Bluefields

But history is rarely clean, and it was certainly not unified.

When you grow up on the Caribbean coast of Central America, in communities like San Juan, Triunfo de la Cruz, Punta Piedra, Livingston, Dangriga, Orinoco, or Bluefields, or when you grow up in the diaspora, looking back to an Afro-descendant and indigenous lens, you are forced to ask a fundamental question.

Independence for whom? When that document was signed in 1821, who actually gained sovereignty? For the landed Criollo oligarchy, independence was primarily about keeping tax revenues at home, securing free trade, and consolidating local political power without paying tribute to the Spanish crown.

for indigenous populations across the interior and for the afro-descendant and garifuna communities who had established thriving coastal settlements following the seventeen ninety seven exile from yurume and st vincent September 15 did not usher in universal emancipation.

It was moonlight by night, and the sun and blue water by day, and the decks kept level, and the vessel was clean.

Our fellow-passengers were banana planters and engineers going to Panama and Bluefields, and we asked them many questions concerning rates of exchange, and the rainy season, and distances and means of transportation, to which they gave answers as opposite as can only come from people who have lived together in the same place for the greater part of their lives.

Land, when it came, appeared in the shape of little islands that floated in mid-air above the horizon like the tops of trees without trunks to support them, or low-lying clouds.

They formed the skirmish line of Yucatan, the northern spur of Central America, and they seemed from our decks as innocent as the Jersey sand-hills, but were, the pilot told us, inhabited by wild Indians who massacre people who are so unfortunate as to be shipwrecked there, and who will not pay taxes to Mexico.

And we must build that leverage all 12 months of the year.

Celebration November Settlement and Permanence As we look deeper into the season, in November we will celebrate Garifuna Settlement Day, tracing the migration pipelines from Dangriga, Livingston, Trujillo, and Bluefields straight to New York City.

demonstrating how our language, spirituality, and traditions survive cross-border displacement.

In December, our focus shifts from celebration to institutional permanence.