Celebrate with us as Strictly Facts hits a milestone 75th episode—our heartfelt thanks goes out to each one of you for embarking with us on this journey of enlightenment and shared knowledge. Today, we raise the curtain on the contentious and historic border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela, a saga with roots tangled deep in the colonial era and now fueled by the modern-day allure of oil. Through the lens of the December 2023 referendum and the extended history of The Guianas, we illuminate the myriad facets of this geopolitical struggle, highlighting the stakes for indigenous communities and the sovereignty of nations.Bringing context to the present, we analyze Guyana's strategic moves, including an appeal to the International Court of Justice and a call for US support, against the backdrop of Venezuela's territorial claims. Featuring insights from leaders like President Irfa Ali and regional bodies like CARICOM, we piece together a narrative that stretches beyond borders into the heart of Caribbean resilience. Join us as we untangle the complex interplay of history, diplomacy, and emerging oil interests in a Caribbean story that continues to shape the future of an entire region.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Youtube Looking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

The echoes of Caribbean carnivals, the rhythm of calypso, and the wisdom of our elders - these are the threads that weave the rich tapestry of our heritage. As I navigated the bittersweet waves of personal loss this holiday season, I was reminded just how vital it is to preserve the legacy of our ancestors. This brief but poignant episode is a reflection on the journey of Strictly Facts, our growth through the podcasting world, and the challenges faced in education during an unprecedented global pandemic. It's an intimate look back at the last few years, with a forward gaze filled with hope and determination.We're celebrating three years of Strictly Facts with heartfelt gratitude, acknowledging the unwavering support from our listeners who have become family. I take you through the personal stories that fuel my passion for Caribbean history and share latest updates moving forward. Join me, Alexandra Miller, as we continue to empower, elevate, and unify through the stories of our past, and stride into a year of abundance and shared narratives.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Youtube Looking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

The Caribbean influence in the United States is undeniable, especially in states like New York. In this episode, guest Damion R. Evans helps illuminate this story through the engrossing life story of Ms. Martha Gayle, a Jamaican immigrant who journeyed to the US almost a century ago. He'll also be sharing his experiences of discovering Gayle's remarkable collection compiled by Jamaican Demar Ludford, and enlighten us about the impact of Caribbean immigrants on the American society and culture.You'll learn about Gayle, who braved her way through the early twentieth century U.S. and found her footing in the domestic workforce, eventually evolving into a landlady in Bed-Stuy. You'll also hear about the effects of World Wars and Civil Rights Movement on Gayle's mindset, and how she turned struggles into triumphs. Our conversation with Damion not only probes into Gayle's personal life, but also expands to the broader perspective of Caribbean migration. Finally, we urge listeners to understand the significance of Caribbean history and the need for its better representation in mainstream media. This episode is not just a conversation; it's a revelation that uncovers the resilience and influence of Jamaican immigrants in shaping the US.Damion R. Evans is a doctoral candidate in World History at St. John’s University in New York City. Damion is originally from Jamaica and is now a soldier with 20 years of experience in the US Army. Throughout his military career, he has had multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Europe. His research interest includes West Indian Immigration, as well as the region’s cultural and colonial history. Currently, his doctoral dissertation analyzes how the life of Martha Gayle exemplifies the Jamaican immigrant experience which furthers the conversation on the perceptions of black identity and culture in the United States.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

In this episode, Klieon John, founder of Twin Island Cinema, joins Strictly Facts as we shed  light on the pivotal role Caribbean films have played in shaping the region's vibrant culture and history. Expect a deep dive into the evolution of Caribbean cinema, from the early days of foreign influence to the emergence of globally recognized works like "BIM" and "Rockers." Klieon shares his personal experiences, painting a vivid picture of the creativity, resilience, and passion that are the bedrock of Caribbean filmmaking. From capturing moments of monumental change, like independence movements, to blending diverse genres, every bit of Caribbean life finds its way onto the silver screen. The discussion also explores how technology has been harnessed to propel Caribbean cinema into the global spotlight. We address the challenges facing Caribbean cinema, such as inadequate representation in mainstream media and the hurdles in accessing these films. Klieon provides invaluable advice to aspiring filmmakers and offers insights into his latest ventures in indigenous filmmaking. So tune in, as we traverse the captivating landscape of Caribbean cinema and celebrate its vital role in our culture.With over 14 years of experience in the media industry, Klieon John is a seasoned Caribbean writer, filmmaker and creative director who has worked in public relations, advertising and brand development for international and regional companies and agencies across several Caribbean territories including St. Kitts, Jamaica and Trinidad. Klieon has produced a number of commercials, shorts, creative and non-fiction projects featuring cultural and environmental content in partnership with medium to large scale organisations throughout the region. Follow and support Klieon on Patreon, The Nieuwe Native audio journal on the on-going process behind his Tilting Axis Fellowship, and on social media @twinislandcinema and @byklieonjohn. You can also subscribe to the Twin Island Cinema Newsletter to learn more about grants, festivals, events,  new releases etc happening in the region.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

