Converting and Mixing

Clinical and laboratory manifestations and outcome of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may vary in different populations. A prospective multinational inception cohort should prove useful in identifying the influence of ethnicity on the clinical characteristics of SLE. We therefore analyzed clinical, laboratory, and prognostic variables in Latin American SLE patients with disease of recent onset who were entered into a prospective cohort, and compared these variables in the cohort's 3 major ethnic groups. Thirty-four centers from 9 Latin American countries participated by randomly incorporating SLE patients within 2 years of diagnosis into a standardized database. Participating centers were selected for their expertise in diagnosing and managing SLE. We were then able to evaluate prospectively socioeconomic variables, ethnicity, type of medical care, clinical and laboratory features, disease activity, damage, and mortality at each site. A coordinating center controlled the quality of the information submitted. Of the 1,214 SLE patients included in the cohort, 537 were mestizos, 507 were white, and 152 were African-Latin American (ALA). (There were also small numbers of pure Amerindian and oriental individuals.) Significant differences were found between them in socioeconomic characteristics, type of care, and level of education favoring whites. Mestizos and ALA were younger at onset. Delay to diagnosis and disease duration was shorter in ALA. Fever was more frequent in whites; discoid lesions in ALA; renal disease and lymphopenia in mestizos and ALA. Although we found differences in background variables between ethnic groups from different countries, mestizos from 2 distant countries (Argentina and Mexico) were clinically akin and showed similar differences to whites. Mortality was associated with lower education, poor medical coverage, and shorter follow-up. In an exploratory model nonwhite ethnicity was associated with renal disease and lymphopenia, damage, and cumulative American College of Rheumatology criteria. These differences in clinical, prognostic, socioeconomic, educational, and access to medical care features in Latin American lupus patients of 3 major ethnic groups from 9 different countries may have an impact on the patients' disease. "Hispanics," as they have come to be generically termed on the basis of language, actually constitute a markedly heterogeneous group of subjects.

To understand the impact of Black race on breast cancer (BC) presentation, treatment, and survival among Hispanics. It is well-documented that non-Hispanic Blacks (NHB) present with late-stage disease, are less likely to complete treatment, and have worse survival compared to their non-Hispanic White (NHW) counterparts. However, no data evaluates whether this disparity extends to Hispanic Blacks (HB) and Hispanic Whites (HW). Given our location in Miami, gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean, we have the diversity to evaluate BC outcomes in HB and HW. Retrospective cohort study of stage I-IV BC patients treated at our institution from 2005-2017. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were generated and compared using the log-rank test. Multivariable survival models were computed using Cox proportional hazards regression. Race/ethnicity distribution of 5951 patients: 28% NHW, 51% HW, 3% HB, and 18% NHB. HB were more economically disadvantaged, had more aggressive disease, and less treatment compliant compared to HW. 5-year OS by race/ethnicity was: 85% NHW, 84.8% HW, 79.4% HB, and 72.7% NHB (P < 0.001). After adjusting for covariates, NHB was an independent predictor of worse OS [hazard ratio:1.25 (95% confidence interval: 1.01-1.52), P < 0.041)]. In this first comprehensive analysis of HB and HW, HB have worse OS compared to HW, suggesting that race/ethnicity is a complex variable acting as a proxy for tumor and host biology, as well as individual and neighborhood-level factors impacted by structural racism. This study identifies markers of vulnerability associated with Black race and markers of resiliency associated with Hispanic ethnicity to narrow a persistent BC survival gap.

Significantly advances the discussion about the connections among race, identity, military service, and armed struggle in Latin America during a crucial period of nation-building.--Hendrik Kraay, University of Calgary Sure to become a standard part of the historical literature on the 'national' period in Latin America, these essays give an excellent ground-level view of the process of state formation through war.--Miguel Angel Centeno, author of Blood and Debt Military engagements in Latin America between 1850 and 1950 helped shape emerging nation states and collective consciousness in profound and formative ways. This century, known as the liberal period, was an important time for state formation in the region, as well as for the development of current national borders. This collection of essays aims to assess the role black and indigenous Latin Americans played in the military struggles of this period, and how these efforts contributed to the formation of ideas about race and national identity. While some indigenous people and Afro-Latin Americans came into closer contact with the descendents of colonizers as a result of military service, others turned inward with strengthened ties to their local communities. Many were at times victims of violent conflicts in Latin America, but they surprisingly also shaped the outcome of these wars and employed the wars to advance their own political agendas. The book offers exciting new interpretations and explanations of this key period in Latin American history.

