Putting Together the Missing Pieces
The African Diaspora is extensive. According to Oldways, the African Diaspora is described as “the term commonly used to describe the mass dispersion of peoples from Africa during the Transatlantic Slave Trades, from the 1500s to the 1800s. This Diaspora took millions of people from Western and Central Africa to different regions throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.” Given my personal background as an Afro-Caribbean woman – whose family has roots in both Jamaica and Cuba – celebrating my Caribbean culture is extremely important to me. When we were initially told we would be doing a blog post about the Diaspora I was excited, however I was personally led by my need to connect more with certain aspects of my culture.
While trying to determine how to go about learning about the African Diaspora, I thought it was best to start by searching the term “African diaspora” to get a consensus of the sentiments expressed by those in the archive.
Margaret Burroughs (1917 – 2010) was a prominent artist who helped establish Chicago’s South Side Community Arts Center and was also the co-founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History. When asked how her journey to African changed her outlook on the way Black people in the United States interact, she had this to say:
“Well, now my observation is that--what [Kwame] Nkrumah [President of Ghana] was speaking for a united Africa--that Africa needs to unite otherwise it wouldn't be in the position it's in, but I realize that there's certain forces that work to keep it disunited, just like for the same reason that there's certain forces--black and white in the United States, who keep us disunited. Like if, if African American people in the United States could unite we could solve all the problems and everything else like that. But then you have people like--what's that fellow, Mr. [Clarence] Thomas in the [U.S.] Supreme Court and some of the others and all, who are just the opposite in, in the same way that Africa needs to, to unite, but there are so many forces there that just keeps up that tribalism and they're fighting against each other, and so forth and so on.” [1]
Many of the issues we face as a people are a direct consequence of the separation that we endured during the Transatlantic Slave trade. Mending these relationships is key to our ability to grow. However, I wanted to continue my research on the sentiments of the diaspora within the archive.
Chester Higgins Jr. (1946- ) is a photojournalist who had published his work with the New York Times and has a variety of other publications. When watching through his interviews, I was overcome with a sense of understanding. When asked about his thoughts on the diaspora, he expressed his belief by describing:
“Well, we are people who are alienated from ourselves and that manifests itself in so many different ways. Probably the easiest way of understanding it is our self-hate because we're alienated we can now say you know that an abusive word is a kind word. We take abuse and we can't get rid of the abuse and we somehow feel the abuse really belongs to us, so we have to pretty it up by trying to find another way to say it. You know it's like excuse me, you know, and then the other part is that well because we're so alienated we can't relate to our ancestors and the place that we come from. You know one thing I really admire about Jewish people is that in spite of the fact that they suffered more in the Holocaust then we did in slavery, I mean annihilation, yes we were annihilated too, but differently. We didn't, the, the ships that came over ten percent of the people didn't make it to here. The largest cemetery in the world is the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean of the Middle Passage and yes we were tortured and you know none of these things should happen to anybody, I'm not trying to equate, but I'm trying to say in spite of that they didn't stop loving themselves and where they came from, which protects you, any people, which protects you from the constant onslaught of your enemy and your oppressors. Now the reverse, we, we have got, we, we've done the reverse. Because we feel alienated, because we don't feel that we have a cohesive sense of identification that is, that manifests itself in a Torah or a nation we, because we don't have a particular, the way we came over our memories have been severed, it's not unusual for people to say you know I didn't come from Africa (unclear) Africa. So, these alienations, these things have to be addressed. These things have to be healed. People have to be healed past self-hate. They have to be healed past alienation and knowledge of where they come from and they have the embrace that because that's the only way that we will become a powerful force when we can learn to embrace the continental brothers and sisters and their issues and we marry those issues together the way American Jewish community married them with Israel, only then can we become, can we become taken seriously because we take ourselves seriously.” [2]
After listening to his interview, I came up with this understanding. The diaspora highlights our ethnic differences, there are those of us who ended up in the Caribbean, those of us who ended up in South America, the United States, etc., but now we must all come together to form what is known as Black culture.
That resulted in me looking under the term “Black culture”. Once again, I started with a broad topic. However, because the diaspora is so broad, I wanted to ensure that I heard from a wide range of perspectives.
Jacqueline Finney Brown (1944- ) is a county government and education administrator. She served as the former chairperson of the Maryland State Board of Examiners for Professional Counselors. When she was asked if there was a difference between those of African descent and those who are identify with “Black culture”, she said there was.
