Black History Month in Hartford, Conneticut Also Includes Afro-Latinos

Black History Month in Hartford, Conneticut Also Includes Afro-Latinos

By Wendy Griffin January 2015

In the US February is Black History Month. Many US schools and universities do activities related to US African-Americans who are descendants of the Blacks brought to the US as slaves before the US Civil War in 1860. In contrast, very few places do activities related to Afro-Latinos or recent African immigrants.

I was surprised to read last week in Sabas Whittaker’s book Africans in the Americas that under 5% of the Blacks taken from Africa went to the US. The overwhelming majority –95% went to the Caribbean, to Brazil, and to the rest of Latin America in that order.  In the US Afro-Latinos from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba are often seen, but Afro-Latino immigrants from almost every Latin American country can be found in the US. Some are even from countries were most people have never heard there were any Blacks—Afro-Guatemalans, Afro-Peruvians, Afro-Mexicans, Afro-Chileans, etc. Sabas Whittaker is an Afro-Honduran with his mother from an English speaking family that came to Honduras from Gran Cayman and his father was a Garifuna from Roatan.

Even Latin Americans in their own countries do not know their country has Blacks. An American living in Mexico told me that some Afro-Mexicans had been stopped at Mexican Immigration when they were returning to Mexico. After they presented their Mexican Passports, they were told  they can not be Mexicans, because Mexico has no Blacks. They were only able to get in after Mexican Immigration made them sing the Mexican National Anthem that every child who has gone to school in Mexico knows.  It is easier to hide things like why was the Costa Chica of Mexico opened up for foreigners to buy land near the beach, when very few people know that the Costa Chica on the Caribbean Coast of Southern Mexico is where most Afro-Mexicans, now mixed with local Indians live.

Rina Caceres, a Costa Rican historian, said she had always grown up hearing that Costa Rica did not have the problems of some other Latin American countries, because it was mostly White from European immigration.  So she was shocked to actually read colonial Costa Rican documents and they were full of references to blacks and mulatos. Where did they come from? And why hadn’t she Heard about them until now?

Dr. Reid Andrews begins his book on Afro-Argentinians with the fact that most people in Buenos Aires when he asked about the Afro-Argentinians of Buenos Aires, he was told there were none.  Yet after he expanded his knowledge of Greater Buenos Aires, he found neighborhoods were you would see several Afro-Argentinians a day. In El Salvador, it has been the policy that El Salvador does not have the problems of its neighbors, because it is a 100% mestizo (White and Indian mixture) country.  If you read the Wikipedia in Spanish article on Isatepeque, you would then be surprised to read that the mulatos and the Indians of the Isatepeque región of El Salvador conspired together in witchcraft in 1802 and that is why the priest cursed them. 

In most Latin American countries Blacks and mulatos played a big role in Independence because they thought if we could get free of Spain, there is more of chance we can gain freedom for all the slaves. In Central America it worked. Within a year of Independence, the end of slavery was decreed, and the Central American Federation and Honduras had mulato presidents like General Francisco Ferrera of Cantaranas, Honduras over 20 years before the US ended slavery.

One of the people who has been bringing to modern readers the stories of the Central American Blacks that oficial historians had left out like that of General Francisco Ferrera, is Dr. Dario Euraque of the History Department of Trinity College, Hartford, Conneticut. Dr. Euraque was born in La Ceiba, Honduras. La Ceiba is the headquarters of the banana company Standard Fruit, now owned by Dole. La Ceiba also has near its airport extensive pineapple fields that produce for Dole. Dr. Euraque’s family already appears in the historical documents about La Ceiba in the 1880’s. Given his family and academic background and the ethnic make up of Hartford Conneticut with thousands of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Jamaicans it is not surprising that Trinity College has vibrant Black History Month celebrations that include Afro-Latinos, too.

Afri-Garifuna Jazz Ensemble to Open Black History Month at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn

In keeping with Dr. Dario Euraque's beliefs that Afro-Latinos are part of the history and culture not only of their countries, but also of the US, Trinity College is starting off Black History Month with a series of cultural, musical, and history related events with the event around which the other activities are organized is a concert and workshop by the Afri-Garifuna Jazz Ensemble of New York City. The founders of this six person musical group are Lucy Blanco, a Garifuna Jazz Singer with 25 years of experience, and James Lovell a Belizean Garifuna Singer and musician on the drums. Although Lucy Blanco is originally from New York City which has a Garifuna population in the tens of thousands, she has spent much of her career singing in the Los Angeles, California área.

