IslandMix

what's good sankofaa ? i remember your response to my post about "latin american" blacks' hardships and i wanted to ask you, since i remember you stated being a west indian rooted panamanian, what is it like in your community here in the US (especially in brooklyn, NY) and in panama ? what language dominates in the US household ? how do you guys view the more less conscious spanish speaking blacks ? i've always noticed that the west indian-panamanians, black cubans and garifunas are usually the few that are conscious of their situation and identify as black, whereas the self-hate of the others is truly embarrassing. i remember reading about a brooklyn rapper in XXL magazine, uncle murda, being a US born panamanian and i think it's embarrassing for me,as a US born black dominican, to see how different blacks from panama and the DR tend to be and adapt to black enviroments. be good.

well the panamanian community in bk is unique, its mainly black antilleanos so spanish and english (patois) is spoken. In my birthplace Rio Abajo in Panama City they have what they call rio abajo english, which is broken english (alot of bajan and jamaican patois). Everyone speaks spanish but its different there than in other latin countries, youll hear reggae all in the streets/clubs. There are rastas there, etc. In panama, and even costa rica, there was discrimination similar to what you had in the states so there was a consciousness that came from that, so people take pride in their race and their roots. Even the original black panamanians made a statue of a black jesus and developed a more afrocentric culture due to isolation afterand during slavery.

I think dr had a different history, and associate "black" with haiti and thats why people have the hangups they do.

thanks, sankofaa, for your reply. i've always felt that if haiti was never next door, us black dominicans would've really learned what the other dominicans really felt about us, instead of all the sugarcoating,the haitian scapegoats and subtle racism. i'm reading a book by trevor o'reggio about west indian blacks in panama and it's rough stuff.so, in the BK households for example, both english and spanish is spoken ? i have a hard enough time gripping one langauge so it's impressive to me when i'm around y'all and y'all can hit it up back and forth between the 2 languages. good day man.

id say the majority speak both languages, my parents are bilingual and my sister is bilingual but we spoke english in my home by the time i came along so i cant speak spanish (even though im going to def. going to learn). Even my relatives from panama that came to visit spoke english to us. When I started going back there, I realized have to learn because I have cousins my age that can barely speak english.

Same here my fam never spoke Spanish around me only time I would hear it was when I visited my grandmother, and some of my aunts. I think my folks thought they would never have to speak Spanish again but we plan to visit Honduras soon and I have cousins there my age that can't speak English.