COMPLICATIONS OF BEING (CLASSIFIED AS) BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Black in Latin America (New York: NYU Press, 2011) (From the book jacket: "12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World during the Middle Passage. While just over 11 million survived the arduous journey, only about 450,000 of the them arrived in the United States. The rest--over ten and a half million--were taken to the Caribbean and Latin America. This astonishing fact changes our entire picture of the history of slavery in the Western hemisphere, and of its lasting cultural impact. These millions of Africans created new and vibrant cultures, magnificently compelling syntheses of various African, English, French Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish influences.").