This chapter discusses authors who write about Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Latin Americans who write about people of African descent. The title reflects a cultural norm that groups all writers under a national category and considers a contemporary trend to support authors of African descent to tell their own stories. The essay beings with the Cuban antislavery narrative; it situates the enslaved poet Juan Francisco Manzano, the first and only enslaved in Latin America to write his Autobiografía, as a central pillar. It continues with an analysis of the most important white and black authors in the various countries with significant black populations in Spanish America and Spanish descendants in the United States. The study presents, analyzes, and problematizes the two perspectives mentioned in the title and how early white authors were the first to write about the black protagonist. Black authors offered a different and more personal outlook. But even so, some of them supported a national discourse that moves away from a black or African based cultural view, epitomized by the mulatto. The United States is home to the second-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, and it also produces a literature by and about Hispanics in Spanish and with Latinx in English. Starting in the nineteenth century, writers living in the United States wrote about enslaved people of their country of origin and considers that this other geographic space is also present in their works. It concludes with how Latinx authors, those born or raised in the United States, write about the culture of their parents and the one of their new homelands, and how Afro-Latinx authors negotiate African cultural and religious spaces and contribute to a hybrid, twenty-first century literature.

This chapter explores the question of Black political activism and racial representation in Latin American politics. In the last 30 years, affirmative action, racial inequality, and racial discrimination have entered Latin America’s political agenda. Black activists have long demanded specific policies to improve the social, economic, and political situation of Afro-Latin Americans. The implementation of affirmative action policies in higher education has emphasized the significance of race, class, and social inclusion. Black politicians and leaders are often the most committed defenders of affirmative action and pro-racial equality policies. This chapter will focus on leading Black activists, organizations, and scholars and their demands for social change. Afro-Latin Americans are dramatically underrepresented among the region’s political elite. This chapter will also examine the degree to which Black elected and appointed officials prioritize Afro-Latin Americans in their work. Which political parties and countries have produced more Black government officials? For example, in Brazil, the Workers’ Party/PT presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rouseff have appointed more Black cabinet members than other presidents. Despite advances in racial representation, Afro-Latin Americans remain in a fragile socio-economic and political situation. Their concerns and welfare are not top priorities for the region’s most powerful and influential leaders.

The number one leading cause of death in 2017 for Americans was cardiovascular disease (CVD), and health disparities can exacerbate risks. This study evaluates the 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) (n = 437,436) to estimate population risks for behavioral, socio-economic, psychological, and biological factors. A general linear model with a quasi-binomial link function indicated higher risks for the following groups: smokers (odds ratio, OR = 0.688), individuals with higher body mass index scores (OR = 1.023), persons unable to work (OR = 2.683), individuals with depression (OR = 1.505), workers who missed more days due to mental issues (OR = 1.12), the elderly, males (OR = 1.954), those in race categories “indigenous Americans, Alaskan non-Hispanics”, “Black Hispanics,” or “other, non-Hispanic,” and individuals with lower income. Surprisingly, increased consumption of alcohol was not found to be a risk factor as in other studies. Additional study of alcohol risk factors is needed. Further, Black non-Hispanics were associated with lower rates of CVD/MI (myocardial infarction), a finding that is supported by recent evidence of more unhealthy behaviors in other races. The results of this study highlight 2018 CVD/MI disparities based on the BRFSS and suggest the need for additional policy interventions including education and providing increased access to health care for the disadvantaged. The principles of beneficence and justice require policy interventions such as these.

