About this festival
American Heritage is an ongoing series of lectures and discussions that offer new perspectives on the role of African-Americans in American History. This is the first installment dealing with the African diaspora.The African presence in Mexico is rarely recognized or wildly known. Two hundred years before the United States abolished slavery, a community of free Blacks was established in the 1600’s in what is now Veracruz, Mexico. As a result, issues of nationalism, color and race are integral to the discussion of what it means to be Mexican. Join the CD Forum and a panel of experts as we discuss historical and contemporary issues of Afromestizo identity. Moderator: Ileana M. Rodriguez-Silva, Ph.D, Assistant Professor- Latin American and Caribbean History at the University of Washington Panelists: Sagrario Cruz Carretero, the curator of the Main Gallery exhibition from the University of Veracruz, is Mexico’s leading expert in the investigation of African history in Mexico; Naomi Andrade Smith, chef and owner of Villa Victoria/Cafe Mocambo; and Ben Vinson, Director -Center for Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University and author of Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico and Afromexico.