Description: Establishing an interdisciplinary connection between Migration Studies, Post-Colonial Studies and Affect Theory, Méndez analyzes the symbolic interplay between emotions, cognitions, and displacement in the narratives written by and about Dominican and Dominican-Americans in the United States and Puerto Rico. He argues that given the historic place of creolization as a marker of national, cultural, and social development in the Caribbean and particularly the Dominican Republic, this cultural process is not magically annulled in Caribbean immigrations to the U.S. Instead, this book illustrates the numerous ways in which Dominicans’ subjective interpretation of their experiences of migration and incorporation into U.S. society, seen through the filter of multiple creolizations of the past, are woven into their written works as a series of variations on Americanness and Dominicanness.

Through close readings of selected writings by Pedro Henríquez Ureña, José Luis González, Junot Díaz, Josefina Báez, Loida Maritza Pérez among others, Méndez argues that emotional creolizations operate as a psychological parameter on immigrant populations as they negotiate their transcultural status against the ideological norms of assimilation in their new host country. Consequently, he proposes that this emotional creolization is dialectical — that is, it not only affects diasporic populations, but also changes the norms and terms of assimilation as well.

Danny Méndez holds a PhD in Caribbean literatures from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on contemporary narrative representations of Dominican migrations to the United States and Puerto Rico. His publications have appeared in Confluencia, Camino Real: Estudios de la Hispanidades Norteamericanas, Revista América Latin Hoy and Latin American Literary Review.

For more information, see http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415899116/

Global Exchange announces this year’s research trip on “Sustainable Agriculture and Urban Gardens in Cuba.” This organized trip will take place on March 31 – April 8, 2012. Focus is on both rural and urban efforts at sustainable farming in Cuba, visiting areas such as Havana, Alamar, Pinar del Río, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, and Trinidad.

Description/Background: In the early 1990′s, Cuba’s agricultural system and food supply were decimated by the collapse of the Soviet Union (which had supplied the majority of Cuba’s food imports (chemical fertilizers and pesticides, fuel for transportation, farm animal feed, and almost 60% of Cuba’s food. The U.S. exacerbated the situation by tightening the trade embargo of Cuba. Cuba’s economy fell by 80%. Food and other basic commodities were scarce.

Cuba was forced to begin to practice organic and locally-grown agriculture on a nationwide scale. There are currently tens of thousands of organic gardens in Havana alone and over a million across the country. In the late 1990′s, the Cuban Association for Organic Agriculture (ACAO) was granted the International Right Livelihood Award (the Alternative Nobel Prize) for its efforts.

There are many additional organizations and associations in Cuba, governmental and nongovernmental, promoting organic and sustainable agriculture, via permaculture (Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation for Nature and Humanity – FANJ); urban gardens (Cuban Association of Agricultural Technical and Forestry Workers – ACTAF); and rural organic cooperatives (Association of Small Farmers – ANAP), in Cuba. We work closely with all of them on our research tours.

Havana now grows well over half its fresh food organically and locally. Cuba hopes to be self-sufficient in the production of most of its basic foods within the next decade.

All Cuban young people are introduced to agriculture and food production as part of their education, spending at least one summer during their high school years, farming in the countryside. University graduates in agronomy are handsomely rewarded for contributing their knowledge of research, technology and administration in rural settings. This entices educated rural Cubans to return to the countryside by offering them stimulating and productive employment.

Global Exchange and the Institute for Food and Development Policy co-organized the first U.S. delegation to Cuba focused on sustainable agriculture in 1993, then co-authored the seminal book on the subject, The Greening of Cuba and collaborated on an award winning film of the same title. In 2004-05, Global Exchange arranged the travel and interviews for the filmmakers of the award winning film, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.

Global Exchange organizes regular delegations of professionals, professors and practitioners of organic agriculture to Cuba, some of whom have then developed exchange programs through their communities, universities and businesses. These relationships and partnerships between U.S. and Cuban agricultural scientists and farmers have a great potential to flourish once the U.S. embargo is lifted.

For more information, see http://www.ecocubaexchange.org

For more resources (articles, blogs and videos) on sustainable agriculture in Cuba, see http://www.globalexchange.org/cuba/resources

The Bahamas have more than 1,000 underwater caves, how many of them have their own unique ecosystem? Clues to how life evolved, not only on this planet but also possibly on alien worlds, might be found in underwater caves in the Bahamas, Charles Q. Choi writes in Our Amazing Planet.

