Black history – Fake Flamenco

Books I’ve Read in May

I began the month reading about women spies; Josephine Baker’s Last Dance by Sherry Jones. Ms. Baker was a Civil Rights activist, a singer, a dancer, part of the French Resistance in WWII, and the first Black woman be the star of a film. Sherry Jones tells her story well, especially the heartbreak of Josephine […]

Afro-Latinos, Spanish Culture and Language, travel

The 36 Remarkable Women of the Anza Expedition

Women’s History post: The year is 1775. You are traveling to Spanish California, riding horseback 1200 miles, mostly on desert trails. Now imagine those three months bouncing on a mare while expecting a child! In 1775, eight out of 36 women on the Second Anza Expedition were pregnant on the journey. The Second Anza Expedition […]

Afro-Latinos, history, Mexico, Spanish Culture and Language

Who Was the Last Black Governor of California?

Can you remember when the last Black Governor of California served? I couldn’t and looked it up. It was over 150 years ago. In 1845-1846, the last Mexican governor of southern Alta California was Pío Pico. He was born in 1801 at the San Gabriel Mission in California. He was and is a famous Californio, […]

Afro-Latinos, history, Spanish Culture and Language

1738: Black Freedom Fort Built in Florida

Harriet Tubman did wonderful work in the Underground Railroad, but this is not a story about her. This is an earlier account of an Underground Railroad, that went from South Carolina to Florida in the late 1600s and into the 1700s. At that point, the Spanish still owned Florida. They wanted to increase their population […]

Afro-Latinos, history, Spanish Culture and Language

Who’s Venezuela’s Black Revolutionary War Hero?

In the war for independence from the Spanish, Simon Bolívar recruited a solider of African descent for his bravery and skill with the lance, Pedro Camejo. Camejo was born in San Juan de Payara, Venezuela, in 1790. He fought with the rebels beginning in 1818 and reached the rank of lieutenant. He met his untimely […]

Afro-Latinos, Immigration, Spanish Culture and Language

Ilia Calderon’s Timely Autobiography

At a moment when awareness of racial injustice is heightened, Ilia Calderón’s memoir My Time to Speak: Reclaiming Ancestry and Confronting Race has fascinating insights. An Afro-Latina herself, Calderón describes challenges people of African Ancestry face in Latin America and the United States. Ilia reports realizing as a child that the Colombians she saw who […]