Photo: CACE conference, Nodia Mena speaking as part of a roundtable.
Image above: ‘Casta painting’ with partial set of 16 casta combinations (a racial classification in the Spanish colonies in the Americas)
Background: During the sixteenth century Africans and their descendants outnumbered Europeans and their descendants in Lima, Mexico City, and Salvador da Bahia–the three principal cities of colonial Latin America. Over the next three centuries millions of Central Africans and West Africans were forcibly migrated to work the plantations, mines, and in the cities of Spanish and Portuguese settlers. While resistance to slavery took place at first point of contact in Africa, continuing throughout the Middle Passages and in the Iberian colonies themselves (in the form of armed rebellions and maroon settlements, among other strategies), many enslaved Africans and their descendants assimilated into the existing colonial systems and Native American communities helping to shape societies across the Americas.
Photo above: Participants in CACE Afro-Latin American/Latinx Studies.
Nicole Scalissi, Ph.D. (Art; Latinx United States) Co-Coordinator
Omar H. Ali, Ph.D. (AADS/History/Honors; Colombia and Peru) Co-Coordinator
Monica Carrillo Zegarra, MFA (Honors; Peru)
Robin Gee, MFA (Dance; West Africa, Mali)
Cerise Glenn Manigault, Ph.D. (Communication Studies/AADS)
Dominick Hand, M.A. (AADS)
Ana Paula Höfling, Ph.D. (Dance; Brazil)
Nodia Mena, M.A. (School of Education; Honduras)
Linda M. Rupert, Ph.D. (History; Early Modern Caribbean)
Stephanie Orosco (AADS alumna, Department of History Chair, Goldsboro H..S., North Carolina)
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Dr. Omar Ali ohali@uncg.edu
If you are a researcher or faculty member at UNCG who wants to be listed here or share relevant classes, programming, publications, artwork, or the like on the topic, we are happy to help shine a light on your contributions.