We're thrilled to have Dr. Alexa Rodriguez join us for a deeply engaging discussion through the Dominican Republic's educational history. With her unique insights developed through her Dominican heritage and academic background, Dr. Rodriguez deftly unveils the obscured narratives of education under the shadow of US imperialism. Ever wondered how external forces shape the landscapes of native education systems? Here's your chance to delve into the fascinating, yet lesser-known saga of the Dominican Republic's struggle for educational autonomy during the eight-year US occupation (1916-1924) and beyond.As we venture deeper into the heart of the Dominican Republic, prepare to be moved by the resolute spirit of local communities, their tireless efforts to establish and maintain schools, and their unwavering advocacy for their children's right to respect and education. Dr. Rodriguez masterfully guides us through the evolution of education in the Dominican Republic, from the disheartening defunding of schools during the US intervention, to the effects of the Trujillo dictatorship, and the current-day challenges facing Dominican education. Through this eye-opening dialogue, we aim not just to revisit the past, but also to instigate a broader conversation about education's critical role in shaping a nation's future. If you're curious about history, education, or the complex interplay between the two, this episode is one you won't want to miss.Alexa Rodríguez is an assistant professor of education and a faculty affiliate for the Center for Race and Public Education in the South at EHD as well as at the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research examines schools, migration, and the formation of racial and national identities in both Latin America and in the United States. She is currently working on a book manuscript, "Crafting Dominicanidad" (forthcoming with University of North Carolina Press), an intellectual history that examines how Dominicans used public schools to articulate and circulate competing notions of racial, class, and national identity during the early twentieth century. Her work has been published in History of Education, History of Education Quarterly, Latino Studies, Caribbean Studies, City & State New York, Clio and the Contemporary, and the blog of the History of Education Society in the UK.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

Education shapes lives - but how is this journey shaped by race, colonialism, and migration? Join us as we navigate the establishment of school systems in the British Caribbean post-Emancipation to the increasingly diverse classrooms of mid-20th century Britain. We're enlightened by the insights of Deanna Lyncook, a fellow podcaster and PhD student, whose research colors our understanding of Caribbean life and education abroad.We trace the racial and religious underpinnings of education in the anglophone colonies and unpack the challenges that newly-migrated British Caribbean students faced in the UK, from policies that hindered their academic success to the resistance and activism that these hurdles sparked within the Caribbean community. We also spotlight the unsung heroes: parents, educators, and activists who fought for an improved educational experience for Caribbean youth in Britain. Their story, alongside the enduring challenges faced by these students, continues to resonate today. In a world increasingly shaped by movement, understanding the interplay between education, history, and migration is more crucial than ever. Join us as we unearth an essential chapter of Black British and Caribbean history. Deanna Lyncook is a PhD student in History at Queen Mary University of London. Her research takes a transnational approach to the experiences of West Indian children in the British education system in Britain and its Caribbean colonies, in the second half of the 20th Century. She is the founder host of the weekly podcast The History Hotline where she discusses events and individuals that have shaped Black history in Britain and the Caribbean. She co-organised a Black British History Conference funded by the Institute of Historical Research, Queen Mary University and Northwestern University. She has curated an oral history exhibition at the Museum of Methodism and has also worked on historical research projects for the Society for Caribbean Studies, the University of Leeds, BBC Radio London and the Times Radio. She is also a coordinator for the Young Historians Project, that works on research projects to document neglected aspects of Black British History. Follow Deanna on Instagram and Twitter and The History Hotline on Instagram and Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