“Asante. (unclear) people, blacks of the United States of America. That's a whole culture, okay? That's who I am. People self-identify, I am African American, okay, and all that that means, and if you want to see the differences, you talk to people who are brothers and sisters from Africa, we have differences. We have some things that have really come together and have crisscrossed the ocean and stayed with us forever, good, good, wonderful things. And only those of us who hit that peculiar institution called slavery, and see I did a lot of my dissertation work on this, and I understand that of which I speak. The fact of the matter is the stuff that worked in Africa was the exact stuff that was gonna kill us here for survival. Women were down here in Africa, down here, okay? Did silly things like grow the crops, barter in the marketplace, while the men were doing the things of the religious stuff, the personification, the leadership and all of this. Here comes slavery. Those very things that were at the bottom of the social value piece became the survival mechanisms for our people. The men were not allowed to do what they needed to do; they could not do it because it would be an affront to the masters and the leaders of the slavery institution. As a result of that, a culture grew up.” [3]
Since there are differences that have developed as a result of our distance from the original starting point, Africa, then how do we bridge that gap and connect? During this point of my research, I believed that while I had made a breakthrough my question had become too philosophical. This is where I shifted gears, and attempted to learn more about my personal history.
My mother was born in Jamaica, and moved to the United States back in the 80s. However, she was raised in an environment where her mother, my grandmother, was a refugee who immigrated to Jamaica when she was six years old via boat.
I went to the archive and searched “Cuba” to see what kind of research HistoryMakers were able to accomplish while there.
Azira Gonzalez Sanchez Hill (1923-) is a civic leader and registered nurse who fights in the areas of school health care and civil rights. Hill is originally from Holguin, Cuba and has a similar identity to me as an Afro- Caribbean person. We both come from a background of mixed family, and when she was asked about her identity, she shared this with interviewers:
“No, not really, because you come to realize that it really doesn't matter. What matter is what's inside of the person, you know. And, in fact, that I have somebody to say, "Oh, you're not going to marry that guy [Jesse Hill], because he's too dark," you know. There are people who still hope, you know, even at that time, you know, that was the thing. You just didn't do that, especially, but even when I look back and I see my own family, you know, I see some very light skin, some people are white, some people are brown, some people are Indian [Native American], so my family is very mixed, very, very mixed.” [4]
James Early (1947-) is a cultural administrator who has had an extensive career in the humanities in paces like the Center for Folklife and Cultural Studies. When asked about what he believes about the overall concept of Blackness, he had this to share:
“That the public policy, the public space policies that have been evolved to confront and to remediate that and to set up more equitable grounds is really based on a construction of blackness or race from the descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States. And while we still are the great majority in terms of a historical or inter-generational stock, if you will. Since the 1965 Immigration Act, new African diaspora communities coming and people from the African continent, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Senegal, Afro-Cubans, Afro-Venezuelans, Afro-Panamanians, Afro-Caribbeans, Trinidadians, Jamaicans, who share the same biological stock, if you will. And which we may look alike in terms of what the outward or physical social construction of race determines that yes, we are black, but culturally, in terms of historical formation, there are many distinctions.” [5]
This statement also directly confirms what I learned from the previous videos within the archive. That the African Diaspora is merely a distinction within our various histories, but the language we use has to be more inclusive since the general consensus is now expanding.
In conclusion, the African Diaspora is constantly growing and evolving, and is simply a term used to encompass all of our various experiences. Regardless of what country or region your lineage is from, we should be united while also celebrating our differences in culture. We are family all in the same.
Search Terms:
- African Diaspora (247 stories)
- Black culture (3550 stories)
- Cuba (509 stories)
- Afro Cuban (49 stories)
References:
1. Margaret Burroughs (The HistoryMakers A2000.012), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, June 12, 2000, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 1, Margaret Burroughs discusses her views on the African Diaspora
2. Chester Higgins, Jr. (The HistoryMakers A2005.205), interviewed by Shawn Wilson, September 2, 2005, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 9, story 7, Chester Higgins, Jr. talks about the African diaspora
3. Jacqueline Finney Brown (The HistoryMakers A2007.166), interviewed by Cheryl Butler, September 24, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 7, story 3, Jacqueline Finney Brown describes the distinction between African American culture and African culture
4. Azira Gonzalez Sanchez Hill (The HistoryMakers A2005.184), interviewed by Jodi Merriday, August 4, 2005, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 7, Azira Gonzalez Sanchez Hill talks about her connections to Cuba
5. James Early (The HistoryMakers A2003.118), interviewed by Larry Crowe, June 4, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 6, story 5, James Early shares his hopes and concerns for the black community, pt. 1