May 4, 2022
Paul Joseph López Oro: Centering Garifuna in the African Diaspora
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, Dr. Paul Joseph López Oro, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Smith College talks with our host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez about his research on Garifuna migration and different meanings of Black identity. The conversation also touches upon Afro-Latinx communities in the United States, their relations with African-Americans, and issues of queer identity in these communities.
Dr. Paul Joseph López Oro
Social Media:
Articles:
López Oro, Paul Joseph. “A Love Letter to Indigenous Blackness,” NACLA: Report on the Americas, Vol. 53, Issue 3 (November 2021), Special Issue on Blackness and Indigeneity, pp: 248-254.
López Oro, Paul Joseph. “Garifunizando Ambas Américas: Hemispheric Entanglements of Blackness/Indigeneity/AfroLatinidad,” Postmodern Culture: Journal of Interdisciplinary Thought on Contemporary Cultures, Vol. 31, No. 1 (September 2021), Special Issue on Troubling the Grounds: Global Configurations of Blackness, Nativism, & Indigeneity, pp. 1-29.
López Oro, Paul Joseph. “Refashioning Afro-Latinidad: Garifuna New Yorkers in Diaspora,” in Critical Diálogos in Latina and Latino Studies, edited by Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas and Mérida M. Rúa. (New York: New York University Press, 2021).
López Oro, Paul Joseph. “Digitizing Ancestral Memory: Garifuna Settlement Day in the Americas and in Cyberspace,” in Indigenous Interfaces: Spaces, Technology, and Social Networks in Mexico and Central America, edited by Jennifer Carolina Gómez Menjívar and Gloria Elizabeth Chacón. Pp: 165-179. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2019).
López Oro, Paul Joseph. “Ni de aquí, ni de allá: Garifuna Subjectivities and the Politics of Diasporic Belonging,” in Afro-Latin@s in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas, Edited by Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, Jennifer A. Jones, and Tianna S. Paschel. Pp: 61-83. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
Lopez Oro, Paul Joseph. “Colon, Mirtha” (Honduras) and “Ramos, Tomas Vicente” (Belize), in Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Franklin K. Knight, Editors in Chief. Pp: 192-194 and 251-253. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
López Oro, Paul Joseph. “Negotiating Blackness: West Indians and Afro-Hispanics in Panama” a review of Sonja Stephenson Watson’s The Politics of Race in Panama: Afro-Hispanic and West Indian Literary Discourses of Contention. Small Axe Salon, 19 (June 2015).
López Oro, Paul Joseph. “Preliminary Findings: ENLACE de Mujeres Negras de Honduras (ENMUNEH) Garifuna Women and their Community-Based NGO in Tela, Honduras”. LIMON, Vol. 24, Issue 1 (September 2008, University of New Mexico).
Episode Resources
Works Mentioned:
- Román, Jiménez Miriam, and Juan Flores. The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
- Chambers, Glenn Anthony. From the Banana Zones to the Big Easy: West Indian and Central American Immigration to New Orleans, 1910–1940. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2019.
- Slave Voyages, formerly known as Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
- Valdés, Vanessa K. Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2017.
- Allen, Jafari S. Black Queer Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012.
Works by Scholars Mentioned:
- Guridy, Frank Andre. Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African Americans in a World Of Empire and Jim Crow. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
- Tinsley, Omise’eke Natasha. Thiefing Sugar Eroticism between Women in Caribbean Literature. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
- Figueroa-Vásquez, Yomaira C. Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020.
- García-Peña, Lorgia. The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.
- Perry, Keisha-Khan Y. Black Women against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Michele Reid-Vazquez, Ph.D. 