The caves in question are called “blue holes,” so-named because from the air, their entrances appear circular in shape, with different shades of blue water in and around them. There are estimated to be more than 1,000 such caves in the Bahamas, the greatest concentration of blue holes in the world.

“It’s really incredible to be swimming down a passage that no one has ever been in before, to experience that thrill of discovery,” said researcher Tom Iliffe, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University at Galveston. “At the bottom of a cave, there’s no telling what might be around the next corner.”

Iliffe and his colleagues examined three inland blue holes in the Bahamas. They discovered that layers of bacteria exist in all three, but each of these water-filled sinkholes had significantly different microbes living in them from the others.

“We’re finding new forms of life that are totally unknown elsewhere on Earth,” Iliffe told OurAmazingPlanet.

Blue hole bacteria

Within each blue hole, the microbes the researchers found varied depending on the depth, owing to how the water in them was separated into distinct fresh- and saltwater layers as well as oxygen-poor or virtually completely oxygen-depleted layers. The blue holes also varied from each other due to differences such as food sources.

“We examined two caves on Abaco Island and one on Andros Island,” Iliffe said. “One on Abaco, at a depth of about 100 feet (30 meters), had sheets of bacteria that were attached to the walls of the caves, almost one inch (2.5 centimeters) thick. Another cave on the same island had bacteria living within poisonous clouds of hydrogen sulfide at the boundary between fresh- and saltwater. These caves had different forms of bacteria, with the types and density changing as the light source from above grew dimmer and dimmer.”

“In the cave on Andros, we expected to find something similar, but the hydrogen sulfide layer there contained different types of bacteria,” Iliffe added. “It shows that the caves tend to have life forms that adapt to that particular habitat, and we found that some types of the bacteria could live in environments where no other forms of life could survive. This research shows how these bacteria have evolved over millions of years and have found a way to live under these extreme conditions.”

‘Natural laboratories’

The fact that each cave has different conditions from the others and thus a different palette of life helps scientists analyze the diverse routes life might have taken on Earth, given slight tweaks in their initial brews.

“These bacterial forms of life may be similar to microbes that existed on early Earth and thus provide a glimpse of how life evolved on this planet,” Iliffe explained. “These caves are natural laboratories where we can study life existing under conditions analogous to what was present many millions of years ago.”

Specifically, “these caves have no light and therefore no photosynthetic production of oxygen, which means the dissolved oxygen levels are either low or nonexistent, similar to the environments that probably existed on the early Earth,” Iliffe said.

These findings might also shed light on how life might have developed on distant planets and moons.

“As far as we know, no surface waters currently exist anywhere else in our solar system, but there might be water beneath the surface, say on Mars or moons like Europa,” Iliffe said. “These are areas of total darkness, and so the caves on Earth we are exploring might be similar.”

More known about the moon

There are tens of thousands of underwater caves scattered around the world, but less than 5 percent of these have ever been explored and scientifically investigated, Iliffe said.

“We know more about the far side of the moon than we do about these caves right here on Earth,” Iliffe said. “There is no telling what remains to be discovered in the many thousands of caves that no one has ever entered. If life exists elsewhere in our solar system, it most likely would be found in water-filled subterranean environments, perhaps equivalent to those we are studying in the Bahamas.”

Iliffe, along with Brett Gonzalez and their colleagues, detailed their findings in the journal Hydrobiologia.

For the original report go to http://news.discovery.com/earth/weird-blue-hole-life-120207.html

In 1961, at the invitation of Norman Manley, 18 leading dancers from different dance schools were thrown together to form the Jamaica Dance Company. They had no repertoire. The following year, 1962, under the same name, they danced at Jamaica’s Independence celebration. But, in September of that year, all the dancers left the original schools that they were part of; and decided to establish themselves as the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC), as Marcia Rowe reports in Jamaica’s Gleaner.

Fast forward 50 years later with an extensive repertoire, many international tours, a studio of their own, a feeder school, many new faces, the NDTC celebrates its 50th year of existence.

“None among them [the founding members] could have predicted that the company would have accomplished all that it has,” said Barry Moncriefe, NDTC artistic director, at the Company’s 50th anniversary launch last Thursday.

