Contributions of Garifunas to US Economy, Garifuna Music, and Garifuna Language

Contributions of the Garifunas to the US Economy, Garifuna Music, and Garifuna Language

Although most Americans have not seen Garifunas, they have benefited from their labor. In the 19^th century, the Garifunas were the principal cutters of Honduran mahoghany, exported to make fine furniture.  In the early 20^th century, Garifunas went to Panama and worked on the Panama Canal.  During the First World War, Belizean Garifunas fought on the side of the Allies, including in North Africa. 

The Garifunas produced bananas for the banana boom, contacted other farmers by canoe to bring in their bananas to be bought and shipped by the banana companies, took the bananas to the ships in canoes before there was a dock, worked on infrastructure projects for the banana companies like port construction, building the dam for the  water supply to the fruit company controlled port, cut mahoghany and laid rails for the trains to bring in the bananas, help run the train like being the breakman or mechanic,  and especially hauling long heavy bananas stems to load on the trains and on the boats before the practice of shipping in boxes. 

After the banana company United Fruit left NE Honduras, Garifuna men began working as sailors or merchant marines especially for banana companies like United Fruit (now Chiquita) and Standard Fruit (now part of Dole). During the Second World War, the ships of Standard Fruit and United Fruit together with all their Honduran crews were used as transport ships to support the war effort.  They were known as the Great White Fleet. My Honduran Garifuna friend Sebastian Marin said he was in Pearl Harbor as a sailor for United Fruit during the War and that many Garifuna men of his age from Trujillo had been on ships during the War like that. Other Honduran and Belizean Garifunas helped work in the Canal Zone in Panama or at a US naval base in Puerto Castilla, Honduras near Trujillo during the Second World War(Griffin and CEGAH, 2005). Belizean Garifunas, recruited by the British,  also fought with the Allies during the Second War (Avila, 2009).

Now in New York, about 85% of the Garifuna women there are home attendants, taking care of the elderly and the infirmed in their homes.  Home attendants are paid by Medicaid, but with the current financial crisis, New York state has cut back on funding for home attendants, causing crisis not only in Garifuna homes in New York, but also for the old people back home in Honduras to whom they send money to support them.  Garifuna men do all sorts of jobs, including being sailors, security guards, jewelers, musicians, building superintendents and other things. Ruben Reyes, the co-producer and star of Garifuna in Peril, is a plumbing contractor and runs the company “Cal Plumbing”  in Los Angeles where he has trained 15 Garifuna to be plumbers. 

Honduras has the second highest number of registered sailors in the world, after the Philippines, with many coming from the Garifuna and Black English speaker ethnic groups.  This is pretty incredible given the fact that there are only 7 million people in the whole country of Honduras, comparable to the population of New York City. If the husband is a sailor, it implies a lot of hardship for him and his family, being away from his family for 4-6 months at a time. It is also hard work, with 70 hour work weeks minimum and frequent overtime, now at comparatively low wages because the ships take off for room and board, and no benefits. One Garifuna friend was recently offered a sailor’s position for $440/month with 70 hours work weeks.  It also seems to be hazardous work as several of the Honduran Garifuna or Bay Islander sailors I have known, have been killed or injured on the ship, with little or no compensation. Although the US relies significantly on imports, no one thinks about the life or the work conditions of the sailors who bring us these goods or the effects of this work on their families.

Garifunas form an important part of the labor force in their home countries.  There are hundreds of Garifuna teachers in Honduran and Belize, with Garifuna teachers forming about 75% of the rural teachers in Belize, in spite of only forming 6% of the population there. Thanks to help from remittances sent home by US Garifunas, there are now many Garifuna university graduates in Honduras and Belize including doctors, teachers, journalists, economists, university professors, etc. Garifunas in both countries have held important government posts including Congressmen, Ministers, Ambassadors, and Honduran representative to the UN (Avila, 2009, Griffin and CEGAH, 2005). Because of their high level of education, Garifunas are often given management positions in programs for all the minority ethnic groups of Belize and Honduras.

