I am a historian of the African Diaspora in Colonial Latin America and the Caribbean. I am a Venezuelan of Haitian descent. By now I am a person shaped by larger worlds: I have lived for years in the Northeast of the United States and, before that, I spent two years in Socialist Eastern Europe and West Africa respectively. My first profession and interest, conservation biology, brought me to the U.S. and later took me to Cameroon, where I came across the roots of several Venezuelan and Latin American cultural elements. I began to question silenced African contributions to the hemisphere.

In Philadelphia, I created the Annual Arturo Schomburg Symposium (going to its 21st consecutive year), at Taller Puertorriqueño, Inc. (http://tallerpr.org/event/20th-arturo-schomburg-symposium/). This event brings together scholars, professionals, activists, and artists to share their expertise about African contributions to Latina/o and Latin American history and cultures with a wide audience. My thirst for understanding Latin America’s racialization processes and the ways these have shaped power dynamics in the region, since the colonial period, led me to fall in love with the discipline of history of the African Diaspora in Colonial Latin America and the Caribbean.