Victoria Santa Cruz (1922–2014) was one of four influential international figures born a century ago whose lives and impact were commemorated at the second international Colloquium on Afroamerican Studies at Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, organized by Zuleica Romay Guerra. The theme of the Colloquium was “Breaking the Silences of the Past: Rewritings and Rereadings of Afroamerican History.” Honored alongside Victoria Santa Cruz were Centenarians Alex Haley (USA, 1921-1992), Florinda Soriano Muñoz “Mamá Tingó” (Dominican Republic, 1921-1974), and Armando Fortune (Panama, 1921-1979).
On June 16, 2022, it was my honor to present (virtually) a preview of my research about an understudied period in Victoria Santa Cruz’s global career: her formative years in Paris, at the fascinating University of the Theatre of Nations, from 1962 to 1966.
At the panelists’ forum and question-and-answer session later that day, I made the following remarks (scroll down for English translation):
“Victoria Santa Cruz testificó: ‘Nací mujer, nací negra, y más adelante constaté que el hecho de ser latinoamericana, suponía también un obstáculo’. Durante su vida, Victoria Santa Cruz superó obstáculos interseccionales y hizo visibles las vidas negras (como lo decimos en inglés). Pero el impacto de las mujeres afrolatinoamericanas que llevaron vidas globales es muchas veces invisible en el espacio académico internacional y en la conciencia pública, especialmente en los Estados Unidos. Para comprender ampliamente sus legados transnacionales, hay que llenar los huecos en los archivos y romper los silencios. Así que espero que mi ponencia hoy sobre sus menos conocidos años en Francia, como parte de mi proyecto más amplio, haya ayudado a visibilizar una experiencia que fue formativa, pero poco conocida, en la biografía de Victoria Santa Cruz.”
English Translation: “Victoria Santa Cruz testified: ‘I was born a woman, I was born Black, and later I realized that the fact of being Latin American was also an obstacle.’ During her lifetime, Victoria Santa Cruz overcame intersectional obstacles and made Black lives visible. But the impact of Afro-Latin American women leading global lives is often invisible in the international academic space and public consciousness, especially in the United States. To fully understand these women’s transnational legacies, we must fill in the gaps in the archives and break the silences. So I hope that my talk today about Victoria Santa Cruz’s lesser-known years in France, as part of my larger project, has helped to make visible an experience that was formative, but little known, in Victoria Santa Cruz’s biography.”
My full presentation (in Spanish) is available here. To watch with English subtitles, turn on Closed Captions (CC) and then adjust the settings wheel to turn on English translation subtitles.