My sister Pam teases me that whenever a subject comes up, I usually find a Garifuna connection to it. She tested my niece Kristen, asking What is the relationship between Frank Sinatra and the Garifunas? as my niece was very into old movies and their stars at the time. Kristin said she did not know. Pam asked me if there was a connection between Garifunas and Frank Sinatra. I said Frank Sinatra ate Honduran bananas which were shipped out by the Honduran Garifuna dock workers. She just rolled her eyes and said, There is even a relationship between Garifunas and Frank Sinatra.  

Garifuna Music Recordings and Artists Made the Garifuna famous Worldwide

Although most US people have not heard of the Garifuna, the movie Garifuna in Peril is not the first time the Garifuna have been recorded by the media.  Most of what is recorded about the Garifuna is their music.  The first recordings of Garifuna music were made in Honduras in 1953 (The Black Carib of Honduras) and in 1982 in Belize (Traditional Music of the Garifuna (Black Carib) of Belize and Dabuyabaragu: Inside the Temple, Sacred Music of the Garifuna of Belize) by the Smithsonian Institute’s non-profit record label Folkway Records. Because of a special agreement between the Smithsonian Institute, the national museum of the US  and the heirs of Folkway Records, the Smithsonian promises to make this music available virtually for forever, so even though some of this music was recorded over 50 years ago, it is still for sale on their website http://www.folkways.si.edu/customer_service/ either as a CD or as a cassette recording or an online download. Most Folkways music is also available from Internet music seller sites like iTunes, eMusic, Amazon.com and Classical.com.

Garifunas play over 34 different types of music, each with its own rhythms, dance and purposes (Flores, 2003, Avila, 2009, Griffin and CEGAH, 2005). Most traditional songs are accompanied by a tenor or female drum called primera  and one (in Belize) or two (in Honduras) bass or male segunda drums. A special feature of Garifuna drums  is that they often have two or three guitar strings strung over the top of the first (primer) drum like a snare, a technique also often found with West African drums, reported Michael Stone (www.worldmusic,nationalgeographiccom/view/page.basic/genre/content.genre/garifuna_music_722/enUS).  Other instruments can include maracas, turtle shell drums, a conch shell horn, and two round sticks beaten together known as “claves”.  These are almost all noticeably percussion instruments with the melody of the songs being carried by the voices of the singers. Garifuna music is polyrhythmic like jazz, with the rhythm of the first drum not being the same as the second drum, and the rhythm of the voices singing is also different.  Most songs are sung call and response, with the soloist beginning the line and the rest of the singers joining in as the chorus.  These elements give Garifuna traditional music a very African sound, even though the songs are primarily in an Amerindian language(Griffin and CEGAH, 2005).

Besides traditional Garifuna music with handmade instruments, there is also now a whole music business around Garifuna modern popular music played with electronic instruments including electric guitar, keyboards, and drum set.  Although modern Garifuna music derives its inspiration and lyrics from several different genres of Garifuna traditional music, it is usually all called punta rock (Avila, 2009).  In the US one of the leaders of modern Garifuna music is Belizean Garifuna Vince Lewis, usually known by his stage name Aziatic who lives in Los Angeles.  On his website www.belizeanartist.com he described his music as punta pop (This website is no longer up).  For the movie Garifuna in Peril, both modern punta pop and traditional Garifuna music with handmade drums and maracas is used.  There are 19 cuts of Garifuna music on the soundtrack, with several being composed and played by Aziatic.  One of the songs was also written by Ruben Reyes. (www.garifunainperilmovie.com).

 The Garifunas also have two styles of songs done a capella by men (arumajani) and by women (abeimajani) which are accompanied by a gestured dance done with their little fingers linked together. Uyanu is a name that refers to both the men’s (arumajani) and women’s (abeimajani) songs without drums. These Uyanu songs are used in ceremonies like a dugu, a chugu, in healing ceremonies like the healing of sting ray sting, as well as social songs like getting together with friends in the evening and singing. Uyanu songs are thought to be particularly helpful in restoring health, and before a dugu are often revealed to people in dreams, reports Doña Clara Garcia, a Garifuna buyei or shaman in Trujillo, Honduras.  There is one example of uyanu songs in the movie Garifuna in Peril (www.garifunainperil.com/music). The dance for uyanu with the little fingers interlinked may be of Bantu origen. These songs which among the men are about adventures fishing and in love take the place of ancestral songs often about hunting among South Africans for their ancestor cemonies.

