ajl614@nyu.edu

Ayanna Legros
DRECCA (Fundacíon para el Desarrollo y Reivindicacíon Etno-cultural de las Comunidades Afrodescendientes)
Cali, Colombia

“Did you hear about Donald Trump?! What a crazy man!” stated the taxi driver taking me throughout the streets of Bogota. It was suddenly no secret that America is not a place free from discrimination. A couple of people asked me, “So America is still doing the same old racist stuff, huh?” Yet, the ironic thing is that Bogota, which was buzzing about Trump and his openly xenophobic discourses towards Mexicans, is the place I felt least comfortable in all of my travels in Colombia.

Bogota, similar to most major cities in Latin America, has the smallest number of Afro-descended communities. Seeing an Afro-descended person in Bogota was like seeing a unicorn. After spending a week there doing research for DRECCA, the foundation I was working with, I was ready to go back to my second home, Cali. After speaking with members of the DRECCA staff and telling them about my experiences of micro-aggression in Bogota, many of them replied that they are not surprised. Yet, they countered the idea that the United States is a space that is “more racist” than Colombia.

It was interesting to witness the number of Afro-Colombians willing to comfort themselves with the notion that Colombia does not have the same race problems as the United States. My Afro-Colombian friends, on the other hand, shared intimate and painful stories about family members chased by skinheads in Bogota while waiting for public transportation. These stories were painful to listen to but were necessary to further challenge the notion that Colombia is a racially harmonious space.

Upon my return to Cali, I was able to experience Petronio, a festival dedicated to celebrating Afro-descended peoples and cultures from the Pacific Coast, a space that has experienced brutal violence due to the civil conflict and unrest. Petronio, with its local musicians and seafood, was a highlight of my time in Colombia.  It further confirmed the necessity of having spaces that re-vindicate Afro-descended cultures and practices.

 

The festival pushed me to think about the ways in which Black or Afro-descended peoples have come to be celebrated without a political, social, or economic context. Despite this shortfall, the festival was a wonderful experience, and working with young Afro-descended women in Cali, Colombia, has inspired me to create a group in the United States dedicated to economic education for women of color.

Ayanna Legros
DRECCA (Fundacíon para el Desarrollo y Reivindicacíon Etno-cultural de las Comunidades Afrodescendientes)
Cali, Colombia

It is incredible how quickly time flies. In six days, I will officially complete my first month in this country. On average, I would say that my life here is quiet but social, and simple but complex. Probably my favorite thing to do here is converse with Afro-Colombian women, particularly the women who make up the staff of the DRECCA team. They are incredibly smart, diverse, and radiant.

The human rights struggles of the Afro-Colombian community here are incredibly diverse and often revolve around narratives of migration, violence, and silencing. I think the most crucial part of their work is recognizing that women in particular experience the most brutal part of war and that community organization and rehabilitation must come from within.

From my conversations with people here and from reading the news, it is clear that Colombia is increasingly becoming a more peaceful place in comparison to how it was the past three decades. Though many attribute this to Uribe’s administration, corruption is still a huge issue here. I was told by a friend that one of his initiatives for ending the war was to give a monetary reward to those who captured guerrilla men, which in turn caused the military to capture young boys randomly, place them in boots and “guerrilla clothing,” and then take a photo of the “enemy.” Disproportionally, young mestizo and black men of lower economic backgrounds were affected by this because they were the most believed to be involved in the conflict. The racial undertones of conflict are still very present in this nation.

Ayanna Legros
DRECCA (Fundacíon para el Desarrollo y Reivindicacíon Etno-cultural de las Comunidades Afrodescendientes)
Cali, Colombia

The end of an academic year is the ideal time for reflection. As I approach the end of finals and come down from my caffeine high, I have found myself daydreaming about my summer plans. The two emotions that are most present within me are excitement and fear. The excitement stems from knowing that I will be in one of my favorite regions of the world: Latin America and the Caribbean. My fears: Will my Spanish be rusty? Will I feel alone? What will my host family be like? Will I be able to contribute enough to my host organization?

The human rights seminar this semester has made me more confident with communicating with my host organization. Since securing my placement with the organization, I have developed a positive and strong relationship with them as well as with other recipients of the Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights. Visiting not-for-profit organizations during the seminar has also bolstered my confidence about the prospects of re-entering the non-profit and development sector.

In addition, in my independent study, I have learned about the efforts to promote transitional justice in Colombia over the past two decades, which has prepared me to deal with the reality that issues relating to the Civil War remain unresolved. My independent study has also been useful in helping me think about how I would like to frame my Master’s thesis. I am largely invested in questions of black internationalism and memory. I feel that Colombia will be a great site to explore these questions while its Afro-descended social and political movements gain momentum.

I am looking forward to my work experience this summer and have no doubt that it will be fruitful.

Ayanna Legros
DRECCA (Fundacíon para el Desarrollo y Reivindicacíon Etno-cultural de las Comunidades Afrodescendientes)
Cali, Colombia

Greetings! I am a master’s candidate in Africana Studies, and this summer I will intern at DRECCA, an organization in Colombia that works to promote the vindication and development of the human rights of Afro-Colombians. I will work in their education department, promoting public policy initiatives against racial discrimination.

My desire to understand black history in the Atlantic World came to fruition during a freshman-year course entitled “Black Politics in Latin America,” but my love for Latin America and the Caribbean started in Harlem, New York. Rarely did a day go by in my home without my Haitian parents giving me a brief history lesson on Haiti.

The “Black Politics in Latin America” course awakened to me the significance of Haiti’s independence in 1804. This event not only caused Haiti to be the birthplace of black citizenship and autonomy, but also represented the struggle to define one’s human right to be free from enslavement, rape, torture, and a plethora of other abuses. It made me yearn to understand the historical significance of independence movements in the Americas at large, and the ways in which Africans and Afro-descended people came to define their space, rights, and citizenship in the New World.

Many Latin American countries attempted to “whiten” their populations by encouraging European migration during the post-independence period. Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia—to name a few—attempted to use “whitening” as a solution to the “problem” of blackness. For example, João Batista de Lacerda, director of Brazil’s National Museum, endorsed “constructive miscegenation” and was one of the first members of the scientific community to do so. In 1912, he calculated that Brazil’s black population would be reduced to zero by 2012 and that mulattoes would make up merely three percent of the total population.[1]

Luckily, Afro-Colombians have been able to survive and prosper despite such efforts, and today they have a strong presence in the Colombian cities of Medellín, Cali, Bogotá, Cartagena, and Barranquilla. However, they have suffered innumerable human rights abuses, starting from their departure from the slave docks in the African continent. Activist groups such as DRECCA are lobbying to demand the recognition of Afro-descended people in Colombia and in the Americas at large on political, social, and economic levels.

As Afro-descended Latin Americans continue to struggle for recognition within their homelands and throughout the diaspora, they need to be recognized during black history month as well. During black history month this year in New York City, I was elated to see a surge in programming surrounding Afro-Latino history. I was also pleasantly surprised to see on Facebook that DRECCA staff members were involved in black history month programs in Colombia.

I look forward to working with DRECCA this summer, as I am confident that it will be a fruitful experience for me personally and professionally.

[1]For more information regarding miscegenation and “whitening” movements in Brazil, refer to Kim D. Butler’s Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won (see in particular Chapter 1: “Order and Progress”).