Bolivia’s African roots and presence: A dialogue with a scholar
The African presence in today’s Republic of Bolivia is very small compared to Colombia, Venezuela, or Brazil, but its tradition of defiance has been massive. As in all of the Americas, this African presence was the result of the horrific Transatlantic slave trade. One of the scholars of this history is Juan Angola Maconde. He is one of those people in the Americas who has two ethnic ancestral names: one is Angola, which comes from the name for the ancient leader of the Ndongo kingdom, the Ngola Kiluanje, from what is now the Republic of Angola; and Makonde, his second surname, derives from the Makonde ethnic group who are from the East African coast, from between Tanzania and Mozambique.
AmNews: Where were you born, and why do you have two surnames?
Juan Angola Maconde: I was born in the former Hacienda Dorado Chico, now known as the Comunidad Dorado Chico. It’s the ancestral Canton of La Concordia Arapata, in the city of Coripata, Nor Yungas province.
My surname, Angola, is “toponymic.” That means it tells the geographical area where the ancestors of my ancestors came from. And the name Maconde is the same. It’s the name of an ethnic group that specializes in wood carving, they are located between Tanzania and Mozambique.
AmNews: When did you seriously begin studying from a historical perspective?
J.A.M.: I have been studying the African presence in Bolivia since 1996, when I wrote a research paper entitled: “Collecting contemporary Afro Bolivian oral history.” That research had forced me to return to the community, where I “re-learned” what I had alienated myself from in the official educational system that denies our African presence; I went back to listen to our grandmothers and grandfathers, the guardians of the culture. This research and the act of retelling my community’s story as a historical subject led me to publish my first book: “Raíces de un pueblo, cultura afroboliviana” (Roots of a People, Afro Bolivian Culture) in 2000.
I had the opportunity to get to know this Afro Bolivian activist in the middle of the 1990s, when I participated in a conference organized by the activist Monica Rey in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. We started a friendship that led us to join forces with the African American professor Sheila Walker, and produce a beautiful text called “Conocimiento desde adentro: los afrosudamericanos hablan de sus pueblos y sus historias (Knowledge from within: Afro South Americans speak of their people and history),” the first edition of which was published in Bolivia in 2010.
In this text, I talk about the origins of Afro Bolivian people, their traditions, their cultures, and their historical and contemporary struggles. The Afro Bolivian diaspora can be found throughout Bolivia, but especially in Las Yungas, La Paz, Santa Cruz, and a province called Inquisivi. The prefix Inquisivi comes from the west-central African name of the Nkisi, which are objects that serve as spiritual protectors of traditional families of the Congo.
In Bolivia, there is the tradition of El Rey Congo, located in Las Yungas, a traditionally Afro Bolivian area. The late legislator, Jorge Medina Barra, fought for the recognition of this tradition and the origin of the ancient Congo Día Ntotela in Bolivia, as well as the traditional Afro Bolivian Saya dance, which was internationally recognized as part of our national heritage in 2011, as was the Diabladas of Oruro dance, which takes place in a location where thousands of Africans were enslaved and exploited in the gold mines.
AmNews: What is the status of Afro Bolivians today?
J.A.M.: Currently, Afro Bolivians are relegated to the “social basement.” They face structural racism due to the existing colonial mentality of Bolivian society. The population and housing census was conducted on March 23 of this year; the results won’t be made public until November. But we know that there are an estimated 25,000 Afro Bolivians.
Part of the Afro Bolivian agenda for the next few years is: We hope to establish a headquarters and an Afro Bolivian Memorial Museum. We want to have an Afro Secretariat to help improve our representation and allow us to demand more access to power. As far as the issue of education is concerned, we are certain to fight for the visibility of the Afro Bolivian people in regionalized educational curricula.
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