The National Garifuna Council of Belize (http://www.ngcbelize.org) began to work towards in applying for the UNESCO “Masterpiece of the oral intangible heritage of humanity for the Garifuna language, dance and music”, a process that required many hours of taping Garifuna music and dance around Belize, producing a video summarizing the information about Garifuna music and dance with examples of each, and a written application(Avila, 2009). The famous Garifuna singer Andy Palacios was one of the people behind that effort. Palacios won first prize at the World Music Expo in Europe in 2007 for his CD recorded with Stonetree Records Watiña.

.  UNESCO declared Garifuna language, dance, and music in Belize to be a masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001 (http://www.louisanafolklife.org/LT/articles-Essays/garifuna.html , http://www.unesco.org/culture/intagible-heritage/masterpiece.php).  In 2008 the UNESCO convention for the safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage took effect, and those intangible cultural elements previously designated as “masterpieces” were made part of the Representative List of Intangible cultural heritage of Humanity in 2008.  This time the Garifuna language, dance, and music in Belize, as well as in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua were part of the list.  The purpose of this list is to identify cultural practices and expressions that help demonstrate the diversity of this heritage and raises awareness of its importance.  Although about 90 elements of popular culture from around the world had been approved as part of this World Heritage program of UNESCO, as of 2008, and only two are of Afro-Latin American cultures, and the declaration for the Garifunas was the first for an Afro-Latin American group (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO_Intangible_Cultural_heritage:Lists). The written information that accompanied the application is in Tomas Alberto Avila’s book Black Carib-Garifuna (Avila,2009) which is for sale through Amazon.com.  The video of Garifuna dances and songs which accompanied the application had been for sale on the Garinet website, video section (www.garinet.com). It seems this video has not been into a DVD yet.

Garifuna Language, Music, Dances, and Catholic and Evangelical Churches.

 The Catholic Mass in Garifuna now incorporates the dance and rhythm of uyanu songs to accompany the words of the prayer “Our Father” in Garifuna. Other parts of the Catholic Mass in Garifuna incorporate Garifuna drumming, the use of maracas, dancing, traditional food such as cassava bread, singing in Garifuna, and the use of incense, for example, during the offertory song and dance. A Belizean Garifuna was named Bishop of the Catholic Church in Belize (Avila, 2009), and the music and practice of the Garifuna mass was developed in Belize and later spread to Honduras and the US.  In Trujillo, Honduras where approximately 3,000 Garifunas live, the second Sunday of every month, the Catholic Mass in the Cathedral is in Garifuna.  US  Garifunas also occasionally arrange for a Catholic Mass in Garifuna in New York or New Orleans, as well as other Garifuna dance presentations, for example to commemorate their arrival in Honduras (12 April 1797) reported Tulane student Marco Bicchieri and the Garifuna Coalition website (www.garifunacoaltion.org).  Belizean Garifunas in Los Angeles present their traditional dances for Settlement Day November 19, the day the Garifuna arrived from Honduras to Belize, a National Public and Bank holiday in Belize(www.belizeanartist.com, Avila, 2009).

 The Garifunas have been active in working with the Catholic Church to be more accepting of Afro-Latin American cultural traditions.  Prior to Vatican II in the 1960’s, the Catholic priests were antagonistic of many Garifuna practices, to the extent of denying church funeral services to Garifunas who composed songs used in dugu ceremonies or who treated people with medicinal plants, said Honduran Garifuna Angel Batiz. The Garifunas of Trujillo where there has been a permanently staffed Catholic church for over 150 years, used to do their ancestor ceremonies like dugu and the ceremonies for the spirit of the sea out by the Guaymoreto Lagoon 11 km away from Trujillo and at that time reachable primarily by canoe. In 1997 the Americas-wide meeting of the “Encuentro Pastoral Afro-Americano” (The Meeting of Catholic Priests who worked with Afrodescent people in North, Central, South America and the Caribbean)  was held in Trujillo, Honduras at the same time as the celebration of 200^th year anniversary of the arrival of the Garifunas in Honduras. There were many presentations of Garifuna songs and dances, including the presentation of dugu songs by Garifuna school children.  The playing of dugu songs often causes ancestor spirits to possess people and this happened with Catholic priests from all over the Americas watching. The Master of Ceremony for the event said “Don’t be concerned, it is just our religion.”  Still the use of Garifuna language, music, and dance continue in the Catholic church, there are special radio shows in Garifuna on the Trujillo Radio Católica, there is a special organization within the Honduran Catholic Church and in each Garifuna parish “el pastoral Garifuna”, and Trujillo Garifuna Catholics do not seem to have problems with the Catholic Church if they are buyeis (traditional Garifuna religious leaders), assistants to buyeis, treat with medicinal plants, or attend traditional Garifuna ceremonies.