“The company has managed to sustain interest in and support for Jamaican dance theatre over five decades, and is revered as one of Jamaica’s most loved cultural treasures. It is for this reason that we remain resolute to our vision to forge out of the Jamaican and Caribbean culture and life, an art form faithful to reality while being a part of a wider world and universal landscape of the creative arts,” continued the longstanding company member.

Barbara Gloudon, in her capacity as chairman of the Little Theatre Movement (LTM), lightened the mood at the NDTC Studio, saying: “I am not going to be formal and stiff.”

“The LTM and NDTC relationship speaks for itself, we need each other,” she said, before continuing to creatively embroider her personal experiences with the NDTC into her speech.

First overseas tour

She recounted her first overseas tour with NDTC to Canada as a young journalist at The Gleaner.

“The first tour was a birth of what happened after – to travel the world.” There were to be numerous adventures along the way including a “nice time in Atlanta”.

With an imaginary glass raised, she said, “We celebrate a part of Jamaica that cannot be destroyed, what a joy you have brought to this country.”

With the dance floor of the NDTC studio as the stage, the delightful evening’s programme flowed with a message from the chairman of the Rex Nettleford Foundation, Carlton Davis, a vote of thanks from NDTC Musical Director, Marjorie Whylie, and excerpts from the company’s’ repertoire. The dances were performed by the now generation of dancers.

The dances ranged from works from the young choreographer to the old, from the classic to the contemporary.

The entertainment package danced off with Oneil Pryce-choreographed Barre Talk. It was followed by Clive Thompson’s Phases of the Moon. Sandwiched between two of Netleford’s works, The Crossing and Odyssey, was a lovely presentation from the NDTC Singers.

Living founding member

Some time later, after the formalities, The Gleaner caught up with one of the seven living, founding members of NDTC, Bert Rose.

He described the journey of the company as wonderful.

“Nettleford had a vision. When we started, we never knew that we would have celebrated 50 years. Only seven of us are still alive out of 18,” said Rose.

He further explained that “Eddy Thomas and Rex Nettleford were the two main choreographers. Rex wanted to do something that was Jamaican. And we were not going to copy. So he started with our own folk forms as a source for choreography. We use the Graham principles and the Jamaican style and mix them together to create a Jamaican technique. We do not know if we have gotten it yet, we are still growing.”

“Eddy Thomas’ first choreography was called Legendary Lovers Leap, and Rex did a piece called Plantation Revelry,” Rose said, of the beginnings of the company.

Rose also went on to explain some of the challenges of development the company faced.

“We swept the stage, we painted the backdrop, ironed our clothes, ran box office,” Rose said.

“There is no need for the now generation to do that anymore.”

As the company developed, they got someone to wash the costumes and hired a costume mistress.

“We had to build a company. They are coming into a readymade company and so things are different now.”

Other noted changes over the years are the shift in the choice of musical genre and the incorporation of international choreographers like Cuban-born Edwardo Rivero Walker.

Davis was the MC for the evening. Just a couple weeks into the position, he explained that one of his reasons for accepting the post was his belief that this sort of cultural organisation should be supported.

It represents the best of Jamaica. And what is to be expected under his stewardship?

“One of the things I am trying to do is to put it at a better financial position, on a more long term basis, get people to make commitment.”

The year-long NDTC 50th anniversary celebration will continue with the usual calendar events as well as some new ones. The evening was also used to launch the NDTC website.

For the original report go to http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120207/ent/ent2.html

Reuters and Associated Press reported earlier this week that a 38-foot yawl headed for Puerto Rico with over 70 people on board sank off the north-eastern coast of the Dominican Republic. Apparently, the boat’s stern had broken because of strong waves and the weight of the passengers. 18 of the passengers had been rescued but many were still missing.  The numbers of deceased passengers have continued to rise and yesterday, 18 more bodies were found.

Officials described the sinking as the Dominican Republic’s “worst people smuggling tragedy” in recent years. [. . .] Rescuers found 18 more bodies Wednesday, and the number of dead rises to 47 from the makeshift boat that san in Samaná last week, and at least 25 survived, of the 75 boatpeople headed to Puerto Rico illegally.