This paper has three objectives. First, we establish that although Spain has attempted to distance itself from its role in the sub-saharan African slave trade and the significance blackness plays within its borders, there exists a significant population of people of African descent from Latin America living in Spain. Second, we show Black people are living what Sadiyah Hartmann refers to as the afterlife of slavery in Latin America. We claim it is worthwhile to take into account that Afro-Latin Americans are fleeing to the country that is largely responsible for them being in Latin America and the conditions of the colonial legacy that is pushing them out of Latin America. Third, we examine the meaning of blackness in Spain today through historical and ethnographic analysis that show that Afro-Latin Americans are also living a social death in Spain. Much of the data we provide in this paper is based on semi-structured interviews the authors have conducted in Spain, that is, semi-structured interviews of twenty-five Afro-Lastin American people who have lived in Spain. Our research, as it focuses on people of African descent from Latin America living in Spain, intentionally centers the voices, research and experiences of Black people. Resumen Este papel tiene tres objetivos. En primer lugar, establecemos que, aunque España ha intentado distanciarse de su papel en el comercio de esclavos del África subsahariana y la importancia que tiene la negritud dentro de sus fronteras, existe una importante población de afrodescendientes de América Latina que vive en España. En segundo lugar, mostramos que los negros están viviendo lo que Sadiyah Hartmann llama el más allá de la esclavitud en América Latina. Decimos que vale la pena tomar en cuenta que los afrolatinoamericanos están huyendo al país que es en gran parte responsable de que estén en América Latina y las condiciones del legado colonial que los está empujando fuera de América Latina. En tercer lugar, examinamos el significado de la negritud en la España actual a través de análisis históricos y etnográficos que muestran que los afrolatinoamericanos también están viviendo una muerte social en España. Gran parte de los datos que proporcionamos en este artículo se basan en entrevistas semiestructuradas que los autores han realizado en España, es decir, entrevistas semiestructuradas a veinticinco personas afrolatinoamericanas que han vivido en España. Nuestra investigación, al centrarse en personas afrodescendientes de América Latina que viven en España, centra intencionalmente las voces, investigaciones y experiencias de las personas negras.

Over recent decades, historians have revised earlier portrayals of Indians and Afro-Latin Americans as mere “canon fodder” for the elite. Scholars such as Florencia Mallon, George Reid Andrews, and James E. Sanders, among others, argued that not only hunger, patron-client ties, and conscription but also ideas and alliances mobilized subordinate groups. Their military participation, moreover, decisively influenced outcomes such as the enactment of racially egalitarian constitutions, the end of slavery, and the ascendancy of liberalism in much of Latin America. Military Struggle and Identity Formation in Latin America continues in this same vein while painting an even more paradoxical and multilayered picture of Afro – Latin American and Indian participation in armies and wars.The book is divided into two thematic parts, each of which spans the years 1850 to 1950. In part 1, Sanders, Justin Wolfe, Aline Helg, Nicola Foote, Richard N. Adams, and David Carey Jr. examine soldiering in a wide array of contexts. In part 2, Maria de Fátima Costa, Peter M. Beattie, Carlos Martínez Sarasola, Julia O’Hara, Joanna Crow, Vincent C. Peloso, and René D. Harder Horst focus on major interstate wars and genocidal campaigns against Indians. The authors combine archival research on social and political history with the study of representations and, in some cases, oral histories.In the first case study, Sanders finds that blacks and mulattos in Colombia sought new rights and identities by soldiering as Liberals. Indians, he argues, had more varied experiences and allegiances. Indians initially sought to protect preexisting rights and identities, though their motives and identities could be transformed. The rest of the collection largely bears out this pattern, yet the diversity of experiences recounted also demonstrates the difficulty of generalizing about subaltern choices and actions.Paradoxes abound. The editors rightly note in relation to Wolfe’s chapter on Nica-ragua that historical actors often defied “easy assumptions about what marginalized groups ‘should’ do” (p. 10). Their insight applies to most of the contributions to this collection. Some of the alliances and antagonisms revealed here are surprising. For example, Wolfe finds that Afro-Nicaraguan Liberals in León initially supported the pro-slavery filibusterer William Walker. Peloso examines why Afro-Peruvians massacred their Chinese neighbors during the War of the Pacific, while O’Hara notes that Tarahumara Indians dealt devastating blows to the Apaches during the violent pacification of northern Mexico. Adams and Crow reveal that Indians were sometimes officially designated as unfit to serve as soldiers but served anyway. Carey interviews Kaqchikel-Mayan elders in Guatemala who remember their military service under the notorious dictatorship of Jorge Ubico as a largely positive experience that simultaneously strengthened both their ties to the nation and their ethnic identities. The authors generally do a good job of analyzing the complexities of their findings without romanticizing their subjects.The editors emphasize that military enrollment and warfare could create space for “marginal people to push forward their own agenda” and express “multiple visions of nationalism” (p. 18). Yet, much of the history recounted in these essays is tragic. Time and again, Indians were massacred. Even when labeled “friendly,” or fighting on the winning side, Indians often lost more than they gained. The armed forces provided opportunities for social mobility, yet, in this volume, the people defined as “Indian” or “black” most often ended up impoverished and excluded from the full benefits of citizenship. The elite was afraid and disdainful of the poor fighters it mobilized. Blacks’ and Indians’ very participation in war was often used as an excuse to pathologize them as inherently violent and unfit for citizenship.The title of the volume emphasizes identity. Horst explores the complex ethnolinguistic labels applied to the indigenous peoples of the Chaco, while Foote concludes her chapter on Ecuador with the emergence of social movements expressing black and Indian consciousness. Sanders, Carey, and Crow all provide examples of violent struggles strengthening some indigenous identities even as other indigenous groups were decimated. However, thorny methodological questions regarding identity are elided, such as, for example, whether someone should be called “black” versus “mulatto,” or “mestizo” versus “Indian.” For the most part, a full exploration of ethnic and national identity formation and transformation through warfare remains an unfulfilled promise in this otherwise successful volume.This observation is not meant to detract from the high quality of the individual essays, which reveal myriad ways that Indians and Afro-Latin Americans contributed to nation-state formation and gained ambivalent inclusion as citizens. This ambivalent citizenship is evident in the image that graces the volume’s cover, of Kaqchikel volunteer soldiers conducting military exercises in Ubico’s Guatemala while wearing ethnic dress. In teasing out the implications of many episodes such as this one, Military Struggle and Identity Formation in Latin America advances our knowledge of subaltern participation in nation-state formation.