 The same can not be said for the many evangelical churches among the Honduran Garifuna.  Although churches like the Baptist church use the Garifuna language and have translated the Bible into Garifuna and Jehovah’s Witnesses make  religious materials available in Garifuna,  they use these to preach that the Garifuna ceremonies diabolic, that devils fall on people and possess them.  Some evangelical churches working among the Garifunas are against all dances, even non-religious ones like the men’s dance done at Christmas time shown in the film Garifuna in Peril Wanaragua (Mascaro, the Warrior’s Dance). The principal of the Garifuna high school in Santa Fe, Honduras said they could not have a Garifuna dance group at the school, because the local evangelical church was against dancing. Protestant churches working among other Honduran Afro-descent groups like the Miskito Indians and the Bay Islanders are a significant cause for the loss of traditional cultural practices like folkdances and medicinal plant use, which were often related to the traditional religion and beliefs of causes of illness and cures (Flores,2003).

Garifuna traditional dance, music, religion and language loss

One unusual aspect of the Garifuna language is that for a number of words Garifuna men and Garifuna women do not use the same word. Partly for this reason, usually songs are sung either by all women or all men, but not men and women together.  Some dances are mostly done by women like hunguhungu or fedu, while others like Mascaro or Wanaragua (The Dance of the Warriors) are done by men.  In the film,  Garifuna in Peril there is a beautifully costumed and shot  example of the Wanaragua dance, which in Garifuna villages is done on Christmas Day and New Years Day.   The male dancers dress up in a flowered shirt with long ribbons, gloves, stockings, seashell shakers on their knees, a skirt, a mask and an elaborate headdress and one by one go into the center of circle to dance extravagant dances with jumps and shaking and fancy footwork (Griffin and CEGAH, 2005).  Traditional Garifuna songs accompanied by handmade drums are sung during the dance during the film as during village celebrations(www.garifunainperilmovie.com).  Examples of these dances can be seen on YouTube.

Garifuna music can be divided into sacred and secular music and dances.  The sacred music like the Folkways Record Dabuyabaraga and the first cut on Radio France’s Chansons des Caraibes Noires, Dugu, is used during ancestor ceremonies like chugu ( a one day banquet, music, and dancing for the ancestors) and dugu (a three days of  dances and music for the ancestors, plus food for them).  This music is all sung in Garifuna.  Most songs have no written form yet, so the singers must memorize enough Garifuna songs to sing all day and all night for two days. In David Flores’s book La Evolución Historica de la Danza Folklorica Hondureña (Flores, 2003) available on garinet.com and in my book Los Garifunas de Honduras I document these ceremonies and songs in Honduras (Griffin and CEGAH, 2005). Tomas Alberto Avila’s book Black Carib-Garifunas documents them for Belize, and  Paul Johnson, professor in the Department of Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan, has documented most of these ceremonies in New York as well as the dugu ceremony in Honduras in his recent book Diaspora Conversions:  Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa”.  (http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520249707), which is available through Amazon.com.  Dorothy Franzone‘s .doctoral thesis A Critical and Cultural Analysis of An African People in the Americas: Africanisms in the Garifuna Culture of Belize, compares Garifuna ceremonies in Belize to ceremonies among the Igbo and Yoruba cultures of Nigeria in West Africa (Franzone, 1994), showing that these represent ancient traditions the Garifuna have maintained in spite of being displaced several times—from Africa, from Saint Vincent, and now from Central America to New York and Los Angeles.  All doctoral dissertations are available online at www.proquest.com.

