Afro-Latin@* Reader: Volume II

EDITORS: Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, Paul Joseph López Oro, and Omaris Z. Zamora 

This volume is an multi-disciplinary intellectual and political project rooted in hemispheric geographies of Blackness in the Americas. The writing in this volume centers transnational Afro-Latinx diasporic experiences, histories, genealogies of community and resistance in the U.S. vis-a-viv Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Brazil, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Belize, Costa Rica, and New Orleans. It is invested in centering Afro-Latinx knowledge production and engaging with intersectional perspectives of gender, sexuality, class, citizenship, and disability. This collection of over 85 authors is a political and intellectual contribution to the fields of Black and Latinx Studies that spans from the 15th century to the contemporary moment. The continued existence and expansion of Afro-Latinx Studies as a field of study is buttressed by the political fact of resistance, survival, and continued marronage of Black diasporic communities and their formation in the Americas. This volume does the political work of archiving those movements of resistance, community formation and tracing their genealogies. It is a manuscript that tracks and centers Black sovereignty and autonomy. Furthermore, as a political project it goes beyond national and linguistic borders—because we understand that nation states in the Americas have been a project of white supremacy through practices of mestizaje, patriarchy, and colonialism. 

This volume offers a refreshing collection of scholarship, first-hand accounts, poetry, prose, and visual work that, both, pays homage to the first volume, the establishment of the field of Afro-Latinx Studies, and pushes forth the current and future dialogues of this broad intellectual field. Our hope is that this volume will forge new queries that propel the work in Afro-Latinx Studies forward. 

Questions? Contact: afrolatinxreader[at]gmail.com

METHOD

As primary editors, we have made efforts to expand the reach of the volume and the expertise it holds. The contributions were selected by open call and we recruited nine scholars, working across a wide range of disciplines and fields within and related Afro/Black Latinidades, to become curators of a thematic section (“section editors”). All eleven sections of the reader were curated by two section editors and the three primary editors. As such the volume has undergone a long internal review with a team of experts and the reader is now under external reviewer. 

SECTION EDITORS

  • Jessica Marie Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the Johns Hopkins University and a former fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

  • Kaysha Corinealdi is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Latino and Caribbean Studies and History. Her research focuses on histories of empire, migration, feminism, and Afro-diasporic activism in the Americas.

  • Zaire Dinzey-Flores' research focuses on understanding how urban space mediates community life and race, class, and social inequality.

  • Mary Pena's work explores intersections of race and gender, visual and material culture, urban ecology, embodiment, and Afro-diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.

  • Alan Pelaez Lopez (they/them) is a Black Zapotec poet, visual artist, and creative nonfiction theorist

  • Petra Rivera-Rideau researches Latin music and racial politics. She specializes in Latin music and US Latinx popular cultures.

  • Ashley Coleman Taylor specializes in the intersecting lived experiences of Black embodiment, Black genders, and Africana religious practices in Puerto Rico and her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.

  • Janel Martinez is a writer, communications specialist, and the founder of the award-winning blog, Ain't I Latina?, an online destination celebrating Afro-Latinx womanhood.

  • Guesnerth Josue Perea serves as Director of Black Lives and Contemplation for the Center for Spiritual Imagination, and Executive Director of the afrolatin@ forum.