As any ICADS student knows, Carmen Hutchinson Miller is one of our outstanding guest lecturers at Icads. Every time she visits us, she challenges us to reflect, critically, on the origins of Afro culture in the context of the recognition of a multiethnic and pluricultural Costa Rica, and in that exercise she confronts us with the “centralvalleyism” that, generally and even in a xenophobic way, we Costa Ricans have assumed. On the occasion of the Celebration of the Day of the Black Person and Afro-Costa Rican Culture, which was just celebrated on August 31, Dr. Carmen has published this book in which the history of said celebration is collected, placing particular emphasis on the role of Marcus Garvey in this construction process.
Recently, Dr. Carmen Hutchinson Miller has published the book “Detrás de la Conmemoración del Mes de la Afrodescendencia en Costa Rica”, as an effort to glimpse the historical journey of a celebration that has been made invisible by the gaze of the Central Valley, but which has an outstanding multicultural and multiethnic value. Dr. Carmen’s book takes a journey from the origins of said celebration, which find their support in the Declaration of the Rights of Black People of the World, to highlighting events and characters that contributed to the process. In this sense, The role of the UNIA and Marcus Garvey in Costa Rica is fascinating, as well as the effort for bringing to light the participation of important Costa Rican leaders of descent Afro-Caribbean in this process.
I recognize Dr. Carmen for her determination to clarify a fundamental part of Costa Rican history, and I praise the book “Detrás de la Conmemoración del Mes de la Afrodescendencia en Costa Rica” as mandatory reading to learn a hidden part of our past, which strengthens the knowledge of our multicultural and multiethnic roots that make up our identity essence.
– Javier Arguedas, ICADS Co–Director
The Costa Rican historian presented her new book at the University of Costa Rica where representatives of ICADS had the pleasure of learning and being impacted once again by her. It is always worth having a face-to-face interaction with Mrs. Carmen, so we consider it very valuable to publish the presentation she gave that day, given the importance that her thoughts have for our community and for future scholars of Costa Rican history. This is the presentation given by Carmen Hutchinson Miller PhD, on Thursday, June 27, 2024 at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Audiovisual Room, 1st floor, University of Costa Rica.
In 1972, when I was 11 years old, the first edition of the book by Quince Duncan and Carlos Meléndez, “El Negro en Costa Rica” was published. I clearly remember the impact this book had on my friends Loretta Fuller, Vilma and Glenda Neil when it was announced on Radio Casino. My mother had bought a copy which I happily and carefully shared with those friends from that time in my life. Later I would realize the greater impact, at least among the Afro people in the city of Limón. Recently Don Quince told me that many Afro people during that time told him the same thing, recognizing themselves in the streets and walking upright. It was important for us because suddenly Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Costa Rican ancestors were subjects within a national narrative. We were not stereotypes, nor racist jokes, etc.
Fast forward 44 years later. In 2016 I met Devon Austin from the United States, who, after her retirement, decided with her husband to emigrate to Costa Rica. The natural hairstyle Sisterlocks is what caused our paths to converge. By sharing information from when we had started it, and realizing that we did it the same year and then enjoying comparing the length we had achieved after so many years.
A beautiful friendship developed that led us to very interesting conversations about our reality as Afro people in different contexts. In one of those conversations she told me that I should take a DNA sample to find out where I come from in Africa or Alkebulan. I exclaimed before she finished explaining that I didn’t want to take those samples that give me percentages of a little of each ethnic group, I wanted them to tell me which part of Alkebulan I come from directly.
She went on to tell me that there is a company called African Ancestry that, through our DNA test, finds the ethnic group to which we belong. You can imagine that I was fascinated by that information. Dr. Gina Page and Dr. Rick Kittles did just that.
Fast forward to 2021, remember we are locked down due to the pandemic. During that same year, a niece of mine in North Carolina was about to graduate from the University and the whole family was going to travel to celebrate. That’s when I decided to buy the kit online and have it sent to my relative’s address where I would do the test, by means of a swab on my cheeks. I considered that this would be faster to get the results than waiting for the kit to be sent to Costa Rica, I would have to resend and wait being in a pandemic, so anyway, to make a long story short, the kit arrived while I was in the USA, I did the swab and I sent it in. That was in December 2021. When they receive the kit with the sample, they tell you online how the process is going.
By March 2022 I received my results. It is important to indicate that two types of tests are carried out, one matrilineal and the other patrilineal. If I remember correctly the explanation given, men can do both, but women can only do the matrilineal one. Another important fact is that the result serves everyone who is from that family branch, children, uncles, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, ad-infinitum. The results of my matrilineal test are for all my relatives on my maternal side including my grandmother, my aunts and uncles, all my cousins, great-nephews, great-grandchildren ad-infinitum, because the DNA is passed on unchanged, without changes, without variations . Isn’t this fascinating!
