RAIZAL: Taking Back Paradise is a forthcoming documentary by Pedro Espinosa Millán that follows the Raizal people, Afro-Caribbean descendants native to the archipelago of San Andrés, Old Providence, and Kathleena, as they confront the legacies of colonialism and territorial disputes between Colombia and Nicaragua. Centering Raizal voices, the film documents their fight for cultural survival, land rights, and self-determination in the face of ongoing political marginalization and ecological threats to their island homeland.
This acclaimed documentary explores the deep cultural ties between the Raizal people of San Andrés, Colombia, and Jamaica, shedding light on their shared Afro-Caribbean heritage. Through powerful storytelling and vivid cinematography, it highlights the enduring connections between the two communities and brings greater visibility to Afro-Caribbean Latino identities.
A digital humanities project and archival collection focused on the histories and material cultures of the Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities of the Nicaraguan and Honduran Mosquitia, or Mosquito Coast, in Caribbean Central America.
The REAC is an interactive space that brings together researchers and members of Afro-descendant civil organizations and communities from the Central American region. It promotes the history and anthropological legacy of Africa in the diaspora.
June Beer's poem "Ressarection a' de Wud" draws on liberation theology to celebrate Nicaragua as a nation that has resurrected the word of God through revolutionary action. Written in Miskito Coast Creole, the poem critiques hollow religiosity and calls for a living, active faith—one rooted not in church rituals but in justice, solidarity, and struggle. By taking the word “outa de church” and into the streets, rivers, and frontiers, the poem honors Nicaragua’s revolutionary project as a spiritual and moral awakening, contrasting it with the violence and hypocrisy of those who fail to live by the word.
Nicola Foote's "Rethinking Race, Gender and Citizenship" (Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2004) brings Afro-Caribbean women to the fore of a discussion of Costa Rican citizenship. It explores the relationship between ideologies of gender, imageries of black womanhood, and the dialectic of citizen ship and exclusion. It examines how the efforts of the black elite to achieve citizenship through assimilation generated inter-class tension which centred on ideas of female morality. It explores the absence of political platforms for poor black women excluded by such strategies and argues that while Costa Rican feminists succeeded in challenging the ideological system of gender they failed to challenge issues of race and class.
A music documentary about the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua with the Afro-Nicaraguan band Soul Vibrations. Shot in Bluefields, Pearl Lagoon, and Orinoco in 1988, directed by Greg Landau, produced by Abbie Fields and filmed by Frank Pineda, edited by Bruce Joffee.
In “Rotundamente Negra,” Black Costa Rican poet, writer, and activist Shirley Campbell Barr gives voice to a speaker who proudly and unapologetically affirms her identity as a Black woman. Rejecting Eurocentric beauty standards and anti-Blackness, the speaker embraces her Blackness “rotundamente” (unequivocally), celebrating her body, ancestry, and voice. The poem is a landmark of Afro-Latin American feminist literature, resonating across Central America, Latin America, and beyond as a powerful declaration of Black womanhood, resistance, and self-definition.
The Fundación Afrodescendientes Organizados Salvadoreños (AFROOS) is a foundation based in El Salvador that works for the constitutional recognition of the Afro-descendant population in El Salvador and the diaspora. It also works to eliminate racism and discrimination in all its forms.
Shirley Campbell Barr is a Black Costa Rican poet, anthropologist, and activist whose writing has become a powerful voice in Afro-descendant women’s movements across Latin America. Born in San José to a Jamaican-descended family, Campbell’s work explores Black womanhood, historical memory, and self-affirmation. Her poem Rotundamente negra (1994) is widely celebrated as a declaration of pride in Black identity and has been embraced as a cultural anthem by Afro-descendant women throughout the Americas. Trained in anthropology at the University of Costa Rica and in African history and feminism in Zimbabwe, Campbell has lived and worked across Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa. She has published several poetry collections—including Naciendo and Rotundamente negra—and regularly participates in international forums, urging Black women to write their own stories and claim space in public life. Through her work, Campbell bridges poetry and activism, affirming the beauty, resilience, and political power of Black women’s lives.