Since 2008 Lucy Blanco has been exploring more her Garifuna heritage. James Lovell uses music to teach Garifuna both in New York City and in the Caribbean Island of St. Vincent where the Garifunas lived before they were exiled to Central America. He plays with other Garifuna groups like Libaña Marasa (the Grandchildren of Marasa, a Garifuna composer), and he also recently made a film which was supposed to show at the Garifuna Film Festival in 2013. HondurasWeekly.com last year featured a video of Lucy Blanco and James Lovell. Afri-Gari Jazz shows what happens if you mix Garifuna melodies with modern Jazz rhythms and instruments. The event is co-sponsored by the Hartford, Conneticut Jazz Society. Most activities are free and open to the public. Hartford, Conneticut is on the train and bus lines between Boston and New York City are about 2 hours from each.

Dr. Euraque's home town and Research taught him of the Important Roles of Afro-Latin Americans

 

For most of the 20th century, Dr. Euraque's hometown of La Ceiba had at its center a vibrant Black neighborhood known as “Barrio Ingles”, because most of the inhabitants were West Indian or Belizean immigrants, or Black Bay Islanders who came to work for the banana Company. Outside of La Ceiba there are two large Garifuna (Black Caribs-the mixture of Arawak, Carib and Blacks) communities—Corozal and Sambo Creek, while inside La Ceiba there are currently over 4,000 Garifunas. English speaking Blacks, Garifunas and the Hispanic majority the Ladinos all dispute over who founded the town of La Ceiba. When Jesuit Missionary  Manuel Subirana walked through in the 1860’s, the Garifuna town of Sambo Creek existed, but where La Ceiba is now there was already the Ladino village of Cangrejal. River Cangrejal that now goes through western La Ceiba and that early village were named for the river.

Dr. Euraque immigrated to the US with his parents when he was 15 years old. He did his doctoral studies in Latin American History at the University of Wisconsin. He began his research career studying the history of San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second largest city and the center of its export industry such as underwear in the maquila factories around San Pedro.

Most of Honduras’s 223 millionaires live in San Pedro Sula and most of them are of Palestinian Arab descent. Of the top 20 investors in Honduras, according to a study by Honduran historian Jorge Amaya Banegas, 2 were from Jewish families, 2 were from Ladino families (those of former President Rafael Callejas and former President Ricardo Maduro), and the rest were of Palestinian Arab descent and most lived in San Pedro Sula. However, almost all Honduran history books were silent on the subject that Honduras’ and San Pedro Sula’s economies had been taken over by Palestinian Arabs. He wondered, if the Honduran historians are silent about this group, “Who else are they being silent about?”

Looking through the books, articles, and conference papers that take up 19 pages on his Trinity College website resumé, we can see the people made invisible in Honduran histories included Garifunas, mulatos, Black English speakers, and almost all the Honduran Indians besides the Mayas. Dr. Euraque and I met for the first time because he was researching Jamaican immigrants to Honduras for a conference at Tulane University and I was finishing my book on Isleños and Black English Speakers (Ingleses) of Honduras that is available for free on the Internet.

Dr. Dario Euraque was honored by the Honduran government by being named “Gerente” or chief of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History (IHAH), an autonomous part of the Honduran  government, under President Manuel Zelaya’s government. While he was “Gerente” he started an ambitious publication program of books about non-Mayan groups in Honduras which included my book “Los Pech de Honduras”, which was published about 6 weeks before the 2009 coup against Honduran president Manuel "Mel" Zelaya. 

One of the results of the coup was that Dr. Sarah England’s book on the Afro-Central Americans in New York, which Dr. Euraque had had translated into Spanish, has to this day never been published in Spanish. Dr. England’s research in the área of Limon, Honduras reflected badly on one of the businessmen and conservatives who move Honduran politics Miguel Facusse. Dr. Dario Euraque had to leave not only his job, but Honduras as a result of the coup against Mel Zelaya. His experiences as “gerente” and reflections on the coup were published in a book in Spanish and is available as a free pdf file from his Trinity College website. A DVD was also made to accompany the paper versión of the book which includes testimonies of Pech Indians and Garifunas of Trujillo, Honduras.

Dr. Rosemary Joyce, an archaeologist at UC-Berkley and on President Obama’s Committee on Culture, in her blog “Honduran culture  and Politics” calls Dr. Dario Euraque’s writings “essential readings” for those who want to understand Honduran culture.