Several of the survivors had serious burns in different parts of the body, said Samaná Civil Defense director Morayma Ramón. She said of the bodies found near the tourist resort islet Cayo Levantado, five were in the morning and 13 in the afternoon, adding that Civil Defense, the Navy and other agencies the zone continue the search and rescue effort.

The tragedy is among the worst in a long history of illegal crossings to Puerto Rico, for which the country has had to adopt harsh penalties for organizers, up to 30 years in some cases

For original articles, see http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2012/2/9/42604/Among-the-worst-boatpeople-tragedies-47-deaths-and-rising and http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/120208/boat-sinking-dominicans-worst-people-smuggling-tragedy-years

Cuba on Thursday opened its 21st annual international book fair, the high point of the communist nation’s cultural calendar, with a new book by former president and revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, Agence France Presse reports.

More than 200 foreign writers and intellectuals were to take part in the celebration, which lasts through February 19.

This year’s event highlights the culture of the “Greater Caribbean” — defined as a vast, transnational and multicultural swath extending from New Orleans in the southeastern United States to the state of Bahia in Brazil.

The book fair also offers a special tribute to reggae’s best known figure, the late musician Bob Marley.

“The International Book Fair is perhaps the most important cultural event that takes place in Cuba,” said Eduardo Fernandez, director of Cuba’s literary chamber told the official Granma daily newspaper, noting that there is not only a focus this year on the written word, but that it will have a performing arts component as well.

A Bob Marley tribute concert has been planned for this Friday at Havana’s Mella Theater, attended by a score of Caribbean musicians, including Barbados’s Mighty Gabby; Shermelle ‘Skarpion’ Williams from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Cuba’s own Gerardo Alfonso.

Castro’s 1,000 page book, “Fidel Castro: Guerrilla of Time,” recounts his stories from his childhood and explains how he became a revolutionary.

It also touches upon the story of already familiar story here of how his band of 300 fighters in the Sierra Maestra mountains eventually prevailed over the government of Fulgencio Batista in the revolution that seized Havana on New Year’s Day in 1959.

Castro ceded power to his younger brother Raul in 2006 due to illness, and has spent his convalescence writing books and news articles, and occasionally meeting with foreign dignitaries.

He made his last public appearance over the weekend at an event officially launching the just-published work, in what was his first time seen in public in ten months.

More than 400 books are to be featured at the fair, to be held in a large Spanish-style fortress near Havana Bay.

Among the writers and intellectuals confirmed to attend is novelist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Other participants include Brazilian theologian Frei Betto, French-Spanish writer Ignacio Ramonet, the Dominican poet Roberto Carlos Gomez, Puerto Rican writer Humberto Garcia Muniz, American historian Peter Phillips and Russian novelist Marina Moskvina.

After the book fair concludes, it will travel around the country, wrapping up on March 4 in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.

For the original report go to http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/143189/cuba-book-fair-highlights-fidel-castro-bob-marley

Oh, the joys of college film festivals!! Tara Donaldson, writing for The Daily Orange—Syracuse, New York’s student paper, describes a very odd-sounding Caribbean film series.

It was the directness of the title, “The Power of Vagina,” that got Kimmie Parris thinking the Caribbean Cinematic Festival sounded interesting.

“It’s just very thought provoking,” said Parris, a graduate student studying Pan-African studies. “I really want to see the way sexuality is played out in the film.”

That piqued interest is exactly what Tanya Johnson Ruffin hoped for. The director of education at the Community Folk Art Center outlined the content of the Caribbean Cinematic Festival, which will take place Feb. 9-12.

“We wanted to have a diversity of voices in the films and things that would make people go, ‘Hmm, I want to check that out,’” Ruffin said. “It’s films with meaning, not just films for films’ sake.”

The films will be screened in CFAC’s black box theater, which seats about 100 people. Students can buy tickets for $3 per film or purchase day passes for $7 for Friday, Feb. 10, and $12 for Saturday, Feb. 11. Tickets are still available for all films.

The festival is part of the center’s yearlong celebration of its 40th anniversary. During the four-day event, CFAC will screen eight feature and short films that touch on subjects ranging from the history of the Caribbean diaspora to Rastafarian culture and social sexuality issues.

It took most of the summer to watch the 30 films originally considered for this festival and narrow them down to just eight, Ruffin said.

But with films from the United Kingdom, Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad, Ruffin said the festival effectively covers snippets of the culture.

