Tag Archives: Slavery

Culpability

This is my last month in Durham, North Carolina. I’m preparing to move west to Taos, NM on May 6, 2021, if all goes forward as planned. Last week, I walked to Maplewood Cemetery and around the historic tobacco town filled with renovated warehouses, factories and storefronts. Each step is a reminiscence of my 21 years living in North Carolina, and in the American south since 1989. This blog post is about intersections between past, present and future. It is about culpability: the Spanish conquest of Mexico and the American southwest. It is about indigenous and enslaved peoples. It is about redemption, making restitution, and guarding our democracy. It is about Oaxaca, too, as I look forward to the arrival from Teotitlan del Valle of my goddaughter Janet Chavez Santiago who will travel with me on this road trip. On her arrival from Mexico, I will get her vaccinated so she doesn’t have to wait until March 2022 for her age category.

As I walked Maplewood Cemetery, 120 acres at the intersection of Kent and Morehead Streets, I saw familiar names of families that had built this town interred here: Julian Carr who trademarked “Bull Durham and whose tombstone is inscribed with Veteran of the Confederacy. Here, too, lay philanthropist Mary Duke Biddle, Dr. Bartlett Durham, and Brodie Duke, eldest son of Duke University founder Washington Duke. As I walked, it jumped out at me: Where are Black people buried? Maplewood was established in 1872 during Jim Crow. There would be no Black graves here.

This is when I found Greer Cemetery, established in 1877, on four acres embracing the graves of at least 1,500 African Americans, many born into slavery. It was the first Durham cemetery for Blacks. So, I went to visit in tribute to the region where I have lived, respecting the Black Lives Matter movement, the acknowledgement that civil society enacts horrific crimes in self-protection of social, political and economic interests. I wandered the old carriage path and diverged onto ground uneven and softened with unmarked graves. I wanted to honor the diversity and voices of past, present and future. And, I wanted to mark the travesty of current voting rights restrictions enacted by 43 state legislatures across the USA now, in April 2021. We know that separate is not equal — this is another perfect example.

This visit caused me to think about culpability — the question of who is responsible for wrong-doing or failure, who is to blame, who is at fault, who accepts moral responsibility for transgressions past and current?

Which got me thinking about my life in Oaxaca among indigenous Zapotec people and their history of oppression and discrimination, and my future life in New Mexico where Native People’s have been abused and marginalized since the Spanish and U.S. conquests. This year, Mexico City marks its 500-year anniversary of the invasion by Spanish conquistadores and friars. We are in the middle of the George Floyd murder trial. So much and yet so little has improved.

Today, we celebrate spring, the emergence of new life flowering and green, as we move toward breaking down the barriers of isolation from Covid with 3 million jabs in arms daily, and the promise of travel to come soon. In doing so, let’s honor those who have passed to bring us to this day and be mindful to protect those who are vulnerable whose voices are muted or suppressed. It is up to us to be the difference.

Afro-Mexicans on Oaxaca’s Costa Chica, Museum of Afro-Mestizo Culture

Mexico is a true melting pot. Her people are a fusion of ethnicities, races, and cultures originating from Asia, Europe, and Africa mingling with America’s First Peoples. The Spanish brought slaves from the Philippines and China, while Portuguese traders imported forced labor from Africa to work Mexico’s sugar cane fields and cattle ranches when indigenous people couldn’t survive disease.

Mexican President Vicente Guerrero, Afro-Mexican roots and abolitionist

A very important, and heretofore unacknowledged part of Mexican history, is the slave experience in Mexico and the development of communities on the Oaxaca-Guerrero coast formed by people who escaped from the Veracruz cane fields. The Museo de las Culturas Afromestizas — the Afro-Mestizo Museum — in Cuajiniculapa, Guerrero, just across the Oaxaca border, gives voice to those who helped shape Mexican identity and honors their historic role.

Read here to learn more about Afro-Mexicans.

Spanish-speaking museum guide explains mural significance
Africans built thatch-roofed houses, a reminder of home

Our Oaxaca Coast Textile Study Tour group stops here on our five-hour return trip to Puerto Escondido from Ometepec. Knowing all of Oaxaca and her roots is important to us. We learn about and understand the contributions of Afro-Mexicans to Mexico’s music, dance, dress, and cuisine.