Our guest, award-winning author and U.S. Naval Academy professor, Dr. Sharika Crawford,  takes us on a historical journey to the heart of the Cayman Islands, unearthing the complex relationship between the environmental landscape and the Islands; inhabitants through turtle soup. Together, we traverse the Cayman's fascinating evolution, from the aftermath of slave emancipation to the rise and subsequent fall of the turtle hunting industry. Venture with us as we uncover the dynamics between the Caymanian sea turtle hunters and the British government, the Islands' two-tier racial hierarchy and its lasting implications on labor even today, and the repercussions of the environmental movement in the 20th century, focusing on conservation policies and their significant impact on Caymanian communities. Join us as we illuminate the often-overlooked role of the Cayman Islands' turtle hunters in the broader Caribbean narrative and global food consumption.Sharika Crawford is Professor of History at the United States naval Academy in Annapolis. In spring 2023, she was named the inaugural Speedwell Professor of International Studies, an honor she will hold until 2028. Crawford's primary research focuses on modern Latin America, specifically, Colombia and the interstitial places in the circum-Caribbean like the Archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia and the Cayman Islands. Her first monograph The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making published by the University of North Carolina Press received an Honorable Mention from the Elsa Goveia Prize in Caribbean History Committee of the Association of Caribbean Historians in 2021. It has been widely reviewed in national and international venues. Additionally, Crawford has published articles and essays in the Global South, Historia Critica, International Journal of Maritime History, Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, Latin American Research Review, and the New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. Dr. Crawford has also received several prestigious grants and fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the Fulbright U.S. Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies, the UNC-Duke Consortium for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and most recently, the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) OER in Caribbean Studies stipend. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

As we continue to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, this episode promises to enlighten you with a deep dive into the complexities of Cuba's domestic labor history, guided by the expert insights of our guest, Dr Anasa Hicks, Associate Professor of History at Florida State University. We journey together through the significant shifts of the 20th century, examining the enduring ties of domestic service to the history of slavery, the gendered and class structures of domestic labor, and the changing perceptions of these roles in society. From the turbulent era of the 1933 Revolution to the radical activism era between 1938 and 1959, we delve into the intricate narratives that have shaped the future of domestic service in Cuba. Hear the story of Elvira Rodriguez, a domestic servant and activist whose story embodies the power of workers' activism in Cuba. This is more than just a history lesson; it's an exploration of the power of activism and the complexities of labor history in Cuba. Tune in for a captivating and enlightening conversation.Anasa Hicks is Associate Professor of Caribbean History at Florida State University. Her research focuses on race, gender, and labor in 20th-century Cuba. Her first book, "Hierarchies at Home: Domestic Service in Cuba from Abolition to Revolution" was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

Have you ever wondered what Cuba was like before the 1959 Revolution? This fascinating episode promises to take you there. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with us as we are joined by Dr. Takkara Brunson for a riveting exploration of the Republic of Cuba period (1902-1958) through the lens of Black Cuban women. We unravel their significant contributions to the independence movement despite the racialized and gendered dynamics that pervaded their society.The evolution of Black women's activism in this era is a narrative of transformative power. Learn how their discourse gradually shifted from respectability to a critique of racism, sexism, and classism. Understand how they leveraged their political clout to form independent organizations and, surprisingly, how Black civic clubs became their gateway to patronage networks. We also highlight inspiring figures like  María Dámasa Jova Baró authored a and Inocencia Valdés’s commit, who used their voices and actions to make a tangible difference in their communities. This episode is a testament to the resilience and undying spirit of Black women in Cuba.Takkara Brunson is Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on political and cultural traditions of the African Diaspora, with emphasis on how Black women have shaped Latin American and Caribbean societies after slave abolition. She is the author of Black Women, Citizenship, and the Making of Modern Cuba, which was co-awarded the Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize for African American Women's History. Brunson’s research has appeared in Gender & History, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, and Cuban Studies, among other places. Her research has been supported by the Institute for Citizens and Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation), University of Rochester Frederick Douglass Institute, Ford Foundation, and UNCF/Mellon Programs.  She received her Ph.D. in Latin American History at the University of Texas at Austin and B.A. in Comparative Women’s Studies at Spelman College. Follow Dr. Brunson on Twitter.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate the Show Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform Share this episode with someone who loves Caribbean history and culture Share the episode on social media and tag us Donate to the show Produced by Breadfruit Media

