The Afro-Latin@ Forum is pleased to host “Afro-Latin@s Now! Strategies for Visibility and Action,” a three-day international conference that will gather scholars, community leaders and artists to advance a dialogue on issues of importance to Black Latin@s in the United States as well as foster positive relations between Latin@s, African Americans and other peoples of color. Among our institutional partners in this endeavor are the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Center for the Humanities of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, El Museo del Barrio, and the W.E.B.Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. 

In keeping with the UN resolution (A/RES/64/169) declaring 2011 as the International Year of People of African Descent, this conference will be held on November 3-5, 2011 in New York City. Participants will lead panels and workshops addressing a range of issues such as representation, media, youth, education and the performing arts to promote awareness and social engagement across Afro-Latin@ communities in the United States and throughout the Americas.  

The goal of the conference will be to promote dialogue and mutual understanding amongst and between Afro-Latin@s, the broader Latin@ and African American populations, and the general public including other peoples of color. We aim to expand and solidify the widening network of educators and activists working on related themes, and to begin defining the key educational and policy issues that bear on the recognition and empowerment of this largely overlooked and underserved population.   

Invited participants will be educators, community activists, cultural workers and policy advocates from different parts of the country, and leaders from Afro-Descendant movements in Latin America and the Caribbean.  The venues for the conference will be the Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and El Museo del Barrio. 

A planning committee comprised of several working groups is already busy organizing the conference and seeking institutional and financial support. Designated panel topics include racial identity, youth and education, invisibility and misrepresentation in the media, intra-racial dialogues, and practices of cultural expression. The planned schedule will call for a plenary welcoming round table on Thursday evening November 3rd, a full day of panels on Friday November 4th, and family and youth programming on Saturday November 5. 


The afrolatin@ forum works to build and strengthen research and activist networks among Latin@s of African descent in the United States. Our focus is on Black Latin@s in the United States and their relationships with other communities of color. This emphasis is guided by a transnational perspective that recognizes the centrality of race in understanding today's global reality and the struggle for social justice.