Read New Yorker magazine essay about Afro-Mexican life on the Costa Chica.

Slaves escaped to Oaxaca-Guerrero coast from Veracruz, introduced Devil Dance

Please send me an email if you are interested in traveling here in 2020. I will only offer this study tour if there are 6 people making a $500 reservation deposit to guarantee we will hold the trip. Likely dates are January 10-20, 2020.

Close up of Oaxaca’s famous Danza de Los Diablos Devil Dance, a Guelaguetza favorite

Meaning of the Danza de los Diablos.

Portuguese slave ship, tragedy of human bondage

Read Culture Trip article about Afro-Mexican origins and pride.

We also see through the dioramas and explanation from our museum guide that institutionalized slavery has left its mark on Mexico just as it has in the United States. The colonizers, be they British or Spanish, used forced human labor to advance their economic and social agendas. Hundreds of years later, isolation, poverty, lack of education and health care, has left its mark, making this region among the most impoverished in Mexico.

Enslaved blacks in American South sought freedom in Mexico, perhaps a reason for the Mexican-American War?

The marimba, an African import along with slavery

There is a movement to give Afro-Mexicans the federal recognition and support they deserve that will help improve quality of life and economic opportunity.

I stepped up onto the hollow wood box to learn the dance of the region. I’m writing from Morelia, Michoacan, left my Costa Chica notebook at home, and will add the name of our thoughtful guide later.

African slaves employed in Mexico’s sugar cane field, silver mines, cattle ranches
In storage, the Son Jorocho musical style with stringed instrument brought from Africa

A must-read is Afro-Mexicans Exist, So We Must Stop Referring to Mexico as a Mestizo Nation by Shanna Collins. This offers important insight into how embedded African roots are in Mexican life and culture. Her argument is that the term Mestizo completely ignores how the role of slaves influenced modern Mexico.

Contemporary graphic art interprets African experience in Mexico

The small museum, just off coastal route MEX 200, is a testimony to the history of enslavement and courage. It opens our eyes and hearts, gives us perspective and enriches our travel experience.

Devil Dance woodcut by artist
Museum mural gives life to Afro-Mexican experience

Durham, North Carolina, Journal One: Taking Down the Statues

It’s been a week since Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstrations and death. This was home for two years when I worked for the University of Virginia almost two decades ago. Charlottesville has always been this idyllic center of the universe where Mr. Jefferson’s Lawn spoke volumes of intellectual and cultural elitism, privilege and responsibility to nationhood.

Here, in Durham, North Carolina, where I live when I’m not in Oaxaca, the state we Southerners speak of as the humble valley between two mountains of conceit, I’m comforted by my collection of Oaxaca and Mexican folk art. It’s good to have comfort in these times of moral ineptitude by this nation’s leadership.

I call myself Southern because I’ve lived in the South since 1989. That almost qualifies me. I’m also a Californian, growing up there, and I lived for a good part of my middle years in South Bend, Indiana. All places have monuments to the fallen Confederacy. Symbolic of slavery.

I try not to be too political here. After all, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator is supposed to be about Oaxaca. You may fault me for writing this. But, in the interests of sharing with you where I’m “at” these days, it’s impossible for me to be here without writing.  Sure, I can go back into my archives and give you pretty pictures, and Mexico travel advice.

David Alfaro Siqueiros, Torment and Apotheosis of Cuauhtémoc (detail), 1950-51

Yet, when I’m in Durham, USA, I also want to be here, now, and feel compelled to write.

The first week I was here, I saw “Motown, The Musical.” We sang along to The Supremes, Martha and the Vandalas, Smokey Robinson and The Jackson Five. Celebration Time. Dancing in the Streets.

The second week, I went to see “Detroit, The Movie.” Slam it in my face reminder that not nearly enough progress has been made.

Then Charlottesville happened. Proof that we haven’t come as far as we think we have.

I went to a vigil in Downtown Durham, where people of civility gathered to remember Heather Heyer and speak up against white supremacy, Neo-Nazi marchers wielding guns and knives, threats to family, friends and neighbors.