 The continuance of these ceremonies and this music is threatened by the loss of the Garifuna language both in the US and in the communities back home in Central America.   At least 30% of the Honduran Garifunas no longer speak Garifuna, and in some communities like Barrio Cristales, Trujillo, the first Garifuna community in Honduras, none of the children speak Garifuna. In Belize, many Garifuna children do not speak Garifuna either (http://www.ngcbelize.org).  Dorothy Franzone in her 1994 doctoral thesis said that African professors observing these Garifuna ceremonies said not only did they have elements similar to West African ceremonies and used some African words, but that the Garifuna ceremonies appeared more ancient than the ceremonies being done today in West Africa.  Other researchers have compared them to ceremonies of Arawak and Carib Indians and find indigenous elements in them as well (Franzone, 1994).

Both Honduran and Belizean Garifunas report the previous models of education as the principal cause of language loss among the Garifunas.  Before 1992, it was illegal to speak Garifuna in Honduran schools and students were punished if they did, for example, standing in a corner with their arms outstretched. The teachers, even though ethnically Garifuna, would make fun of the Garifuna language.  “Don’t speak that garugaru,” one Garifuna teacher in Trujillo would say.  Some Garifuna professionals prohibited speaking Garifuna at home, so that their children would do well in school in Spanish.  The former head of Honduran bilingual education, a Garifuna from Trujillo, mostly had to learn Garifuna as an adult, because his father was a school teacher and was against the use of Garifuna at home and at school.   A Belizean Garifuna leader said, “If we speak Garifuna well, it is in spite of the education system, not because of it.” (Avila, 2009)  

 In Nicaragua, none of the Garifuna still speak Garifuna, reported Honduran Garifuna Fausto Miguel Alvarez.  Since no one can sing, the no one learned how to drum the traditional songs there, said Honduran Garifuna Popo Ariola. The Garifunas there have lost the ability to make many of their traditional crafts, like the Ruguma, a 10 foot long woven basket strainer used to squeeze the poisonous juice out of the bitter yuca or manioc used to make cassava bread (ereba in Garifuna).   Honduran Garifunas lead by Popo Ariola who was previously assistant director of the Ballet Nacional Folklorico Garifuna de Honduras (National Garifuna Folkloric Ballet) and the leader of the Garifuna dance group Barauda, went to give a seminar in Garifuna drumming and singing to the Nicaraguan Garifunas in an exchange orgranized by Urracan University on the Atlantic Coast in Nicaragua. When the Honduran Garifunas brought out  a ruguma from Honduras for the Nicaraguans, some of the older Nicaraguan Garifunas began to cry. Seeing the situation in Nicaragua while a teacher in the Sandinista sponsored  literacy campaign in the 1980’s is part of what motivated Belizean Garifuna Andy Palacio to undertake his life’s work of trying to document, promote and revive Garifuna music and culture in Belize.

Work Being done to Revive Garifuna language, music, and culture

This threatened loss of Garifuna culture through the loss of the language and through immigration to US cities in search of work has spurred some people to try to document, rescue and revive the Garifuna traditions and the language.  Some of the work to document and preserve Garifuna songs has made some Garifunas world  famous like Belizean punta rock singer Andy Palacio who together with the producer of Belizean record company Stonetree Records Ivan Duval  won the number one international award for World Music at the World Music Expo in Europe in 2007 for his CD Watina.  Andy Palacio also  posthumously won the BBC3 award in England for World Music in the category of the Americas in 2008 . Palacio had also received the award for “ Best New Artist” at the Caribbean Music Awards in 1993. He was interviewed for the Public Radio International’s show on the music of the African diaspora of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean Afropop Worldwide heard on 100 US Public Radio stations as well as in Europe and in Africa the year before his death, and the news of his death was reported worldwide, as well(www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/andy-palacio). Andy Palacio was also featured with Honduran Garifuna Aurelio Martinez on National Geographic.  There are numerous YouTube videos of Garifuna music including by Palacio, Martinez and Paul Nabor and their music and life stories are available on online at www.stonetreerecords.com, among other sites.  More information on this process and the artists is provided in the Background information following this main article.

