Afro-Latin America: A Special Teaching and Research Collection of The Americas

Abstract

In his introduction to a special issue of The Americas in 2006, Ben Vinson III noted how easily the history of Latin America had been dissociated from that of the African Diaspora. “When looking at the broad trajectory of historical writings on Latin America outside of the Caribbean and Brazil, it has long been possible to do Latin American history without referencing blackness or the African Diaspora.” A decade later, it is safe to say that the tables have turned. What were before scattered efforts to recognize black individuals' contributions to the history, culture, economy, and political developments of the region as a whole have evolved into a growing field meriting its own name: Afro-Latin American Studies. Born of the cross-pollination of scholarly debates that were previously disparate, the field of Afro-Latin American Studies has grown and developed in response to the rise of Black Studies and in connection to new realities in countries where Afro-descendants have pushed for social and economic equality.