100th birthday of Juan Pablo Sojo, creator of “afrovenezonalidad”
By Karen Juanita Carrillo

For the past several weeks, residents of Venezuela’s town of Curiepe, Barlovento have been celebrating the life of one of their favorite sons, the writer Juan Pablo Sojo.

This past November residents of Curiepe established a committee to coordinate the 100th year anniversary of Sojo’s birth, which took place on December 23, 1907.  Since November, Curiepe has been the site of a series of conferences, with scholars talking about the lasting impact of Sojo’s work.

In novels like Noche Buena Negra, and in his book of essays, Temas y Apuntes Afrovenezolanos, Sojo tried to capture the social and political essence of life in the Barlovento region.   With his book of essays, Sojo became the first to coin the term afrovenezolano – or Afro Venezuelan – back in the year 1943. 

His use of literature, poetry and essays to portray Black life in Venezuela brought him the admiration, respect and friendship of other writers who concentrated on the African diaspora in the Americas, including “the Cuban born Fernando Ortiz; Haiti’s Lorimer Denis; Arthur Ramos, Edison Carneiro, Raimundo Nina Rodrigues and Gilberto Freyre of Brazil; and the Peruvian, Fernando Romero,” Arturo Alvarez D´Armas notes on his blog, Historiografias.blogspot.com.

Sojo’s interest in the lives of Black Venezuelans was said to have been fostered by his father, Juan Pablo Sojo, Sr., who was also a writer as well as an avid collector of Afro Venezuelan artifacts.

Sojo, Sr. was particularly interested in objects from Curiepe itself.

Juan del Rosario Blanco and his self-liberated, militarized group of Afro Venezuelans founded Curiepe in 1723.  The town is located in Barlovento, a traditionally Black region in the Venezuelan state of Miranda.   

Research has shown that Black Barloventeños are descendants of enslaved Africans from the Congo, Zaire and Angola.  Enslaved Afro Venezuelans in Barlovento were forced to work in the mines and on cacao plantations, where they harvested cocoa seeds for the production of chocolate.

Afro Barloventeños in Curiepe have maintained many African traditions, some of which have become internationally known through annual events like the San Pascual Bailón festival and the Festival of San Juan Bautista, which is celebrated every June 23, 24 and 25. The town also has also had its own museum of Barlovento history and culture since 1976; it’s called the Museo Lino Blanco.

These Afro Venezuelan traditions influenced Juan Pablo Sojo, Jr., notes Jesús “Chucho” García in the article “Juan Pablo Sojo:  creador de la afrovenezolanidad” which was published in the newspaper La Voz:  “In 1943 when he wrote the book Temas y Apuntes Afrovenezolanos/ Afrovenezuelan Subjects and Notes, Sojo coined the term ‘afrovenezolano.’ This counters the arguments made by racist intellectuals – of both the left and right – who say that the term afrovenezolano is just a trend or some kind of new invention we have created, because we are under the influence of Afro-North Americans.

“This is historical proof, left by Sojo, which shows that for more than half a century we have been calling ourselves Afro Venezuelans.”  

The Curiepe conferences will give Barloventeños an important opportunity to re-familiarize themselves with the important work Sojo produced, writes García.  It’s an opportunity that neither Barloventeños nor the majority of Venezuelans get, he adds, since Sojo’s work is not acknowledged or taught anywhere in Venezuela's education system. 

That nations’ rejection of a new constitution, which would have – for the first time in history – made reference to Venezuela’s African descendents, also disavows the value of the work created by Sojo.  

“It’s worth noting that in the 26 constitutions that have been promulgated in this nation, we’ve never been recognized or even mentioned,” writes the Black Venezuelan historian José Marcial Ramos Guédez in the Letralia.com article, “Juan Pablo Sojo, pionero de los estudios afrovenezolanos.” 

This could have all been changed with the acceptance of President Hugo Chávez Frías’ “proposal to have the word ‘african descendant’ placed into Article 100 of the reformed constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” he writes.