Books by Louis Reyes Rivera

Sanchocho: A Book of Nuyorican Poetry / Scattered Scripture / Bum Rush the Page

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Creating an Africana Canon

By Louis Reyes Rivera

With regards to compiling and categorizing an Africana Canon...

Let us take care that we don't misunderstand the vital need for the most appropriate canon. In separating, particularly, the Latino from the Africana canon, we misplace in narrow fashion our definition of what Joel Washington refers to as an Africana Heritage grouping, as well as a Pan-African and African-American definition of self...

We should take care to avoid what the Anglo-North American has done to the term "American" as well as in the creation of an "hispanic race(sic!)"....

Let us not forget that Marcus Garvey published a newspaper, The Black World, in English, Spanish and French editions as a guide towards understanding what exactly is a Pan-African context...

Consider further inside the definition of an American (i.e., African American) the following factor:

There are, roughly speaking, 40 million African Americans living in the U.S. There are, roughly speaking, 80 million African Americans living in Brazil. What do you do with that?

Further, no less than 12% of Mexico is of African descent. No less than 15% of Ecuador is of African descent. No less than 50% of both Cuba and the Dominican Republic are of African descent; no less than 75% of Panama is of African descent; no less than 30% of Columbia is of African descent; no less than 26% of Venezuela is of African descent. 

No less than 60% of the total Caribbean is of African descent; no less than 45% of the people of the three Guyanas (Surinam included) is of African descent. No less than 40% of Puerto Ricans will tell you that their lineage includes an African heritage. Even places like Chile and Argentina have an African presence in their annals (lest we forget the works of such personages as Ivan Van Sertima and J.A. Rogers--which, while initially dismissed by Euro-American scholars, have indeed gained "legitimacy" the more that work is examined).

In other words, the compilatory work involved in putting such a canon together would be better served if we do not accept the North's definitions and categories.

Instead, we should encourage those who (within each nation-state) propagate their African heritage to add themselves into the "working" canon.

If we emphasize only the "culture-race group" within THIS nation-state as the basis for separating, including or excluding (Latino vs. African," for example), we end up denying the historical quality that went into creating an African Diaspora.

By avoiding this pitfall, when we do get to a national conference, much groundwork would have thus been laid out, since we took into fullest account both the principle and historical nature of this particular Diaspora.