“There’s a lot of diversity in the films, just like in the Caribbean community,” Ruffin said.

The opening night feature film is “The Story of Lovers Rock,” which details the history of slow, romantic reggae, or lovers rock. The film explores how the music defined a generation and provoked multicultural unity during a period of riots and racial tension in the UK in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Beyond the screenings, CFAC will also host discussions led by professors and local community members following each film. With some of the more risqué titles, like “The Almighty Penis” by Jimmel Daniel, which highlights issues in men’s sexuality and masculinity, Ruffin said she hopes the subject matter will provoke great discussion sessions.

CFAC will offer a literal taste of the Caribbean as well, with meat patties and beverages from the islands served at the reception. Visitors will have the chance to dance to lovers rock played by DJ Jah Roots at the party after the film.

“This is an amazing opportunity for students to view films that aren’t even shown in this country,” Parris said.

Ruffin said she hopes this film festival will spark interest and motivate students to come by and get to know a little more about the islands.

“The Caribbean is not just a good place to vacation. It’s more than that,” Ruffin said. “And these films focus on a different aspect of the islands and give a taste of things that are important and current.”

For the original report go to http://www.dailyorange.com/feature/caribbean-film-festival-to-embody-flavors-of-tropic-islands-1.2771897#.TzRNyFwTp_c

Photo: Jimmel Daniel holding a sign for his documentary film.

“Better Mus Come” a Jamaican movie that covers the turbulent era of political violence in the late 70s will have its NYC premiere Thursday, February 16th at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade theater at 7pm—Casey Hane-McCalla reports in newsone.com.

The movie tells the story of a gang leader in Jamaica with ties to a political party and his struggle raising a child. It stars American actor Roger Guenveur Smith (“Malcolm X”, “Do The Right Thing)” and Jamaican newcomers Sheldon Sheperd and Nicole ‘Sky’ Grey.

Long time Caribbean radio host from WBLS, Dahved Levy will host and there will be a Q&A with director, Storm Saulter following the movie.

Buy Tickets Here

Watch the Trailer

For the original report go to http://newsone.com/entertainment/casey-gane-mccalla/jamaican-politcal-drama-better-mus-come-will-have-nyc-premiere/

Once destroyed by fire and abandoned itself, the structure has been given new life by Bahamian artist Antonius Roberts as the Antonius Roberts Studio and Gallery Space. [. . .] This space not only adds to the proliferation of art spaces in the area in the last few years but also holds a conversation with the recent downtown Nassau revitalization efforts by the Downtown Nassau Partnership (DNP) which recognizes the importance of preserving culture and heritage in urban development.

With that in mind, one of Roberts’ patrons approached the artist with the proposition to purchase and give new life to the Hillside House as an art space. The proposition was of high importance to Roberts whose previous Post House Studio and Gallery space on Prospect Ridge was somewhat inconvenient. Two years later, the pair, as business partners, has been able to fulfill his dream of operating a space where art, as completed pieces and as works in progress, can be appreciated.

For full article by Sonia Farmer, see http://www.thenassauguardian.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22844&Itemid=59

Photo from http://www.antoniusroberts.com/archive.htm

See the artist’s page at http://www.antoniusroberts.com/

“Foro Caribe: Escritura y contemporaneidad” is a forum for lectures and workshops on the writing of the Caribbean and its diasporas, which will include the participation of well-known writers from the region who will be in Havana during the International Book Fair.

Casa de las Américas, sub-headquarters of Havana’s International Book Fair, which is dedicated to the Caribbean in this new edition, is co-sponsoring the forum along with the Book Institute, on February 13, 14, and 15, 2012, at the Che Guevara Room from 9:30am to 1:30pm.

This space will provide another moment to welcome writers, researchers, professors, editors, translators and readers to Casa de las Américas; it is a new opportunity to reflect on the writing of the Caribbean and its diasporas.

This Caribbean forum calls for addressing several key issues:
• Creative writing, multilingualism, diaspora, and cultural identity
• Gender and race: discrimination and marginalization
• Editorial production and circulation, translations and education

The forum will be open to broad participation and will comprise lectures and workshops where renowned and respected voices of contemporary Caribbean writing will convene. Admission is free.

For original post (in Spanish), see http://laventana.casa.cult.cu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6637

Image: Painting by Tomás Castano, from http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/tomas-castano.html