A review of Comparative Perspectives on Afro-Latin America by Kwame Dixon and John Burdick (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012. 382 pp., ISBN 978-0-8130-3756-1) reviewed by Eric R. Jackson (Book Review Editor, Journal of Pan African Studies; jacksoner@nku.edu) Associate Professor, Department of History and Geography; Director--Black Studies Program; Northern Kentucky University. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] United States immigration system is outdated and in many ways almost completely broken. Thousands of employers have manipulated the system to hire thousands of undocumented workers from Latin America, particularly those of African descent. It is estimated that about eleven million illegal immigrants now call the United States their home. Also important to this situation is the various voices that emerged during and soon after the 2001 World Conference Against Racism that was held in Durban, South Africa that referenced the immigration problem of the United States. Thus, the one million dollar question is what can be done to resolve this dilemma in a fair and comprehensive fashion? One way to tactical this problem is to examine and understand the cultural heritage and countless histories of some of the major groups of Latin American migrants who seek employment and a better life in the United States. editors of this volume, Kwame Dixon and John Burdick, members of the African American Studies and Anthropology Departments at Syracuse University respectively, seek to perform this task in the book under review here. In Comparative Perspectives of Afro-Latin America Dixon and Burdick offers a powerful and original collection of fifteen essays by various prominent scholars who explore the topics of and cultural differences, Black political mobilization, and various Latin American countries' responses to Afro-Latin activism throughout Latin America. More importantly, however, the overall goal of the editors was to create a volume that will provide a range of disciplinary perspectives, in-depth regional coverage, and cutting-edge analysis of Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean (1). Also important was the editors' quest to investigate how the region's Afro-descendants are reconfiguring notions of citizenship, territory, race, gender, belonging, and nation (1). volume is divided into three thematic sections titled Blackness and Cultural Differences, Afro Social Movements and Mobilization, and State Responses respectively. Each section discusses some aspect of either the cultural heritage or the potent contemporary realities of the numerous Afro-Latin American socio-economic, political, societal, and ethnic challenges and complexities of this region of the Western Hemisphere that has received little attention from most scholars, political leaders, and community activists. Also included in this volume is a masterful balance of gender-focused essays that broadens the book far beyond any of its competitors. Finally, this book contains several essays that examine a wide-ranging of geographical locations and Afro-Latin American experiences from at least nine different countries. Comparative Perspectives of Afro-Latin America, in general, contains numerous profound and powerful essays that rest on the use of an abundance of personal interviews from members of a variety of Afro-Latin American communities that rarely have had a voice outside of their specific location. use of this type of research methodology greatly enhances the creditability and authenticity of each essay. Also crucial is that the use of this methodology helps the authors greatly analyze the subjects of race, gender, ethnicity, political activism, and geographical location with great ease. For instance, in the essay titled The Black Movement's Foot Soldiers: Black Women and Neighborhood Struggles for Land Rights in Brazil, author Keisha-Klan Y. …