Most of the traditional Garifuna songs are women’s songs, but many of the first Garifuna singers to gain fame in Belize, in the US and around the world were men. Part of the promotion work for making modern Belizean punta rock and traditional paranda musicians famous in the US was done by Los Angeles resident Aziatic who during 10 years split his efforts between his own musical touring and composing and organizing “Best of the Best” Punta Rock concerts in the US, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas, bringing Andy Palacio, Paul Nabor and Aurelio Martinez among others to the States for concerts and media interviews.  (www.belizeanartist.com).

 One of the best known female singers of Garifuna music in the US is Guatemalan Garifuna singer Paula Castillo who has resided in New York City for many years. She sings in Garifuna accompanied by modern electronic instruments, similar to punta rock stars.  She has released 8 CD’s or cassettes including Garifuna India, Nuguru Narutabus, Bunguilla Seremien, Bunguilla Baba,. Millenium 2000 and Darangilu.  She has traveled in the US and Central America promoting Garifuna music and has been honored by the State of Louisiana, New York, and the government of Guatemala for her long and illustrious career.   She attends almost every Garifuna community event in New York City where she often sings, such as at the Honduran Central American Parade Festivals in the Bronx.  In 2011 Garifuna Coalition in New York City awarded her the 2011 Garifuna Heritage Award for her work in the Garifuna community and promoting Garifuna language and music (www.beinggarifuna.com).  Although her music is recorded in New York, it is widely listened to in Garifuna communities  in Central America, which is true for many US based Garifuna groups like Garifuna Kids. 

In Belize, Stonetree Records worked 10 years studying traditional Garifuna women’s music.  The final result was a recording of Umalali, The Garifuna Women’s Project (www.stonetreerecords.com). . A group of 3 Central American Garifuna women Umalali toured in the US and appeared at the Vancouver Folk Festival in Canada.  A video was made on Umalali The Garifuna Women’s Project  and is available on www.Vimeo,com, along with 159 other videos of Garifunas. NPR radio stations in the US did a report on Umalali: The Voice of the Garifuna (www.npr.org). The CD is available on Amazon.com or through Stonetree. Radio France’s CD of  Garifuna women’s music sung by the 60 member Garifuna women’s dance club--Club Wabaragoun of Trujillo, which was called  “Les Chansons des Caraibes Noires”, shows the beauty of Garifuna women singing in large groups  with traditional handmade instruments as is typical in the villages for holidays, fairs, and ceremonies. Although it circulated in Trujillo as a pirated CD under the name  “Garifuna 100%”, a legal version is not available for sale on the Radio France website and in Honduras only the singers of Club Wabaragoun (Which means all of us going ahead together) had one legal copy each of it. Honduran Garifuna writer Salvador Suazo produced a song book Lanigui Garifuna (Garifuna Heart) with the words in Garifuna and a cassette of Garifuna music recorded by a women’s dance club from Sangrelaya.which was sold in Tegucigalpa, but has been unavailable for years. Punta, the Garifuna’s most famous song style, is traditionally a women’s song, and examples are included in these collections.  A google search for Garifuna music history turns up collections of Garifuna music for sale by Guatemalan Garifunas, various field recordings and books of the history of Honduran and Belizean music, including Garifuna music.

.On the site www.beinggarifuna.com blogger Teofilo Colon  has a section where he interviews Garifuna DJ’s around the US and the owner of the main store in New York which carries Garifuna music and videos about what are the current popular songs at Garifuna parties and concerts, often with links to the Facebook pages of the artists, as well as what is selling the most. The most popular musical groups among the Garifuna often do not appear to be those that have had the most international attention.  There are many Youtube videos of Garifuna music and dance, some of which have gotten 20,000 hits, so some Garifuna artists are very popular.   Yet Garifuna music like the Garifuna themselves has mostly been ignored by most US radio stations, and except for those recorded by Stonetree Records are not available through traditional music retailers etc.  The local media like newspapers or national music industry magazines seldom reports on Garifuna music or events, which was part of the reason Teofilo Colon started his blog BeingGarifuna.com for which he is the founder, publisher, and editor. For this work, he has received the 2010 Garifuna Coalition Recognition Award and he was written up by the New York Daily News (http:www.nydailynews.com/new-york/garifuna-blogger-teofilo-colon-fans-people-pride-online-article-1.977231). 

