Mixed Race Studies

Afro-Asian Connections in Latin America and the Caribbean

Lexington Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield)
November 2018
256 pages
Trim: 6 x 9
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4985-8708-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4985-8709-9
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4985-8709-9

Edited By:

Luisa Marcela Ossa, Associate Professor of Spanish
LaSalle University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Debbie Lee-DiStefano
Springfield Lyceum College Preparatory, Springfield, Massachusetts

Afro-Asian Connections in Latin America and the Caribbean explores the connections between people of Asian and African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although their journeys started from different points of origin, spanning two separate oceans, their point of contact in this hemisphere brought them together under a hegemonic system that would treat these seemingly disparate continental ancestries as one. Historically, an overwhelming majority of people of African and Asian descent were brought to the Americas as sources of labor to uphold the plantation, agrarian economies leading to complex relationships and interactions. The contributions to this collection examine various aspects of these connections. The authors bring to the forefront perspectives regarding history, literature, art, and religion and engage how they are manifested in these Afro-Asian relationships and interactions. They investigate what has received little academic engagement outside the acknowledgement that there are groups who are of African and Asian descent. In regard to their relationships with the dominant Europeanized center, references to both groups typically only view them as singular entities. What this interdisciplinary collection presents is a more cohesive approach that strives to place them at the center together and view their relationships in their historical contexts.

Table of Contents

1. Afro and Chinese Depictions in Peruvian Social Discourse at the Turn of the 20th Century
2. Locating Chinese Culture and Aesthetics in the Art of Wifredo Lam
3. Through the Prism of the Harlem Ashram: Afro-Asian-Caribbean Connections in Transnational Circulation
4. Merging the Transpacific with the Transatlantic: Afro-Asia in Japanese Brazilian Narratives
5. Parallels and Intersections: Literary Depictions of the Lives of Chinese and Africans in 19th Century and Early 20th Century Cuba
6. Erased from Collective Memory: Dreadlocks Story Documentary Untangles the Hindu Legacy of Rastafari
7. Body of Reconciliation: Aida Petrinera Cheng’s Journey in Como un Mensajero Tuyo
8. “I am Like One of those Women”: Effeminization of Chinese Caribbean men as Feminist Strategy in Three Contemporary Caribbean Novels
9. La Mulata Achinada: Bodies, Gender, and Authority in Afro-Chinese Religion in Cuba

Cuban surrealist Wifredo Lam fetches record price

BBC News
2012-05-24

A painting by Cuban surrealist artist Wifredo Lam fetched a record personal price at a Latin American art sale at auctioneers Sotheby’s in New York.

An unnamed South American collector paid $4.5m (£2.9m) for Lam’s 1944 Idol (Oya/Divinite de l’Air et de la mort), well above the $2m-3m guide price…

…But Diego Rivera’s 1939 painting Girl in Blue and White, considered the main attraction, remained unsold.

The work by the Mexican artist had been expected to sell at a price between $4m and $6m.

In contrast, Lam’s piece, which had been in private hands since 1947, sold for more than double the previous top price for his paintings.

An Afro-Cuban, Lam died in 1982 and was heavily influenced both by surrealism and by santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion based on Yorùbá and Roman Catholic beliefs…

Read the entire article here.

Rumblings of The Earth: Wifredo Lam, His Work and Words

Filmakers Library (an imprint of Alexander Street Press)
1996
23 minutes

Denise Byrd

Awards

• San Antonio CINEFEST, 1996
• Latin American Studies Association, 1995

The Afro-Cuban artist Wifredo Lam played a leading role in bringing the art of the non-white world to the attention of the international community. Of mixed race and cultural heritage, he was born in 1902 in Sangua La Grande, Cuba to a mother who was a descendent of slaves and a father who was a Chinese immigrant. In his youth he was exposed to the rich heritage of African, Santaria and Confucian traditions. These traditions affected him deeply and are reflected in his art which is in the collections of major museums here and abroad.

This film follows Lam from student days in Havana through his development as an artist in Europe where he became a close friend of Picasso and other luminaries. Upon returning to Cuba, Lam rediscovered his roots, became a leader in the Négritude movement, and produced his most famous work, “The Jungle.”

This richly illustrated film uses Lam’s paintings and writing along with interviews with authorities on art and Caribbean culture to trace the evolution of a unique and truly multicultural twentieth century artist.