We didn’t want to let this sunny, blue-sky day pass (at least in Seattle!) to celebrate and remember today, July 25, Afro-Latin, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women’s Day.

This official day of Afro-descendant women arose in 1992 in a meeting of black women in which women from 32 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean participated, gathered in the Dominican Republic in order to make the struggles and resistance visible, and I would add , resilience, of Afro women. The meeting also sought to find political impact strategies to confront racism from a gender perspective. A need and a required and vital work that is still valid today, 18 years after that meeting.

Black and Afro-descendant women have been and continue to be women who have contributed enormously to the cultural richness of the nations of the continent now called America. They have suffered the vicissitudes of gender exclusion, as well as ethnic-racial and class exclusion. Even so and despite this, their contributions to the economy, politics, society, culture and religion are immense and varied and demand their continuous visibility, recovery and exaltation.

In honor of Afro-Latin, Afro-Caribbean and diaspora women, always strong, fighters, leaders, workers, artists, scientists, mothers and defenders of their rights, always with joy and dignity; Today we share with the MÁS community two poems by Afro-Latin women: one by Afro-Costa Rican Shirley Campbell Barr and another by our own Milvia Berenice Pacheco Salvatierra, Afro-Venezuelan and president of the MÁS board of directors.

To all of you, to us, with love, respect and admiration.

-Delia Pinto-Santini

Absolutely Black

the black

My skin sweats and it’s not from heat

but of the enjoyment that the drum brings

vibration of love, dance and passion

Mother who fights for communion

The black one, the black one… I am the black one

thanks to the pain I am,

thanks to grace I am,

thanks to my son I am

and thanks to you I am

The black one, the black one… I am the black one

Let the feet mark the rhythm of the heart

And may the drum transcend all oppression

I have the key to my freedom

and you have found it with your awakening

The black woman, the black woman… the black woman dances

That the feet do not tremble with fear

By dancing to the rhythm of dignity

That the inheritance calls and claims

a just action to achieve equality

Dance Bolero, Salsa and Chimbangle

Dance Merengue, Punta and Festejo

Celebrate the ancestral root at every step

And joyfully recognize the new awakening

Black, black… black wake up

– Milvia Berenice Pacheco Salvatierra

---

Absolutely Black

I strongly refuse

to deny my voice my blood

and my skin

I refuse

roundly

to stop feeling good

when i see my face in the mirror

with my mouth

resoundingly big

and my nose

resoundingly beautiful

and my teeth

starkly white

and my skin

bravely black

and I refuse

categorically to

stop talking about me

tongue; my accent and

my story

and I refuse

absolutely

to be one of those who remain silent

of those who fear of

who cry

because I accept myself

absolutely free

flatly black

resoundingly beautiful

-Shirley Campbell Barr

the black

My skin sweats and it’s not from heat

but of the enjoyment that the drum brings

vibration of love, dance and passion

Mother who fights for communion

The black one, the black one… I am the black one

thanks to the pain I am,

thanks to grace I am,

thanks to my son I am

and thanks to you I am

The black one, the black one… I am the black one

Let the feet mark the rhythm of the heart

And may the drum transcend all oppression

I have the key to my freedom

and you have found it with your awakening

The black woman, the black woman… the black woman dances

That the feet do not tremble with fear

By dancing to the rhythm of dignity

That the inheritance calls and claims

a just action to achieve equality

Dance Bolero, Salsa and Chimbangle

Dance Merengue, Punta and Festejo

Celebrate the ancestral root at every step

And happily acknowledges the new awakening Black, black… black wake up

– Milvia Berenice Pacheco Salvatierra