Learning as a Caribbean person doesn't stop with understanding our history. In this episode, Dr. Emmanuela Stanislaus joins us for a discussion on the challenges of being educated outside of the region and how students can seek support and resources as they pursue their education. Dr. Emmanuela is an author, podcaster, consultant, and founder of Dr. Emmanuela Consulting. She finished her doctorate in Higher Education Administration in four years while balancing a demanding full time leadership role and a busy lifestyle. She founded Dr. Emmanuela Consulting where she supports women of color graduate students taking them from overwhelmed, isolated, and scared to clear, supported, and confident through the Writing on My Mind podcast, career and doctoral coaching, and speaking engagements. Dr. Emmanuela has also authored Taking Charge: A Career Guide for Graduate Students and is a contributor to Our Doctoral Journey Book: A Collection of Black Women's Experiences. Follow Dr. Emmanuela on Instagram and LinkedIn. CHeck out my episode on Dr. Emmanuela's podcast here. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Did you grow up hearing chilling stories of duppies and jumbies? Have you ever thought about what these tales and legends mean for Caribbean history and culture? In this episode, Amanda Alcántar joins us to do just that as we explore the impact of Caribbean folklore on our past and uphold their importance, particularly for Black and Brown communities. Amanda Alcántara is a Caribbean writer, journalist, and voice actor. Also known artistically as Ama Rey, Amanda is the author of Chula and How I Became a Mermaid. Her work has been featured in the anthology “Latinas: Struggles & Protests in 21st Century USA,” the poetry anthology “LatiNext,” Rolling Stone, The Huffington Post, Latino USA, Remezcla, and other publications. She is also a co-founder and previous editor of La Galería Magazine. In 2021, Alcántara began voicing audiobooks in English and Spanish, starting with providing the voiceover for the Spanish translation of The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman. She recently won an Earphones award for her narration of Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa by Julian Randall. Ama is also the host of the Spanish-language podcast, Radio Místico. Follow Amanda on Twitter and Instagram. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

One of my favorite parts of Caribbean culture is how we rally our islands and show our regional pride for our sports teams. In honor of Jamaica celebrating 61 years of independence and Jamaica's Reggae Girls making women's football history, I'm sharing six of my favorite Jamaican women's sports moments of all time. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Are there any Caribbean places that give you the creeps? Join us as we continue our summer travel list, this time sharing some of the top spots for hair-raising Caribbean history for your summer adventures. Be sure to let us know on social media if you plan on visiting any of these sites this summer!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Looking for somewhere new to travel to this summer while still learning something new about the region? Check out our recommendations for some of UNESCO's well-preserved World Heritage Sites in the Caribbean, where history, culture, nature, biodiversity, and legacy all come together. See the full list of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites here. Be sure to let us know on social media if you plan on visiting any of these sites this summer!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

There are few Caribbean-owned businesses that have withstood the test of time like GraceKennedy Ltd. has for over one century. In this episode Fred W. Kennedy, grandson of one of the original co-founders, joins Strictly  Facts to discuss his family's legacy with the company from the viewpoint of his father, Luis Fred Kennedy, who led the major conglomerate for over 50 years through pre- and post-independence Jamaica, the subject of our guest's new book Firstborn: The Life of Luis Fred Kennedy 1908-1982.  Fred W. Kennedy was born and raised in Jamaica. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of the West Indies (UWI) and a Master and Doctor of Education from the University of Toronto. After thirty years of serving as an educator and principal, Fred turned to writing Jamaican historical fiction. He is the author of Daddy Sharpe (2008) (the story of Jamaica’s National Hero, Samuel Sharpe) and Huareo (2015) (the story of a Jamaican Taino cacique). Firstborn is his first published work of nonfiction. He wrote his father’s biography “to celebrate the relationship of love and trust that we shared” and as “a tribute to him in praise of his contributions to the national development of Jamaica.” Fred remains connected to the company as Chairman of the GraceKennedy Foundation, which funds educational, environmental and health initiatives in Jamaica.  His interests and hobbies include Caribbean history and literature, cycling, tennis, travelling, boating and fishing. He and his wife Georgianne share their time between his native Jamaica and adopted Canada, where their three daughters and families reside.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Celebrate Caribbean-American Heritage Month and Black Music Month with Strictly Facts this June as Dr. Danielle Brown joins the show for a discussion on Caribbean music and its capacity for influencing education and building social change that spans from the shores of Trinidad and Tobago, with a brief history of Parang, to the Caribbean diaspora. Danielle Brown, Ph.D. is a multi-disciplinary artist-scholar and entrepreneur. She is the Founder and CEO of My People Tell Stories, LLC, a company based on the premise that people of color in particular, and marginalized people in general, need to tell and interpret their own stories. Brown is the author of the music-centered ethnographic memoir, East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home, and the companion Teacher Guidebook. Brown advocates for social justice in music and uses the arts to educate people on the history and culture of the Caribbean and African diaspora at large. For more information, visit: www.mypeopletellstories.com.  Follow Danielle on Instagram and Facebook. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

