Student Feature: The Social Justice Movement and Family History of the Garifuna People

This article was written by Lesly Turcios-Hernandez, one of our work study students who descends from a family of Garifuna people.

Garifuna people are a population of Afro-Caribbean descent that first originated around 1635 as West-African Slaves that landed on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. Garifunas lived alongside French settlers but was later exiled by British troops to Honduras Bay Islands. The Garifunas started farming cassava and other crops. This allowed the community to flourish and expand their population to the coasts of Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize.

Garifunas are known for their culture and a special form of dancing called punta. Punta is a rhythmic dance that Garifunas use to celebrate each other and their culture. Punta has brought families and people together for years based on the rhythmic movements that help them relieve stress between the years of oppression that they face. The Honduran government gives Garifunas a designated part of the land to continue their style of living. Unfortunately, neighboring communities want to expand their land because in Honduras the more land you have the wealthier you are. Garifunas have been targeted due to the color of their skin. A Canadian millionaire decided to buy the land to start a tourist attraction to profit off of the Garifuna’s land issued to them by the U.N. Declaration of Indigenous Rights to protect them. First, they were displaced from Africa as slaves. Next, they were expelled from St. Vincent, where they had tried to settle after escaping from slavery. Now, they face expulsion from the Honduran coast. 

The Garifuna community is trying their hardest to keep the remainder of their land without the support of the Honduran government. My family is originally fromHonduras and on my mother’s side, and my great grandmother is of Garifuna descent. My great grandmother always spoke about how she’d received an amount of money from the Honduran government but she'd have to keep it a secret because unfortunately in Honduras if you have a sum of money it is not a smart idea to publicize it because of the growing poverty rates there. My mother told me about how my great grandpa had bought an island of the coast of Honduras called San Carlos. He explained to me that he bought this island as an area of refuge for his family from the oppressive government. My grandmother would show my mother about the traditional Garifuna dance called “Punta”. Punta is an inclusive way to bring communities together by hip movements in a circular motion. This way of dancing is used on festive occasions. 

Lesly’s great-grandmother, Lidia Hernandez.

Lesly’s Garifuna cousins who live in Tela, Honduras.

With the Black Lives Matter movement that is going on in the United States, Garifunas in Honduras are having their own civil rights movement after the recent kidnapping of 5 Garifunos. They were abducted by armed police after protesting for their rights. While in Tela the ancestral territory rights were recognized for the Barra Vieja community, down on the coast on Thursday, September 8, a large group of police officers assembled to evict Garifunas from their homes. In a parallel to the injustices Black people face in the United States, in Honduras it is harder for darker-skinned Garifunas to find jobs or be a part of an interracial marriage. Ironically, with all the amazing traditions and ethnic dances Garifunas have to offer, they still face oppression from the people who have interest in their culture.

The Garifuna Flag