Students of “black history” in the United States have accomplished a great deal over the past several decades, but they have been surprisingly slow to acknowledge in practice that the stage on which the African diaspora has unfolded over five centuries is an extraordinarily broad one. Most African Americans have always lived outside the United States; most aspects of black experience here have parallels elsewhere; and the study of African American experience anywhere ought therefore to be informed, wherever possible, by comparative perspectives. Similar blinders have handicapped a good many specialists in Caribbean and Latin American black history, causing them to miss the opportunities for useful comparison with North America and Brazil.Though this tantalizing smorgasbord of a book, designed as a reader for undergraduate courses, is miscellaneous in coverage and only sporadically concerned with exercises in comparison, it can nevertheless contribute quite a lot to the development of comparative approaches. Those who seek new understandings of familiar subjects in a close examination of comparable experiences elsewhere will find plenty of sustenance in these pages. The contributors, mostly seasoned historians of Latin America, include David Geggus, Camilla Townsend, Ricardo Salvatore, Dario Euraque, Eduardo Silva, Aline Helg, Darién J. Davis, Judith Michelle Williams, Aviva Chomsky, Sujatha Fernandes, Jason Stanyek, Bobby Vaughn, and Ben Vinson III. The individual contributions are on the whole well written and convincingly documented. Notes are ample and conveniently situated at the ends of chapters.In the skillful hands of these authors we are introduced to the resounding impact that the Haitian Revolution and independence in 1804 had upon slave consciousness and political economy everywhere in the slave-holding Americas. Enterprising slaves in early nineteenth-century Guayaquil are seen organizing an effort to achieve their own freedom by collective self-purchase. In Buenos Aires, free blacks live large under the rule of their patron, caudillo and president Juan Manuel de Rosas, down to 1852; but they are soon pushed back into the shadows by the Liberal national elite that overthrows him. In Honduras, the descendents of eighteenth-century pardos and mulattos, now elevated to a provincial elite, play a key role in the submission and assimilation to the Liberal civil order of Indian communities, once populous and culturally independent. A few decades later, black abolitionists employ as their symbol of freedom the camellias cultivated by an escaped slave community near Rio de Janeiro, while struggling belatedly to eliminate the last remnants of the “peculiar institution” from the Empire of Brazil. Early in the twentieth century, the organized black citizenry of newly independent Cuba confronts head-on the barriers imposed by a deeply entrenched official racism. In the 1930s and 1940s, black pride movements sweep the Caribbean and Brazil with wide-ranging effects upon political, cultural, and intellectual life. In all of these instances, African American agency is evident, while the long-term constraints upon it are fully acknowledged.The resilience of Afro-Latin Americans and the startling precariousness and complexity of their life today are made unforgettable by three essays on current affairs. Millions of black Colombians from the maritime lowlands are displaced, despite the vigorous organizing of resistance at the grass roots, as the result of a half-century of U.S.-sponsored civil war and neoliberal land-grabbing. Hip-hop culture, both imported and homegrown, plays a many-faceted, deeply political role among black youth in Cuba, Venezuela, and Brazil. The migration of many thousands of black Mexicans from the Costa Chica of Guerrero to the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina reveals surprising things about race and social norms in both countries. Finally, a useful contribution by the editor himself reviews the evolving treatment of peoples of African descent in Latin American cinema, both feature films and documentaries.The introduction sketches broad outlines for nineteenth- and twentieth-century black history in the Caribbean and Latin America, and provides some conceptual framing for the stories to come. There is an index, a glossary, and a time line of recent Afro-Latin American history, a respectable list of suggestions for further reading, and even a list of NGOs and resources concerned with contemporary Afro-Latin American life. All in all, in addition to being usable as an undergraduate reader, Beyond Slavery has a reasonable claim to a place on the shelves of serious students anywhere of African diasporic experience in the New World.

