Afro-Asian Connections in Latin America and the Caribbean (Black Diasporic Worlds: Origins and Evolutions from New World Slaving)

Afro-Asian Connections in Latin America and the Caribbean explores the connections between people of Asian and African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although their journeys started from different points of origin, spanning two separate oceans, their point of contact in this hemisphere brought them together under a hegemonic system that would treat these seemingly disparate continental ancestries as one. Historically, an overwhelming majority of people of African and Asian descent were brought to the Americas as sources of labor to uphold the plantation, agrarian economies leading to complex relationships and interactions. The contributions to this collection examine various aspects of these connections. The authors bring to the forefront perspectives regarding history, literature, art, and religion and engage how they are manifested in these Afro-Asian relationships and interactions. They investigate what has received little academic engagement outside the acknowledgement that there are groups who are of African and Asian descent. In regard to their relationships with the dominant Europeanized center, references to both groups typically only view them as singular entities. What this interdisciplinary collection presents is a more cohesive approach that strives to place them at the center together and view their relationships in their historical contexts. Acknowledgments Introduction: Dethroning the Epics of Empire | Lisa Yun PART I: IDENTITY AND NATIONAL DISCOURSES Interlude I | Kathleen López 1 Afro and Chinese Depictions in Peruvian Social Discourse at the Turn of the Twentieth Century* | Debbie Lee-DiStefano 2 Locating Chinese Culture and Aesthetics in the Art of Wifredo Lam | Mey-Yen Moriuchi 3 Afro-Asian-Caribbean Connections in Transnational Circulation: The Harlem Ashram as Chronotope | Malathi Iyengar PART II: CONTACT ZONES, SOLIDARITY, AND SYNCRETISM Interlude II | Kathleen López 4 Merging the Transpacific with the Transatlantic: Afro-Asia in Japanese Brazilian Narratives | Zelideth María Rivas 5 Parallels and Intersections: Afro-Chinese Relationships and Spiritual Connections in Monkey Hunting and Como un mensajero tuyo | Luisa Marcela Ossa 6 Erased from Collective Memory: Dreadlocks Story Documentary Untangles the Hindu Legacy of Rastafari | Linda Aïnouche PART III: BODIES, GENDERS, AND IDENTITIES Interlude III | Kathleen López 7 Body of Reconciliation: Aida Petrinera Cheng’s Journey in Como un mensajero tuyo by Mayra Montero | Dania Abreu-Torres 8 “I Am Like One of those Women”: Chinese Masculinity as Feminist Writing Strategy in Three West Indian Novels | Anne-Marie Lee-Loy 9 La Mulata Achinada: Bodies, Gender, and Authority in Afro-Chinese Religion in Cuba | Martin A. Tsang Index About the Editors About the Contributors This volume explores the connections between people of Asian and African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing specifically on how they negotiated shared social spaces and experiences to develop what in many cases would become a fusion of cultures.