As a continuation of our last episode, Dr. Amarilys Estrella and Ana Maria Belique join for a discussion on anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic. Together, we discuss how the Dominican government has legitimized some of the conflict through state documentation, leaving generations of Dominicans and Dominicans of Haitian descent stateless  due to the 2013 Ruling 168/13.  Amarilys Estrella is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and a faculty affiliate for the Center for African and African American Studies at Rice University. Her research interests broadly focus on the intersections of race and gender within transnational movements, Black Latin American and Latinx identity, as well as human rights and anti-racist activism. Her first book project investigates how Blackness and Black identity, is produced, employed and transformed through everyday encounters among stateless Black grassroots activists of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic. In her article, “Muertos Civiles: Mourning the Casualties of Racism in the Dominican Republic” she examines mourning as a practice of resistance within anti-racist movements. In her blogpost “Black Latinx Encuentros: Embodied Knowledge and Reciprocal Forms of Knowledge Sharing” Estrella and her colleague Dr. Meryleen Mena explore the importance of encuentros, understood as meetings or collective forums where Black Feminists throughout the Americas create spaces for intellectual and personal reciprocity enabling us to connect across our similarities and differences. Ana María Belique is a founding member and leader of Reconoci. do, a movement that mobilizes and empowers Dominicans of Haitian descent and campaigns for equality and citizenship rights. She studied Sociology and specializes in Afro-Latin American and Caribbean studies from CLACSO. Her activism focuses on the fight for the restitution of the right to nationality of Dominicans of Haitian descent affected by ruling 168-13 of the Dominican Constitutional Court, as well as promoting the empowerment of the Dominican population of Haitian descent residing in Dominican bateyes. In addition, she founded the initiative for women and girls, MUÑECAS NEGRAS RD initiative, which offers a learning space to break the patterns imposed on black Dominican women. She coordinated the publication of two books, Nos Cambió La Vida (Our Transformed Lives) and "Somos Quien Somos," which document the stories of members of the Reconoci. do. She recently coordinated the Critical Training Space for Dominicans of Haitian descent. Ana María Belique has visited various international academic spaces where she talks about the reality of Dominicans of Haitian descent in the DR, human rights, Afro-descendants, and the experience of working with women in the bateyes. She was a visiting student at Columbia University in the Human Rights Advocacy Program 2022-2023 cohort.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Join Strictly Facts as we celebrate Haitian Heritage Month with new episodes on Haitian history. This week we're sharing a brief history of the longstanding racial conflict between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to followed up by an extensive conversation on present-day anti-Haitian sentiment in our next episode. Stay tuned!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The Caribbean has been an epicenter of global trade since the birth of colonialism. In this episode, international trade specialist Alicia Nicholls joins us for a discussion about both how the region has shaped and is being shaped by trade across the world. Alicia Nicholls is an international trade consultant with over a decade of experience providing bespoke trade research and advisory services to a variety of clients.   Miss Nicholls is the founder of the Caribbean’s leading trade policy and development blog, www.caribbeantradelaw.com, since 2011. She also presents regularly at both regional and international academic and industry-related conferences and webinars. Her primary research interests are foreign investment law/policy, global financial regulation and international business.  She is currently a research fellow and part-time lecturer with the University of the West Indies and also lectures part-time in the political economy of international trade and finance in The UWI Cave Hill’s Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology.Miss Nicholls’ multidisciplinary background includes a Bachelor of Science in Political Science with First Class Honours, a Master of Science in International Trade Policy with Distinction and a Bachelor of Laws with Upper Second Class Honours from The University of the West Indies. She also holds the prestigious FITT Diploma in International Trade from the Ontario, Canada-based Forum for International Trade Training (FITT). She attained the Post-Graduate Certificate in University Teaching and Learning (PGCUTL) from The UWI in July 2022. Follow Alicia Nicholls on Twitter and LinkedIn. CBERA - Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery ActCSME - CARICOM Single Market and Economy WHO - World Trade OrganizationSupport the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

No island's carnival is exactly the same - take for instance, Grenada's Spicemas. Christell Simeon joins Strictly Facts to discuss the history and unique culture that Spicemas and Grenada offer the world each August.   Christell Simeon is a Grenadian from the parish of St. David. Christell is a former educator of Caribbean history at the Presentation Brothers College (2005-2013). Christell is an SGU Alumni with a BSC in Business management with highest honors (Summa Cum Laude) from 2007 to 2011. Christell holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Regina, Canada (2013-2016). Christell is the owner of Spice Island DigiContent, a registered business in Grenada in the Creative and Cultural industry that also operates  Island Learning Grenada. Follow Island Learning Grenada on Instagram and Facebook. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

