The African Diaspora International Film Festival is my favorite film festival. It’s the only one where I would like to watch every film. That’s because the African Diaspora is everywhere and thrives in many ways and places that you never expected.
African Diaspora International Film Festival Transcultural Dialogues 🇵🇪
Films on how identities evolve in new places
Columbia University, Teachers College, Morningside Heights
Apr 24-26, Fri-Sun
$17
Latin Transcultural Dialogues
Naomi’s Journey (Peru / Germany) 🇵🇪
A woman travels from Peru to Germany seeking justice for her sister, navigating an unfamiliar legal system and the emotional realities of migration.
Friday, April 24 – 6:00 PM
Invisible Heroes: African Americans in the Spanish Civil War (USA / Spain) 🇺🇸 🇪🇸
A powerful story connecting struggles against fascism in Spain with the fight for civil rights in the United States. Features Zoom Q&A with co-producer Mireia Sentis.
Saturday, April 25 – 2:30 PM
Angels on Diamond Street (USA) 🇲🇽
A Philadelphia church community supports an undocumented Mexican family, reflecting ongoing conversations around migration, solidarity, and belonging.
Saturday, April 25 – 4:30 PM
This is probably an African American church community protecting our Mexican brothers and sisters. That’s good religion.
Mexico has its own African history through its Caribbean gateway Veracruz. The famous Mexican wedding song “La Bamba” is believed to be a reference to the Mbamba people, a Bantu people of the old Kongo kingdoms. Kongolese were singing it in Veracruz as early as 1683. Most Afro-Mexicans have moved to the Pacific side of Mexico, and are currently fighting for recognition as one of Mexico’s Indigenous communities.
Mexico also has a more recent African history through African Americans finding more dignity in Mexico than in the United States. Artist Elizabeth Catlett is a famous example. The musical “Mexodus” playing in Union Square now is also about the Underground Railroad in the other direction.
The Invisible Color: Black Cubans in Miami (USA) 🇨🇺
An exploration of Afro-Cuban identity in exile, tracing histories often made invisible within both Cuban and U.S. narratives. Followed by Panel Discussion: Black Migration, Identity, and Visibility with Abraham Paulos (Black Alliance for Just Immigration – BAJI) and Dr. Reinaldo B. Spech (ADIFF Co-Director). Moderated by Diarah N’Daw-Spech.
Saturday, April 25 – 6:30 PM
Colorism is real, and many people of color are taught to say they are white because of the advantages that go with that. The U.S. Census is nonsense because of this. I think that in spite of this weird moment in American history, now is the time to be proud of who you are, because it’s all good.
Candombe (Uruguay) – Transcultural Sound Program 🇺🇾
A short film where Afro-Uruguayan drumming traditions carry memory, resistance, and cultural continuity across generations.
Sunday, April 26 – 5:00 PM
Candombe was the first obviously African practice that I noticed many white Uruguayans participating in. They don’t see candombe as Black or white. They see it as Uruguayan. That’s a good place to be.
These are just the Afro-Latin films. There’s a lot more here. My biggest lesson in 20 years of studying Latin culture is that we are far more African and/or Indigenous than most of us have been taught. The African Diaspora International Film Festival is a great place to receive that lesson/blessing on the big screen.
A Point of View
This is an interesting subject because we have been migrating since we got two feet. I work with a few communities both in New York and in their home countries, and they are absolutely different. I’ve come to the conclusion that where you live says more about you than any part of your heritage.
Want to live well in New York? You have to hustle like a New Yorker. Want to live well in Puerto Rico? You have to slow your flow, or you’ll never be blessed by the true beauty of the people, the island, and the culture.
At the same time, there are characteristics that form you and stay with you for your entire life. Many character traits form in early childhood. It’s been said that your character is defined by age 3. You can take any human baby, put it in another culture, and it will grow up fully native.
Where you lived as a teenager seems to inform who you are as an adult. My father was born in Berlin. He didn’t have much German character, but he subconsciously spelled our last name in the German way. He was raised in Thailand, and even though he spent most of his life in the United States, most Americans would see him as aThai. Actually most Americans thought he was Mexican because he didn’t look Asian.
Some characteristics pass through the generations. I have a Chinese great-grandfather from Shanghai. I don’t look Chinese, but am a hard worker, respect elders, and think in 500-year time scales, all of which are Chinese character traits.
