"May 30th is the official day
of the celebration of Etnia Negra en Panamá", writes Yvette Modestin, whose blog "Encuentro Diaspora Afro:
Reflections" can be found at www.diasporaafro.blogspot.com. She is also working with Toshi Sakai on the documentary CIMARRONAJE EN PANAMA, about African resistance and its continuing
legacy in Panamá today.
"This law was passed in 2000 with the activism
and dedication of Mr. Claral Richards who is considered the Nelson Mandela of Panama for not giving up on this important
recognition.
"We pay tribute to the millions of unrecognized African
ancestors whose sweat and blood created the infrastructure of colonial society and whose unremunerated labor made possible
the wealth of Europe and European America. The Panama Railroad was built by Blacks and Chinese for the sole purpose of facilitating
access to the California gold rush for East Coast North-Americans. It was a mostly Afro-Antillian labor force that
dug the Panama Canal. The Fundación Etnia Negra de Panamá honors the 500 year history of the Afro-coloniales
and the Afro-Antillanos in the Republic of Panamá.
"It is a time of reflection of who we
are as a people in Panama."
Visit www.afropresencia.com to find listings and links to areas where you can find out
about upcoming events, as well as links to articles, photos and videos on Life in the Black Americas.
The Sound of My Footsteps: Narratives of Migratory Jamaican immigrants
Interviews with over 30 Jamaican immigrants on their
pre-migratory perceptions of New York and England
The Afro-Latin@ Reader:
History and Culture in the United States
The Afro-Latin@ Reader focuses attention on a large, vibrant, yet oddly invisible community
in the United States: people of African descent from Latin America and the Caribbean. The presence of Afro-Latin@s
in the United States (and throughout the Americas) belies the notion that Blacks and Latin@s are two distinct categories
or cultures. Afro-Latin@s are uniquely situated to bridge the widening social divide between Latin@s and African
Americans. At the same time, their experiences reveal pervasive racism among Latin@s and ethnocentrism among African
Americans. Offering insight into Afro-Latin@ life and new ways to understand culture, ethnicity, nation, identity,
and antiracist politics, The Afro-Latin@ Reader presents a kaleidoscopic view of Black Latin@s in the United
States. It addresses history, music, gender, class, and media representations in more than sixty selections, including
scholarly essays, memoirs, newspaper and magazine articles, poetry, short stories, and interviews.
African American History Day by Day: A Reference Guide to Events
by Karen Juanita Carrillo
The proof
of any group's importance to history is in the detail, a fact made plain by this informative book's day-by-day documentation
of the impact of African Americans on life in the United States. One of the easiest ways to grasp any aspect of history
is to look at it as a continuum. African American History Day by Day: A Reference Guide to Events provides just
such an opportunity.
The
View from Chocó: The Afro-Colombian past, their lives in the present, and their hopes for the future
by Karen Juanita Carrillo
The View from Chocó: The Afro-Colombian past, their lives in the
present, and their hopes for the future is an introduction to the lives of Blacks in Colombia. Afro-Colombians
live in a resource-rich yet remote region of Colombia. They only recently won recognition as one of that nation's
distinct ethnic groups. But Colombia's on-going civil war has led many Afro-Colombians to reach even farther than
their nation's borders for recognition: many have made their way to the United States as refugees and as political
activists working for peace in their homeland. The View from Chocó introduces the lives and struggles of a too-long neglected community of Colombian Blacks.
Raise Your Brown Black Fist is a collection of essays
written by Kevin Alberto Sabio during his time as a Contributing Writer for an online magazine.
The book combines his two article series, "Black
vs Brown" and "Black Thoughts: A Political Ideological Perspective
for Afrolatinos" into one volume, plus three other miscellaneous entries.The bookis currently available through his publisher, AuthorHouse.
Click
the logo above to view and purchase the book.
To view and purchase Kindle books, please click the following links: