of Honduras to help develop a standardized Garifuna alphabet as part of the bilingual-intercultural education program.. The Garifuna Council has also organized courses on making Garifuna crafts and courses on Garifuna dancing in Belize.

 

Garifuna Music and Musicians as a Force to Revitalize the Garifuna Culture and Language

 

The work of Garifunas in Belize to document and revive Garifuna music like punta rock musician Andy Palacio have inspired Garifunas throughout Central America, even in Nicaragua where they no longer speak the language, and in the US to play and sing and commercially record and video tape Garifuna music.  There are numerous examples of Garifuna music and dance on YouTube and the most famous musicians on Belize’s Stonetree Record label like Andy Palacio, the Parranda  project, including Paul Nabor, Aurelio Maritnez, and Umalali, a women’s group, are available for sale on Amazon.com and stonetreerecords.com. . The biographies of leading Garifuna musicians are on Stonetree records and Wikipedia and Spanish TV did a video biography of Aurelio Martinez’s life “La Aventura Garifuna”, which is available on the Internet. There is also a video on Umalali on Vimeo.com.

 

These Garifuna musicians and singers who were recorded by Stonetree Records have toured the US and been interviewed on AfroPop World wide, a Public Radio program on the music of the African diaspora heard in the US, in Europe and in Africa. On Amazon.com they describe Andy Palacio’s Watina album as one of the most critically acclaimed music CDs of any genre in 2007.  He and Stonetree producer Ivan Duval won the World Music Award in Europe that year for that CD and he was awarded a posthumous BBC3 World Music Award in  the Category of the Americas in 2008, the last person to receive that award which was discontinued after awarding it to Andy Palacio. 

 

Some Garifuna musicians and singers now reside permanently in the US such as Aziatic in Los Angeles whose music is heard in the Garifuna in Peril movie and Paul Castillo from Guatemala in New York. She is the Guatemalan with the most CD’s recorded in any language and has been recognized by the New York, Louisana and Guatemalan governments and Garifuna Coalition in New York.  Garifunas also sing in other genres of music including Spanish Reggae and Reggaeton, and music videos of Garifuna singers in these genres sometimes get over 20,000 hits on Youtube.

 

A Garifuna who composes and plays Latin Jazz type music is Sabas Whittaker, born in Honduras but now lives in Conneticut. His daughter Onyana lives here in Atlanta where she is a graphic designer. Sabas Whittaker who began as sailor, has gone on to paint, make fine furniture, write and publish 2 poetry books, write several plays, a book History of Africans in the Americas and another Faith in the Field on Mental health patients, faith in counseling, and churches’ interaction with these patients. He worked for many years in mental health in Conneticut.

 

Garifuna Organizations in Guatemala

 

The Garifuna live in Guatemala in or around the port of Livingston on the Gulf Coast of Guatemala.  There are an estimated 4,000-5,000 Guatemalan Garifunas (Avila, 2009).  In the 1980's young Garifunas who belonged to the group "Ibimeni" (sweetness) formed a group that later became "Despertar Garifuna Marcos Sanchez Diaz" (Wake Up Garifuna Marcos Sanchez Diaz).  Marcos Sanchez Diaz was the leader of the group of Garifunas who founded the Garifuna settlements in Guatemala in 1799.  Later the organization "Organización Negra Guatemalteca" (Organization of Guatemalan Blacks) was formed.  The Guatemalan Garifunas have fought to have a special day named after them, and 26 November is now National Garifuna Day (Arrivillaga Cortés, 2007)  The Garifuna did not play a significant part during the recent 30 year civil war in Guatemala, preferring to remain neutral or after 1960 to immigrate to the US.  While in Honduras and in Belize, there are now modern large cement block homes in Garifuna communities, built by Garifunas in the US who plan to return someday and live in them in their retirement, as 1990, these types of homes were not being built by the Guatemala Garifuna immigrants (Avila, 2009). A number of Guatemala Garifunas living in the US like Paula Castillo, Socie Style,Eddy GNG and some members of Garifuna Kids have become famous as Garifuna musicians or singers, with Socie Style's music with Soriano (aka Jasha) "Wara Wara" getting almost 20,000 hits on YouTube (www.beinggarifuna.com).  There is a CD of tradtional Guatemalan Garifuna music for sale by Barnes and Noble.com  on the Internet--Ibimeni-Garifuna Traditional Music from Guatemala.  There is a custom that the Garifuna Women's Dance Club of Livingston, Guatemala some years comes to Trujillo to sing with the women's dance clubs there, and other years the Trujillo women's dance clubs go to Livingston, Guatemala to sing.  This helps keep ties strong between this otherwise isolated Garifuna community and the other Garifuna communities.   The Garifunas of Guatemala have a bilingual-intercultural education program as do the various Maya groups of Guatemala and the Xinca Indians of Guatemala, reports Tulane linguist and anthropologist Judith Maxwell. 

