On Garifuna Settlement Day, Garinagu Discuss Preserving Their Afro-Indigenous Culture

On Her Garifuna Upbringing:

Francesca Chaney grew up immersed in Garifuna culture and traditions through the ancestral foodways her mother's side of the family passed on to her. While visiting her family's hometown of Dangriga, Belize, at 15, Chaney sat down with her aunt, who walked her through a number of recipes. "My aunt in Belize, she cooks traditional dishes every Saturday, and then distributes it to everybody's house — like her family and close friends — so when I'm in Belize, sometimes I'll just be with her in the kitchen," Chaney told POPSUGAR.

Though miles away from the eastern coast of Central America, the East New York chef has continued to preserve the Afro-Indigenous cuisine, opening plant-based restaurant Sol Sips in 2018.

On Preserving Garifunaidad:

"So many of our dishes are plant based or have seafood in it," the 25-year-old entrepreneur shared. "Usually what we do at Sol Sips, the dishes that have seafood in it, we just omit the seafood or we make a plant-based fish cake, with like hearts of palm and seaweed, to give that impression of seafood. We make darasa [a tamale made of green banana]. I've done hudut, it's not on the menu, before [at a presentation] . . . Within my work, it's so important to center the Afro-Indigenous, plant-based experience because we've been doing this for generations."

On Her Garifuna Upbringing:

Born and raised in the South Bronx, Daisy Guzman, who is currently an African and African Diaspora PhD candidate at the University of Texas-Austin and a board member of La Fuerza Garifuna, grew up in a community with Garinagu from Guatemala and Spanish-speaking Afro-Caribbeans. The daughter of parents who hailed from La Buga, also known as Livingston, Guatemala, Guzman has countless memories in school with cousins and other Garifuna children or after school at the Betances Community Center and, of course, family gatherings.

Though there was no confusion about her Garifuna identity, it's layered, "because sometimes people forget that to be Garifuna also means to be Afro-Caribbean, but also means to be Afro Latino, also means to be Black American," she told POPSUGAR. "So when I think about the way we have preserved Garifunaness, I think about the fluidity and Blackness that existed in my home."

On Preserving Garifunaidad:

Guzman's dissertation, Refashioning Garifuna Identity: The Cultural Politics of Making Home Amongst Garifuna Women in New York City, focuses on the generation of Garifuna women who came to New York City between 1970-1996, with an emphasis on Garifuna Guatemaltecas.

"As a Garifuna New Yorker, I feel like I'm part of the largest community of Garifuna people outside of Central America, and I'm part of a generation of Garifuna women that are trying to push what we know about Garifuna culture and being Garifuna in the United States as Garifuna Americans, and what is really our relationship to Garifunaness and Afro-Latinidad in an urban space like New York City where we grew up," she said. "And it's ways of explaining how we move through New York City as Garifuna people and compartmentalize, going into Caribbean spaces, going into Latino spaces, but still maintaining our Garifunaness in all sections of our communal engagement."

On Her Garifuna Upbringing:

"I've always known that I was Garifuna," said Siria Alvarez, of The Garifuna Market. Born in Roatán and raised in La Ceiba, Honduras, until roughly the age of 3, the chief executive recalls times when her family would gather at events in Crotona Park in the Bronx and, most notably, at the annual Central American Day parade. Whether it was trips back to Honduras or family gatherings where each member helped to prepare a dish, like hudutu, she was always aware of her roots.

On Preserving Garifunaidad:

After visiting Honduras on a soul-searching and reflective trip, Alvarez connected with family members she'd never met before. "I traveled air, land, and sea and everything that I had to do to just learn more, ask a lot of questions, meet a lot of people," she told POPSUGAR. Though she had the idea in mind, this trip led to the 2019 unveiling of The Garifuna Market, a digital platform centered on Garifuna pride. Whether hosting an Instagram Live or an in-person event or educating their followers on Garifuna vocabulary, The Garifuna Market is a space to rep the culture and learn in community.

"I don't know everything, I don't have all the answers. I ask the community questions. I do research as well. I read articles and talk to other Garifuna people — older, younger, same age, of all areas; Garifuna people from different countries, different states. I've just learned so much, and I use that as an opportunity to share with others what I've learned."

On Her Garifuna Upbringing:

Both in her South Bronx home and back in her family's lands in La Buga and Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, Kaysy Gotay, aka DJ Young Wavy Fox, was surrounded by Garifuna culture and clear on how this shaped her identity. "That's all I knew of myself to be. I never knew of myself to be anything else," she told POPSUGAR. "My parents and my family made it very clear that I am a Garifuna woman living in America."

Her awareness of self was also rooted in her family's lineage and spiritual practices. Spiritual leaders, like her uncles Mariano and Carlos Gotay, were her introduction to the power of ancestral connection and how Garifuna spiritual practices have sustained the community in times of transition, resilience, and joy. "I'm very blessed to say, till this day, I know my ancestors by name."

On Preserving Garifunaidad:

The 31-year-old creative and entrepreneur unapologetically infuses her culture into her sets when she spins, but she's continuing to step further into her cultural work. Gotay has been working for the last three years on a documentary and photo series on Garifuna culture, titled Garifuna Nuguya: The Presence of Blackness in Guatemala. While the Garinagu origin story becomes more known, Gotay is unpacking the historical accounts that've been documented to date, while interviewing scholars such as Belizean-Garifuna historian Dr. Theodore Aranda.

"A lot of our history has been removed from us. It's not our fault that we don't know all this stuff about our culture . . . But we can help each other put the pieces together."