Six Latin American countries are featured in the series: Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico and Peru
The series is the third part of a trilogy which began 12 years ago with Wonders of the African World and premieres Tuesday April 19 at 8pm.
Black in Latin America, a new four-part series on the influence of African descent on Latin America, is the 11th and latest documentary film from renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. presenter and writer of the acclaimed PBS series African American Lives (2006), Oprah's Roots (2007), African American Lives 2(2008), Looking for Lincoln (2009) and Faces of America (2010).
Third of a trilogy that began in 1999 with the broadcast of Professor Gates' first series for public television, Wonders of the African World, an exploration of the relationship between Africa and the New World, a story he continued in 2004 with America Beyond the Color Line, a report on the lives of modern-day African Americans. Black In Latin America, premiering nationally Tuesdays April 19, 26 and May 3, 10, 2011 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings), examines how Africa and Europe came together to create the rich cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Latin America is often associated with music, monuments and sun, but each of the six countries featured in Black in Latin America including Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico and Peru, has a secret history. On his journey, Professor Gates discovers, behind a shared legacy of colonialism and slavery, vivid stories and people marked by African roots.
12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World during the Middle Passage. While just over 11.0 million survived the arduous journey, only about 450,000 of them arrived in the United States. The rest-over ten and a half million-were taken to the Caribbean and Latin America and kept in bondage far longer than the slaves in the United States. This astonishing fact changes the entire picture of the history of slavery in the Western hemisphere, and of its lasting cultural impact. These millions of Africans created new and vibrant cultures, magnificently compelling syntheses of various African, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish influences.
Despite their great numbers, the cultural and social worlds that they created remain largely unknown to most Americans, except for certain popular, cross-over musical forms. In his new series, Professor Gates sets out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how the countries acknowledge-or deny-their African past; how the fact of race and African ancestry play themselves out in the multicultural worlds of the Caribbean and Latin America. Starting with the slave experience and extending to the present, Professor Gates unveils the history of the African presence in six Latin American countries through art, music, cuisine, dance, politics and religion, but also the very palpable presence of anti-black racism that has sometimes sought to keep the black cultural presence from view.
Episode One will be Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided-In Haiti, Professor Gates tells the story of the birth of the first-ever black republic, and finds out how the slaves' hard fought liberation over Napoleon Bonaparte's French Empire became a double-edged sword. In the Dominican Republic, Professor Gates explores how race has been socially constructed in a society whose people reflect centuries of inter-marriage, and how the country's troubled history with Haiti informs notions about racial classification.