Similar to the black subjectivity dilemmas discussed by W.E.B. Du Bois and Ralph Ellison in the US context, Afro-Latin Americans are caught between the paradoxical tensions of hyper-visibility and invisibility. In the imagined community narratives of Latin America, the presence of Afro-Latin Americans and their societal contributions are rendered invisible in the name of national unity. This article begins by exploring how the colonial imagined communities in the region erased Afro-Latinos. As Latin America achieved independence in the nineteenth century, color-blind nationalism functioned to differentiate Latin American identity from explicitly racialized North American identity. In contrast, Latin American Blacks have been hyper-visible subjects for North American social scientists for more than a century. Utilizing extensive archives of colonial documents, the Afro-Latin American subject emerged as a key research site to examine socio-cultural change. Over time, different disciplines took turns leading the debate, illuminating the significant Afro-Latino impact on national formations and cultural practices. These contradictory genealogies frame the diverse discussions gathered in this special issue on Afro-Latin America. The collection illuminates many of the themes, countries of focus, and theoretical approaches emerging in contemporary Afro-Latino studies. As a result, social scientists, including those represented here, are actively rewriting some of the foundational assumptions about the Afro-Latino subject.

Abstract: Working at the intersections of Latin American film studies, Afro-Latin American studies, digital humanities (DH), and decolonial pedagogical praxes, this article aims to engage with educators interested in teaching about Afro-descendant representation, antiracist audiovisual productions, the legacy of the African diaspora in Latin America, and the diverse perspectives of Afro-descendants in the region—through the lens of Latin American film and media. In dialogue with calls to decolonize traditional film and media studies curricula, this article critically analyzes the scholarly, archival and digital landscapes of resources focused on Black representation in Latin American cinemas and Afro-Latin American media makers. I identify some of the archival and curatorial exclusionary practices that affect the visibilization of Afro-descendant representation and productions within national cinematecas from the region. Finally, I share a digital humanities project designed to amplify Afro-descendant representation and filmmakers in Latin American cinemas through the curation and creation of resources that center Black voices, experiences, and communities.

This chapter provides an overview of Afro-descendant activism in Latin America with specific attention to the situation in Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. It outlines the forms of structural racism and invisibilization to which Afro-Latin Americans are subjected, and the ways in which activists are attempting to dismantle the forms of disadvantage and discrimination, with a particular focus on media activism. While policies of whitening have been thoroughly discredited and long abandoned, the attitudes associated with them persist, generating a process of internal colonialism and endoracism that exists to this day. The legacy of such prejudices can be seen in ongoing forms of Afro-descendant exclusion and marginalization throughout the continent and the greater social mobility enjoyed by people who are lighter-skinned. Some Afro-Latin Americans, particularly those who are urban-based, do, however, consciously adopt a diasporic identity.

In the present text, we understand Afro-Latin American literature as that which vindicates the Black and Afro universe cultivated by Black writers who affirm and revalue that universe. We have identified four major subregions of Afro-Latin American literature: (1) the insular Caribbean, (2) the continental Caribbean, (3) Brazil, and (4) the Pacific coast. From this perspective, in the first subregion we find three main countries – Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic – plus the French-speaking islands, especially Martinique. The second subregion encompasses the Colombian Caribbean, Venezuela, and the countries of Central America. In the third subregion is Brazil, with the influence of its literature on the country-continent, and in the fourth subregion is the literature by writers from the Latin American Pacific Rim. In the description and explanation of the map of Afro-Latin American literature, authors and works that we consider key in its canon and history stand out. We believe that authors already recognized continue to stand out, and that others are worth being rediscovered or recognized with a renewed perspective on Afro-Latin American literature. The literary works that speak of the Afro-Latin American universe range from the classic Cantos populares de mi tierra, Tuntún de pasa y grifería, Motivos de son, and Sóngoro cosongo, Cuaderno de un regreso al país natal, through Juyungo, El reino de este mundo, and Tambores en la noche, to Quarto de despejo, Changó, el gran putas, La décima en el Perú, Malambo, and Las estrellas son negras, among others. We also include oral literature. In this case, it is a literary type removed from individual authorship, since its author is the people, insofar as it is rooted in the communal sense that pervades in the Afro worldview. A map of Afro-Latin American literature involves tracing the route it has followed in its evolution in Latin American nations, especially in those where the Black population has had a substantial impact on their culture and social practices. Although not exhaustive, this is the subject matter of this work.

