Quince Duncan: Writing Afro-Costa Rican and Caribbean Identity

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. Although there may have been writers of Af­ri­can descent in Limón before the publication of Duncan’s first work, El pozo y una carta (1969), Duncan is of­ten identified as the first Afro–Costa Rican writer because he has reached a large audience by publishing in Spanish. For additional information on English language authors from Limón, consult my Place, Language, and Identity in Afro–Costa Rican Literature and “Alderman Johnson Roden: Reconstruyendo su aporte en la literature afrocostarricense” by Karla Araya Araya. 2. “Afro–West Indian” is used in the text to refer primarily to immigrants of Af­ ri­ can descent who arrived from the islands of the British Caribbean and their descendants in Costa Rica before the 1950s, when greater numbers of Afro–West Indians became naturalized Costa Rican citizens. The usage of “Afro–West Indian” marks not only how Costa Rica viewed the population but also the gradual loss of in­di­vidual island identities (Jamaican , Barbadian, St. Lucian) over time. The terms “Afro–West Indian,” “black West Indian,” and “West Indian black” will be used interchangeably in this study. 3. Several his­ tori­ cal studies by Carlos Meléndez and Quince Duncan, Lowell Gudmundson , Rina Cáceres, Mauricio Meléndez Obando and Tatiana Lobo, Oscar Aguilar Bulgarelli, and Irene Alfaro Aguilar have challenged this view; these writers catalog the extent of Af­ ri­ can slavery during the colonial period. Slaves of Af­ ri­ can descent and their descendants during the colonial period and into independence were subsumed by the mixed-­ race (mestizo), Indo-­Hispanic population either through miscegenation or legal categorization, giving the impression that blacks “disappeared” until the large-­scale arrival of Afro–West Indian laborers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 4. The law resulted from negotiations of the banana contract between the Costa Rican government and the United Fruit Company. These negotiations occurred during a major strike against United Fruit by Hispanic workers. Most West Indian workers did not participate “because they did not want trouble” (Harpelle 2001, 84). 182 / Notes to Pages 4–13 5. A few Afro–West Indian families did settle in San José and other parts of the Central Valley. According to Carlos Meléndez, “there have always been blacks—a few perhaps, but tolerated by our authorities—in San José for example” (Meléndez and Duncan 1993, 88). 6. Unless otherwise noted, the translations are mine. 7. See Diana Senior Angulo’s Ciudadanía afrocostarricense: El gran scenario comprendido entre 1927 y 1963 (2011) and Ronald Harpelle’s The West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority (2001) for detailed his­ tori­ cal examinations of the path toward citizenship for Costa Ricans of West Indian descent. 8. Duncan was active in the formation and leadership of the center-­ left party, Partido de Acción Ciudadana (PAC) (Citizen’s Action Party), a party that has notably disrupted the authority of the country’s two leading po­ liti­ cal parties. The center-­ left Partido Liberaci ón Nacional (PLN) (National Liberation Party) and the center-­ right Partido de la Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC) (Social Christian Unity Party) have dominated po­liti­cal life in the country since the end of the 1948 civil war. The electorate’s growing frustration with corruption and deepening social problems have led to PAC’s success. In 2002, PAC’s presidential candidate, Ottón Solís (a former member of PLN) forced an unprecedented runoff election between the major parties. Solís was PAC’s candidate in the 2006 elections and was narrowly defeated by PLN’s Óscar Arias by 18,000 votes (1.1% of the votes). This was a surprising challenge to Arias, who served as president from 1986 to 1990, and again from 2006 to 2010, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to broker a peace agreement to end devastating conflict and civil wars in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. In 2013, Quince Duncan was in the running to be the president of PAC. 9. “Anansi” is the Ashanti word for “spider.” During the slave trade, many of the Af­ ri­ cans brought to Jamaica were of Ashanti origin (present-­ day Ghana). 10. Fuentes’s Mexico is haunted by the legacy of revolution and the massacre of protesting students on the eve of the 1968 Olympic games in the capital; García Márquez’s Colombia is forever scarred with “la violencia” and...