Livingston, Guatemala—known as Labuga in Garifuna—is a coastal site of Black, Indigenous, and Caribbean convergence, shaped by displacement, survival, and enduring refusal. Founded by Garifuna exiles expelled from St. Vincent in 1797 and rerouted through Roatán, Livingston became an Afro-Indigenous stronghold on Guatemala’s Caribbean coast. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Afro-Jamaican migrants—many arriving via British labor circuits in Central America—also settled in Livingston, contributing to its Afro-Caribbean character. These intertwined communities formed the social fabric of the town, even as the state rendered Blackness both marginal and expendable. While often celebrated for its cultural richness, Garifuna and Afro-Caribbean communities in Livingston continue to confront land dispossession, racialized development, and state neglect. UNESCO’s 2001 designation of Garifuna music, dance, and language as Intangible Cultural Heritage offered symbolic recognition but little protection from structural inequality. Transnational organizing has long undergirded local resistance. Regional movements like the Organización Negra Centroamericana (ONECA) and its Guatemalan branch, the Organización Negra Guatemalteca (ONEGUA), link Labuga to broader Afro-descendant struggles across Central America. Activists such as Tomas Sánchez and Juan Carlos Sánchez draw on media, education, and oral history to reclaim Black presence beyond state-sanctioned multiculturalism. Through the Garifuna Cultural Center, National Garifuna Day, and locally-rooted artistic production, Livingston remains not a static heritage site but a living terrain of Black and Afro-Indigenous futurity—defined by kinship, cultural endurance, and political struggle across borders.
BCA is a platform dedicated to amplifying Black Central American history, culture, and scholarship. Through curated content, innovative programming, and collaborative initiatives, we explore the collective memory, cultural and political organizing, and creative place-making practices of Black Central American communities across the isthmus and its diasporas.