The result of the DNA of this African woman who managed to survive transatlantic trafficking for more than 500 years, who turns out to be my ancestral grandmother, passed her DNA intact to my mother 100% confirming that we come from the Fula ethnic group of Guinea Bissau, from the group Mende and Temne ethnic group of Sierra Leone and the Kru ethnic group of Liberia.
These results were very important to me because it helped me learn about my roots coming directly from Alkebulan and strengthened my confidence as a citizen of the world. I was so excited that I made two videos, one in English and one in Spanish about the results. In addition to that, I participated in one of the programs that African Ancestry does because you automatically become part of that family. They also have a Facebook group where people greet each other and welcome new cousins who just got their results. Another important fact is that they take a trip to Sierra Leone where people with this certificate are given an Alkebulano name and a passport from that country. That’s the part I’m missing.
You may be wondering what this has to do with what concerns us today. The preparation of this book that brings us together was an intentional act to provide people of African descent and in particular Afro-Costa Ricans with information that helps illuminate and highlight important events in our history, with the hope that they feel as I did, at age 11 with the publication of Quince and Meléndez’s book and then again at age 61 upon receiving those results from African Ancestry.
This intentionality leads us to tangible results that take us to our ancestral roots, making our stories visible as our Shirley Campbell Barr (2018) reaffirms to us in the collection of poems Palabras Indelebles de poetas negras (Indelible Words of Black Poets), with her poem Historia, tells us in one of her paragraphs,
It was necessary for us to go out as brave warriors to recover it,
(p 84-85)
Wipe away her tears,
her hands,
dress her again,
fill her with pride,
wash her knees…
and when she was ready we took her out into the sun
and our story looks beautiful
resplendent
strong
and walks on since then
with chest out
and head held high
This recovery of our history gives us confidence when navigating the spaces in which we live, it envelops us in a feeling of pride that ‘we belong, that we come from people’ because by “wiping her tears, hands and dressing her again.” As Shirley tells us, we recognize those truths that the racist system deliberately tries to hide through its hegemonic racist discourses, stereotypes, discrimination and social exclusions. It gives us the satisfaction of knowing that our history, as an Afro-descendant, does not begin in the hegemonic racist narrative of slavery where our ancestors were treated as merchandise, therefore “we walk with our chests out and our heads high” as Shirley emphasizes to us.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey was called during the first decades of the 20th century to impress upon the minds of the Afro collective that our stories did not begin in the post-independence countries in Abya Yala. He wanted through his organization the UNIA and his newspaper Negro World to give us back that pride in Alkebulan as well as our human dignity.
It is my wish with this publication not only to contribute with more historical tools that can be accessed by people of African descent but also by those who belong to the hegemonic group. Ramírez Carro (2018) “Racism enters and leaves from school”, referring to Social Studies textbooks, informs us that these texts function as a hidden curriculum through which a negative image is created, disseminated and promoted of non-white-mixed ethnic-cultural groups and a positive image of white-mixed ethnic-cultural groups (p 17).
With this publication I counterattack that hidden curriculum that Carro mentions, hoping to some extent to instruct white-mestizo people, especially those who find themselves in spaces of power, to recognize the humanity and contribution of all ethnic groups that occupy national spaces, particularly in this case, people of African descent.
The sacrifice of Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the UNIA was not in vain. Today we are here more than a century since The Declaration of the Rights of the Negro People of the World was written, commemorating that historical event with this book.
Here is Dr. Hutchinson explaining why we celebrate August 31 and a little of its history.
With this publication I wish to leave in the collective imagination not only of Costa Rica but also of the Alkebulana diaspora that what we have been commemorating every August 31 in Costa Rica and finally throughout the world starting in 2021 is part of our Afro-descendant history that must be known because this story, as our Shirley Campbell Barr continues to tell us,
It didn’t come to us from the beginning…from the cradle
(p 84)
From the first days of school
It didn’t appear to us in books
Or in the cereal box surprises…
She was kept hidden from us like a thief
Paraphrasing Shirley Campbell Barr ‘bravely and in honor of my warrior ancestors’ with this publication I make the effort to recover part of this great history of ours that ‘was kept hidden from us’.
In conclusion, I want to reiterate my gratitude to the Chair of African and Caribbean Studies, to my colleagues Drs. Spence Sharpe and Senior Angulo for their presence, helping to make this a resounding success. Furthermore, I want to motivate you in your different areas of your daily work to follow those passions that will help make this world in which we find ourselves a better place. In my case, history and specifically Afro history is my passion.
To my nephews and great-nephews, especially those who are still receiving hegemonic academic instruction, remember that in our family we know where to locate on the map where our ancestral Alkebulan roots come from. To the Afro-descendants present and those listening to us on the broadcast, I urge you to take this African Ancestry test, especially those who have sons and daughters still in the national educational system, I guarantee that it will change your lives. And to those who are not of African descent, I thank you for your willingness to listen, respect and learn from our stories. Without further ado, thank you very much for your attention.
