San Diego, Feb 3 (EFE).- The African in the Americas project highlights the contributions black culture has made in the Western Hemisphere with a view to breaking down ethnic divisions through music and dance.
This cultural undertaking is the work of artist Makeda Dread and her WorldBeat Center, part of San Diego's Balboa Park Cultural Partnership.
Dread has worked for 30 years bringing to light the connections between different African cultures in the Americas through her founding of the WorldBeat Center and her work as radio host and music promoter, especially for reggae.
His contact with Hispanic culture began at home, Dread told Efe in an interview, since she was brought up in San Diego's poor Barrio Logan neighborhood among Mexican-American families who helped her deal with problems she had at home.
"With neighbors putting tamales in my lunch when I was going to school or sharing their fiestas, their mole and their music with me," Dread said.
The African in the Americas project, which has taken her to Peru, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Mexico and other Latin lands to document the cultural contributions of African-Americans, seeks to help people "acknowledge this 'third race' along with the Europeans and the Indians."
"It's time that Latin America acknowledged its African roots without shame, and that includes those of us in the United States," Dread said, adding that the leaders of Mexican independence like Gen. Vicente Guerrero - briefly president of independent Mexico - and Rev. Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon were of African extraction.
After digging up information on the Afro-Mexicans on the Costa Chica in Oaxaca and in Veracruz, Dread traveled to Ecuador and Peru, a country where she filmed a documentary focused on the southern coastal town of Chincha, the center of Afro-Peruvian culture.
Last March Dread founded a cultural center in nearby Ensenada, Mexico, where artists perform who have also played at her WorldBeat Center in Balboa Park, and which has a similar format of offering classes to the community focused on African-American culture.
"Music and dance bring people together. When you dance you don't care what your partner's religion is because music has no language or color. Music becomes a weapon for the future because it's all about love," Dread said.
The artist also said her group has given workshops at San Diego high schools to help dissipate the ethnic tensions between young Hispanics and African-Americans.
"When African-Americans find out about Vicente Guerrero, about the Costa Chica in Veracruz, some seem surprised that (Barack) Obama was not the first black president in the Americas and they realize they have brothers and sisters in that country as well, while through rap and hip hop Hispanics find they can get together with them and make music," Dread said.
