Amending the Afro-Latin Diaspora: In Defense of Haitian Music

• In Event: From Colonized to Woke: Reframing Afro-Latinidad in Educational Spaces

Abstract

The social stratification and isolation of Haitian migrants in Cuba and the Dominican Republic has contributed to the preservation of Haitian dances, music, language, and customs (Pedro 1966, 1967, Guanche and Moreno 1988, McLeod 2000, James, Millet, and Alarcón 2007). Traditional Dominican Merengue’s predecessor, Merengue perico ripiao, was essential in the creation of Haiti’s national music, Konpa (Austerlitz, 1997). Furthermore, diasporic Haitians brought their influence to Cuba with essential rhythmic cells, cinquillo and tresillo. These two rhythms inform popular Cuban Danzon and Bolero Ritmico were created (MacManus, 2017). Schooling in these countries, however, ignores Haitian influence on its peoples’ culture.
In this paper, I use postcolonialism to examine musical transcriptions which show how Haitian music influenced the two neighboring Spanish speaking countries of the Dominican Republic and Cuba (Davis, 1994). I argue that the Afro-Latinx diaspora extends to Haitians (Gates, 2011) and that countries that receive Haitian migrants should engage in critical pedagogy to ensure that Haitians are represented in curriculum by arguing for the integration of music education across K-12 classrooms. Haitian Mereng is one of the core foundations for the invention of the Dominican Republic’s national music, Merengue (Manuel, 2009).
Postcolonialism serves to highlight the politics and power that maintain dominant-subordinate paradigms within colonial and postcolonial contexts (Acheraiou, 2008). Haitian migrants in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic exist within a Spanish-speaking context, and are thus more likely to adopt a hyphenated identity (McLeod, 1998, Oboler & Dzidzienyo, 2005). Haitian migrants exist across boundaries of race and identity that bridge Haitian culture with the new adopted culture, and I contend that a true bridge can only exist if classrooms across the Afro-latinx diaspora embrace the influence Haitians have had on tropical Latinx music. This transnational analysis of Haitian music and its influence across the Latino Caribbean functions as a postcolonial argument towards amending the definition of the Afro-Latinx diaspora to incorporate all Haitians and offers an entryway for educators diversify their understandings and approaches to Afrolatinidad in the music classroom.

Author

• David Gerardo Chong, California State University - Los Angeles