I also have my grandfather’s gift for language. When he died, he was a Professor of Oriental Languages at Hamburg University in Germany. I have lived in English, Thai, Brazilian Portuguese, German, French; plus Argentine, Colombian, Puerto Rican, and Dominican Spanish. I have the most amazing conversations with taxi drivers in places where I don’t even speak the language. I have no idea how that happens, but it does.
I Am a Living Transcultural Dialogue
I was born, raised, and educated in Los Angeles, but also spent my preteen years in Bangkok, Thailand. I grew up in Latino and Black communities. Both my parents are graduates of Howard University, the famous HBCU.
My heritage is Persian > Indian > Thai < Chinese / English Canadian < French Canadian < Irish < Welsh. I can trace my Persian (Parsi / Zoroastrian) heritage back to the Islamic conquest of 651. I can trace my Chinese family line four generations back to Shanghai. I can trace my Welsh-Irish heritage back to Cromwell’s Army of 1645.
I don’t look Persian, but have a Persian nose and hands. An Indian woman once called me out as a Parsi (without me telling her) because of the shape of my hands. They look exactly like my father’s. I’m older now, but used to have thick Chinese hair.
I have lived, loved, or worked in Los Angeles, Bangkok, New York, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Paris, Istanbul, San Juan, Santo Domingo, and Santiago de los Caballeros.
I had an American family in Los Angeles, and a Colombian family in New York for eight years. I was part of a Puerto Rican family in San Juan for four years. I now have an Afro-Indigenous Dominican Taíno family. They do not speak English. I live in Spanish full time. Cubans and Dominicans keep telling me I’m “aplatanado” (a foreigner who has adopted local customs).
I don’t do religion, but see God through a Caribbean Lucumí lens. The Yoruba Orishas began revealing themselves to me on my last day living in New York, on my way to Puerto Rico. I now recognize they have been around my entire life. I just didn’t have the context to understand.
Cubans and Puerto Ricans named me a son of Eleguá. I didn’t even know who that was, but it turns out I really am a son (of Yemayá, Oshún, Ogún, and Guadalupe too). In fact my character changed between New York and San Juan. I’m funny in Spanish, but was never funny before. Eleguá is a joker. So I have some African characteristics, but I don’t look Black. However, I can defend African Diasporic religions in English or Spanish, and often have to.
In Puerto Rico, I studied bomba drumming with Calle 13’s percussionist. That really changed me. I survived pandemic isolation through the drum. I named my bomba drum Oshún to protect me from bad love. Her color is golden yellow. When the pandemic receded, I moved to the Dominican Republic just to see what was there. I ended up in Santiago de los Caballeros, a city whose color is golden yellow.
Even between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, my spiritual iconography shifted. Puerto Rico is more Cuban Yoruba because Cuban Lucumí leaders moved to Puerto Rico after the Cuban Revolution. In the Dominican Republic the Orishas become Los Misterios of Dominican Palo. It’s not Cuban Palo. It’s softer and more flexible, like everything in the Dominican Republic.
So between islands about 200 miles apart, Eleguá, Yemayá, and Oshún became Ogún Balenyó, La Altagracia, and Anaïsa Pié.
I flow pretty well around the world, but people read me as a European or descendent. I dress like a local street person just to fit in. Everywhere I go, except New York City (including where I was born and raised), as soon as I speak, people tell me, “you’re not from here.”
I don’t use my American name anymore because most Latinos can’t pronounce it, and I’m not the same person I was in New York. Where I live, most people are what Americans would call Black, and I look funny. Living in the Caribbean for seven years now, I’ve become Iroko “Kíko” Keith (in a Caribbean accent Keith is pronounced “Kí.”). My street name is actually a sound poem based on the song of Puerto Rico’s beloved singing frog. Island Puerto Ricans get it.
So I am a living example of how our identities change, depending on where we live. I often get asked if I’m Brazilian or Italian. I don’t know anymore. I am an American of the United States, but also a little of all the people and places that embraced me.
One thing I have learned is not to let anyone else define you. We define ourselves through our own character and behavior. Follow your own north star. ¡Aché!
PS: Great art makes you think. I haven’t even seen these films, but they are making me think. Go to the Festival and see what happens. It will probably make you proud to be whatever you are.