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."