If the mainstream media has mostly ignored the Garifuna, the Garifunas have opened spaces for themselves, often over the Internet. In New York, Honduran Garifuna Valentin Murphy from Santa Fe coordinated the cable TV network weekly TV show The Central American Show.  There he would present the different activities of the Central American, particularly the Garifuna community, in New York. Many shows highlighted traditional Garifuna dances done in New York.  Because the Garifunas of Trujillo, Honduras own their own cable TV channel, too, shows in New York were often rebroadcast on Cablevision Cristales in Trujillo, Honduras. The funding to start the Cable TV company in Trujillo came from the insurance payments for the death of Honduran Garifunas in the Happy Land Social Club fire in the Bronx, New York. In Los Angeles, the Garifunas have opened a Garifuna Museum (www.garifunamuseum.com).

Thanks to California based website designer Jorge Garifuna, there is now an Internet TV station which shows Garifuna TV shows, GariTV.com.  One of the shows is Sásumu Show, a weekly program of interviews about Garifuna culture and issues in the community, which is hosted and produced by Garifuna in Peril star Ruben Reyes (www.garifunainperilmovie.com).  Thanks to Internet by satellite through Internet Cafés that cost $1 an hour in Honduras, or Internet over modems similar to mobile phones that can pick up the Internet anywhere the Honduran cellphone company Tigo has a cellphone signal, even Garifunas in Honduras can watch GariTV.    Garifuna radio stations on the Internet exist with DJ’s based both in Honduras and the US.  One of these Internet radio stations is run by Los Angeles Belizean punta rock star Aziatic (www.belizeanartist.com). Another is Radio Giriga 99.9 FM which you can find on garifunalink.com. Garifunas also have had radio shows on Honduran and Belizean Radio, such as the Garifuna half hour programs on Belize Radio One starting in 1980(Avila,2009).

In addition to the highly visible efforts of music stars to save Garifuna language and culture, there has been a lot of backroom work of developing a writing system for the Garifuna dictionary, writing dictionaries, organizing and supporting efforts to get bilingual (Garifuna-Spanish) intercultural education in Garifuna communities, and documenting Garifuna history.  Some of the leaders of this part of the work have been Dr. Joseph Palacio, a Belizean Garifuna anthropologist, Clifford Palacio who worked with Ruben Reyes on the Garifuna dictionary, Roy Cayetano (Belize), Salvador Suazo (Honduras), Fausto Miguel Alvarez (Honduras) and Ruben Reyes in California, Garifuna in Peril’s co-producer and star. When Garifuna bilingual education was first approved in Honduras, before there were any textbooks, grammar books, or even an agreed upon alphabet, one of the first things teachers did was form choirs to learn the Honduran national anthem in Garifuna, translated by Ruben Reyes, an active member of the California Garifuna organization SONEHCA (Sociedad de Negros Hondureños de California). He has recently founded a foundation “Garifuna Hope” to help preserve the Garifuna language and culture.

 At the same time Garifuna in Peril is coming out in 2012, Ruben Reyes is releasing his just published trilingual dictionary  Gadüdia Garifuna Trilingual dictionary (Garifuna-Spanish-English), a 20 year work of love, which is available for sale at  www.garinet.com and Amazon.com. Jorge Garifuna, a California based computer programmer, website developer, and garinet.com’s owner and website developer, has recently developed an app so that Garifunas can access the dictionary and find the word they are looking for from their mobile phone (www.garinet.com). Jorge Garifuna has received numerous awards from the Garifuna community for his work.  This app and the dictionary should be helpful for the Garifuna bilingual-intercultural programs, which in Honduras was approved as a pilot project in 1992 and made law in 1994 (www.se.gob.hn/eib/afro/ind/garifunas.htm).  Guatemalan Garifunas also have a government approved bilingual education program.