We were a diverse crowd — races and religions well-represented. Durham is 38% black, 43% white and 13% Latino. To live here is to respect one another.

Last Monday the Durham statue honoring the Confederacy came down. I didn’t know about it or I might have been there. Yesterday, the threat of a KKK rally brought hundreds to our city center. I stayed back. They did their job on me. I was afraid and decided I will fight a different way.

The debate is raging here about the statues. Some think it is part of history (Hollie says HERSTORY). This is what I wrote to a friend, who questions taking down the statues:

History is written by the victors. It is subjective based on who has power and control. The “history” of these monuments and the era they represent no longer hold true for Durham or Pittsboro, North Carolina, or anywhere that values human dignity and freedom. The statues, as others have said so well, need to come down and be moved to places where the “history” can be discussed in context. We need to teach our children and grandchildren about Jim Crow laws, oppression, loss of dignity and how to protect human rights. We cannot do that with a statue in front of a courthouse, facing north, out of context with who we are now as The New South. Peace.

In Oaxaca and throughout Mexico, we have similar injustices, statues to the heroes of the conquest. They were the annihilators, the destroyers. Yet, there are also monuments to Aztec heroes like Cuauhtemoc .Pre-Hispanic culture is being honored through archeological restoration. An attempt at reconciliation?

We know that Mexican brown and black people do not have the same access to education, health care and economic engagement, and there is plenty of civil discontent. Non-violent civil disobedience is guaranteed by the Mexican constitution.

In the USA, we could ask: Where are our monuments to the heroes who ran the Underground Railroad, who rescued Jews and Cambodians and Sudanese, to the Native American Tribal Leaders who lost their lives protecting their people?

My friend, Hollie Taylor Novak, has created Protest Pearls. She did this after the Women’s March. Most of the Heroines whose images are encased in pendants that dangle from fresh water pearls and chains are suffragettes and anti-slavery advocates, black women and white. Timely.

In these days, there is much to consider and act upon. Privilege means we can either turn our backs or step in to speak up.

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Recommended reading:

Southern Poverty Law Center — AUGUST 19, 2017 — Silicon Valley role in funding white supremacy

And, the debate about Confederate Statues as art.

Chocolate: What’s Not to Love About It?

Click here for Kathleen’s Chocolate story   http://wp.me/pTTp9-1gU

My fellow writer, expat food aficionado and socially/politically/environmentally conscious advocate for responsible living has just written an important article.  I encourage you to read it.  The slave trade in Africa, a centuries old practice, endures because of the world’s love for chocolate.  Kathleen Dobek writes about the chocolate candy makers who don’t and do use fair trade practices, the regulations and compliance issues around chocolate manufacture, and what we can do to ensure that we are not supporting companies that are not adhering to ethical labor practices.

I love chocolate.  What’s not to love about it is the enslavement of children who harvest the cacao bean for some of the world’s leading chocolate manufacturers.  Kathleen has researched and written a great article.  Please read it.

It raises the question for me about Oaxacan chocolate.  Where does the cacao bean and chocolate come from that goes into making that delicious, frothy morning cup of hot chocolate.  Where does the chocolate come from that is the primary ingredient for mole negro, my absolute favorite mole that covers chicken and rice?  If anyone knows the answer, do tell!

This comment just came in to me via email from Silva:  the chocolate used in Oaxaca for drinking and mole comes from the Mexican State of Tabasco.

She sent this link to the USDA web site for an explanation of terms regarding organic labeling.   http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateA&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOPUnderstandingOrganicLabeling&description=Understanding%20Organic%20Labeling&acct=nopgeninfo

She goes on to say that many people take the “USDA organic” label for granted. If you check USDA, you will find that the term means that up to 5% of the item can be chemicals and non-organic materials. This agreement was made by
pressure from Monsanto, Dole, etc. Many so called USDA organic items at the grocery store are NOT organic, but 95% organic. They can be identical to non-organic products, just cost more money – great profits for companies like Dole.  The only items that are organic are those that say “USDA 100%
organic”. I have never seen that label in a store.  Just worth keeping in mind when using that term…