[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Bunmi Fatoye-Matory (
Premium Times) interviews Afro-Colombian scholar Nohora Fernández about growing up in Colombia, the Afro-Colombian experience, and her interest in Nigerian literature. She says, “The Afro-Colombian experience is not widely known, and it is quite diverse.” Here are excerpts:
PT: Where were you born?
NAF: I was born in Cartagena, Colombia. Cartagena was one of the most important Spanish harbors for the slave trade in the Spanish Caribbean. A huge number of enslaved people arrived in Cartagena and were then sold to Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru and other South America countries. Today, it is considered a black city, probably about 80 per cent of the population is black. I grew up in that city.
Sweet Mother. For Whom?, By Bunmi Fatoye-Matory
Anyone who chooses to be a mother knows it is a costly choice, but in many societies, women are forced to bear this burden alone.
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Many young women are questioning the whole idea of motherhood as necessary to a woman’s identity. They want to be able to make a choice and define themselves as they deem fit… Because of this work, they are impoverished, derided and punished as the weaker sex, and they are sometimes ignored in old age by the children they sacrificed the most for.
Sunday, May 9 is Mothers’ Day in America, the day we celebrate the unique role of women in bearing and rearing children. It is an acknowledgement of the great sacrifice of women, many of whom raise children against all odds. No song rivals Nico Mbarga’s “Sweet Mother” at Nigerian-American parties. It gets everyone off their chairs because it strikes a deep chord in us. It is an ode to our mothers’ selflessness, caring and love. It is t