Reviewed by: Oshun Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas by Vanessa K. Valdés Dawn Duke Valdés, Vanessa K. Oshun Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas. Albany: SUNY P, 2014. Pp. 209. ISBN 978-1-43845-043-8. Oshun’s Daughters by Vanessa Valdés argues that African-based religious manifestations that feature contemporary forms of womanhood, when incorporated into literature from Brazil, Cuba, and the United States, have allowed for the development of differential configurations of the female figure. This is not a new line of thought and there is already considerable published research on the topic of African-based spirituality in literary imagery, especially in Afro-Latin American writings. As Valdés’s bibliography indicates, DeCosta Willis, Feracho, Ferreira-Pinto, Oliveira, Duke, Chancy, Marting, among others, have studies on the employment of Yoruba deities as a literary device. Valdés’s contribution is to unite major works by a diverse group of women writers in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, that clearly develop this pattern in relation to their configuration of the female experience. What is also worthy is that these are not only Afro-Latin American writers, rather, reflective of the major literary genres associated with women’s writings in the Americas today: African American, Afro-Hispanic, Latino, Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, and so on. The writers are Audre Lorde, Sandra María Esteves, Ntozake Shange, Cristina García, Loida Maritza Pérez, Nancy Morejón, Daína Chaviano, Helena Parente Cunha, Sônia Fátima da Conceição, and Conceição Evaristo. This study is broadening the scope and reach of a literary phenomenon previously associated with black literature. Valdés proposes that the literary engagement of African-originated belief allows for a shifting away from the classic Western models of virgin, asexual wife or mother, and whore, replacing them with less rigid depictions such as a caring mother who is not self-sacrificing, or a less categorical warrior woman. Paradigms of her argumentation include Yoruba spiritual traditions, gender in Africa and the Americas, identity studies in the diaspora, and comparative ideas on the Yoruba and the Catholic belief structures. The Yoruba deity, Oshun, has multiple designs and joins or replaces Eve, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene in a discussion that focuses on the complex literary configurations of the female characters. Latino, Afro-Latin American, Latin American, and North American works of both poetry and prose appear together, a somewhat ambitious project, perhaps problematic given the structural differentiations of these two genres. Is the intention to propose that they share a common project of literary transformation? Chapter 1 presents Puerto Rican American writer Sandra María Esteves, West Indian American writer Ntozake Shange, and African American Audre Lorde and argues that Oshun as a literary presence extends beyond the black female experience in the United States. Writers employ a broad and expansive approach that starts in Africa as place of origin and then moves into the Americas as place of incorporation. Spiritual entities function as devices that unify the major identity markers of race, gender, and sexuality. In Lorde’s poetry, deity and spirituality are weapons against violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, and patriarchalism. Yemanja, Oshun, Oya, and Eshu imagery mirror black womanhood, motherhood, and the Afro-Caribbean and African-American experience. They help to transcend difficulty and design a black female discourse, a deliberate intention underlying Lorde’s writing as a black Lesbian warrior poet. Esteves’s [End Page 838] poetry fits into the genre of Nuyorican writing and originates in the Puerto Rican trauma of being dwellers in an in-between space, as colonial islanders and marginalized mainland immigrants. Esteves constructs a spirit of survival, envisions this diasporic experience optimistically, for evolution and improvement are inevitable. In her anthology Yerba buena (1980), the Yoruba deity is a marker of origins, ancestrality, nature, and traditions that appear through the female body as healing or magic. Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo (1982) presents characters who take part in rituals and who view these as valuable because they originate in Africa and are both ancestral and potentially magical. Such rituals provide access to the spiritual world, allow relatives to pay homage to the...