Black In Latin America Series On PBS

I've been aware that there were people of African descent that spoke Spanish, French and Portuguese for a long time.

I knew about Haiti's history as the first Black republic, that Mariah Carey's father was a Black Venezuelan, had Panamanian friends who are proud of their Black and Latin heritage, and was intrigued to discover after watching coverage of an NABJ convention panel discussion about Hurricane Katrina on C-SPAN CNN journalist Soledad O'Brien has an Afro-Cuban mother.   I also wrote posts that talks about Mexican president Vicente Guerrero and his African heritage and about Black  Latinas. 

My fascination with it was triggered by the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.    I was watching the boxing competition with my father and the match that was on ABC was an early round one involving the great Teofilo Stevenson, who was about to start his run of microwave beatdowns enroute to the gold medal.

When I remarked to my dad while watching the Stevenson match that I wasn't aware there were brothers and sisters in Cuba, my dad said in a matter of fact tone,"the slave ships stopped in Cuba, too."

Yep, they did.    Out of the 11.5 million Africans who survived the brutal Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean and ended up in the Western Hemisphere, only 450,000 arrived in the United States.   Brazil received ten times that number.    Africans also arrived in Peru, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.   

Renee talked about it on her blog, but I'm looking forward to the latest PBS special courtesy of Dr. Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates entitled Black In Latin America.    The four hour series will explore race and identity issues in Latin America.

The shows will cover the following topics: 

• April 19 - Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided
• April 26 - Cuba: The Next Revolution
• May 3 - Brazil: A Racial Paradise?
• May 10 - Mexico & Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet

I'm looking forward to watching this PBS series that starts at 8 PM EDT on your local PBS stations and getting my learn on..
.

Castro's Daughter Helps Cuba's Transgender Community Come Out Of The Shadows

Cuba is famous for its cigars, its passion for baseball, the long list of great major league ballplayers from the island, great Olympians and a certain cigar smoking bearded gentleman who was its long time leader.

But I'll bet you didn't know is that like everywhere else on the planet, Cuba has transgender people on the island as well.

Thanks to having a powerful friend in internationally renowned sexologist Mariela Castro Espin, who is President Raul Castro's daughter and Fidel Castro's niece, transgender people have been able to come out of the shadows. She's the head of the National Centre for Sex Education or CENESEX, and since 2004 has pushed for more humane treatment of Cuba's GLBT people.

Not so long ago, being GLBT was a disqualifying factor for upper echelon positions in Cuban society and anti-gay witch hunts were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s that would have made the Religious Reich proud.

In 2005 CENESEX created the National Commission for Integral Care of Transsexual People, and last year announced on June 6 that free SRS would become available for Cuban transsexuals that wish to have it. They would commence when the Cuban surgical team designated to perform the operations finished being trained by international experts was ready to begin the procedures. CENESEX also hosts a transgender support group that meets weekly in Havana.

Cuba performed its first and only sex reassignment surgery in 1988 and so far 28 Cubans have been diagnosed by the government as transsexual, and 19 wish to have gender reassignment surgery.

Castro's mother is the late Vilma Espin, who was an internationally recognized champion of women's rights. For her, it is the rights of gay and transgender people that need to be fought for.

She's pushing the Cuban National Assembly to adopt what would be the most liberal gay and transsexual rights law in Latin America.

It would if passed officially recognize same-sex unions and inheritance rights among same-sex couples, along with giving transgender Cubans the rights to obtain free sex-change operations. Transgender Cubans would be permitted to change their gender on their identity cards without having genital surgery as a precondition for doing so.

It's ironic that a nation reviled by conservatives for being repressive is more compassionate and tolerant towards its transgender citizens than my own country.

The Muxe Of Mexico

TransGriot Note: The New York Times published this interesting story about the Muxe of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. As I and other transgender people have pointed out, there are various cultures around the world that make room for either a third gender category or simply make room for those who feel from birth they are female to live their lives.


A Lifestyle Distinct: The Muxe of Mexico

By MARC LACEY
Published: December 6, 2008
Katie Orlinsky contributed reporting and photos from Juchitán, Mexico

Mexico City — Mexico can be intolerant of homosexuality; it can also be quite liberal. Gay-bashing incidents are not uncommon in the countryside, where many Mexicans consider homosexuality a sin. In Mexico City, meanwhile, same-sex domestic partnerships are legally recognized — and often celebrated lavishly in government offices as if they were marriages.

But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” (pronounced MOO-shays) — men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.

“Muxe” is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish “mujer,” or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community.

Anthropologists trace the acceptance of people of mixed gender to pre-Colombian Mexico, pointing to accounts of cross-dressing Aztec priests and Mayan gods who were male and female at the same time. Spanish colonizers wiped out most of those attitudes in the 1500s by forcing conversion to Catholicism. But mixed-gender identities managed to survive in the area around Juchitán, a place so traditional that many people speak ancient Zapotec instead of Spanish.

Not all muxes express their identities the same way. Some dress as women and take hormones to change their bodies. Others favor male clothes. What they share is that the community accepts them; many in it believe that muxes have special intellectual and artistic gifts.

Every November, muxes inundate the town for a grand ball that attracts local men, women and children as well as outsiders. A queen is selected; the mayor crowns her. “I don’t care what people say,” said Sebastian Sarmienta, the boyfriend of a muxe, Ninel Castillejo García. “There are some people who get uncomfortable. I don’t see a problem. What is so bad about it?”

Muxes are found in all walks of life in Juchitán, but most take on traditional female roles — selling in the market, embroidering traditional garments, cooking at home. Some also become sex workers, selling their services to men.

Acceptance of a child who feels he is a muxe is not unanimous; some parents force such children to fend for themselves. But the far more common sentiment appears to be that of a woman who takes care of her grandson, Carmelo, 13.

“It is how God sent him,” she said.