 

The Guatemalan Garifuna singer Paula Castillo, who lives in New York, who has recorded 8 CD’s  of Garifuna music in Garifuna, has probably produced more CD’s than any other Guatemalan musician of any ethnic group and in any language or genre. Umalali also included Guatemalan Garifuna women singers. Garifuna Kids, another group of mixed nationality, has mostly Guatemalan Garifuna singers. They have recorded several CD’s and their music is used as part of the soundtrack on the video on the Ciudad Blanca, a ruin in the Mosquitia Rainforest in Honduras, on Youtube. 

 

Garifuna Music and Dances a Source of Pride and Recognition of their Native Countries

 

In Belize the Garifunas like Andy Palacio are also the best known Belizean musicians and many of the best known Belizean painters. For Stonetree Records Belize’s only record company Garifuna music represents the overwhelming majority of what they sell, even though there are 6 languages in Belize. In Honduras the best known musicians are mostly either Garifunas or include Garifunas in their music ensembles like Guillermo Anderson, Honduras’s cultural ambassador, or include Garifuna style songs like punta in their repertoire. Honduras is more known for Garifuna dances like punta than for the folk music and dances of the Ladino majority, says David Flores, author of the principal recompilation of Honduran folk dances La Evolucion Histórica de la Danza Folklorica Hondureña (The Historical Evolution of Honduran Folkdance), and former head of the National Folkdance Group which performs dances of the Ladino majority, and the National Office of Folklore.  Garifuna music, dance and language were declared Masterpieces of Intangible World Heritage by UNESCO, one of two African descent cultural groups to be recognized by this UNESCO program.

 

Garifuna Organizations in the US

 

In Los Angeles, the Belizean Garifunas have founded numerous organizations, some working for economic well being, some working on cultural rescue, such as the Garifuna American Heritage Foundation United (GAHFU) which has a website www.garifunaheritagefoundation.org.  A complete list of Belizean Garifuna organizations in Los Angeles and contact information is found on the website of Belizean punta rock star Aziatic (www.belizeanartist.com). There is a Garifuna museum in Los Angeles. There is also an organization of Honduran Garifunas in California, which Garifuna in Peril movie star Ruben Reyes is active in. Ruben Reyes also has his own non-profit organization Garifuna Hope Foundation which has delivered supplies to a Garifuna hospital in Iriona, in northeastern Honduras, among other activities.

 

Organizing to Offer a Revision of the Dominant Criteria of Aesthetics

 

In New York, the Garifuna organization that is responsible for safeguarding, preserving, and revitalizing the Garifuna language, music, and dance in the US is Garifuna Coalition USA, Inc. which works with 20 smaller Garifuna organizations. They are also a social service and referral agency that helps the Garifuna working poor find help, such as ESL classes.  In New York since 2010 there has been a Miss Garifuna NY Pageant, reports Teofilo Colon of BeingGarifuna.com.  There is also a beauty contest among the Garifunas in Los Angeles, called Miss Belize California.  In Honduras there was a beauty pageant called Goddesses of Amber and Ebony for Afro-Hondurans. A Trujillo Garifuna Erika Ramirez also won the Miss Honduras title one year, although that ended badly with complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination. Honduran Garifunas elect queens, including child queens, for many occasions including the village fairs, and in fact on the Facebook page related to BeingGarifuna. Com on one of the comments was “you know you are Garifuna if you have been in a coronation”. These people take “Black is Beautiful” seriously.  The increase in the importance of Garifuna music and dance also are also an example of the changing of national aesthetics. The song “Sopa de Caracol” (Conch Soup) originally was written by a Belizean Garifuna and was adapted by the Honduran band “Banda Blanca” and has become not only “The” Honduran song, but also has been described as “The King of Merengues”.