More than sixty years ago, on September 1, 1957, over 1600 lives were lost and generations of families were impacted when a train derailed on its way to Kingston after leaving Montego Bay. Writer and leading handwriting expert Beverley East joins Strictly Facts to share the story of the Kendal Railway Tragedy, its impact on her own family, and how and what inspired her to write Reaper of Souls, a historical novel about what was then the second worst rail disaster in history at the time. Ms. Beverley East CAM, MGA, CFDE, has been a guest at several major literary festivals. Mainly the international Calabash Literary Festival in St Elizabeth Jamaica she read twice in 2008 and in 2014. Other literary festivals include Guadeloupe, Dominica, Nigeria, London and USA. She has sat on literary panels at the Library of Congress, World Bank and the House of Commons. She was a fellow for the Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts (VCCA ) and Calabash literary festival. She created the Writer’s Lounge in 2007 where she has guided many authors on their journey to writing and publishing. Ms. East has participated in several anthologies and currently sits on the Board of the Hurston Wright Foundation.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Did you enjoy our last episode for Women's History Month? Take a quick listen to this special Review Session as host, Alexandria Miller, explores some of her key takeaways and offers several recommendations on scholars, activists, and even books to check out if you're interested in learning more about Caribbean Feminisms. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Happy Women's History Month and International Women's Day! In honor of all Caribbean bad gyals at home and in the diaspora, Sarah-anne Gresham joins us for a discussion on Caribbean Feminisms and the ways Caribbean women have challenged oppressions and campaigned for their rights and the rights of others. Sarah-Anne Gresham is the co-founder of Intersect Antigua which is a Queeribbean feminist collective of stories, art, and teach-ins on gender justice. Sarah was a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship in 2018 and received a Master of Arts degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from George Washington University in the spring of 2020. She graduated as a Columbian College of Arts and Sciences “Graduate  Distinguished Scholar” in recognition of her work as a graduate research specialist and communications assistant, as well as her master’s thesis on feminist historiography and literary theory. She is now a third-year doctoral student and teaching assistant at Rutgers University with research interests in Black/Caribbean feminist thought, affect theory, comparative racialization, and Japanese anime. Her work as a teaching assistant to undergraduate students is rooted in understanding and critiquing limited liberal feminist paradigms of “equality” with men. Rather than seeking inclusion, equality, or reforms within systems and categories that perpetuate harm, she agitates for abolition and transformative justice and for dismantling, in the words of bell hooks, “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” Follow Sarah on Instagram and follow Intersect Antigua on Instagram and Twitter. *Minor Correction: The Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence are November 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) to December 10, Human Rights Day. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The environment plays a tremendous role in the Caribbean's growth and development. How often, though, do we consider its impact on education? In this episode, Dr. Jessica S. Samuel joins for a discussion on educational equity and the environment, with a special focus on the US Virgin Islands and the hidden racial  ramifications of environmental conservation on learning in St. John. Dr. Jessica S. Samuel is the founder and CEO of Radical Education & Advocacy League, LLC (REAL) an educational equity firm focused on improving BIPOC student outcomes. An Afro-Caribbean woman, Dr. Samuel was born and raised in the U.S. Virgin Islands with roots throughout the wider Caribbean. She is an educator, interdisciplinary scholar, and decolonial activist who studies race, education, colonialism and the environment, including where they all converge in the United States and Caribbean. Dr. Samuel’s research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Social Science Research Council. She holds a PhD in American Studies from Boston University, a Master of Education from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a Bachelor in African American Studies and Anthropology from Wesleyan University. Dr. Samuel is also a proud alumna of Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Teach for America, and the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers. Follow Dr. Samuel on Instagram here.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Did you know that there are two territories on the island of Saint Martin that go by roughly the same name? In this brief episode, we share just how the French Saint-Martin and Dutch Sint Maarten came to be in the eastern Caribbean. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

For decades, the Caribbean has gained a reputation for being one of the most homophobic regions in the world. In this episode, Ryan Persadie joins Strictly Facts for a discussion on the historic, colonial influence of anti-queer legislation and how the Caribbean and diaspora has worked together to evolve since the nineteenth century. Ryan Persadie is a writer, artist, educator, and PhD Candidate in Women and Gender studies and Sexual Diversity studies at the University of Toronto. His aesthetic and scholarly work investigates queer Caribbean diasporas, performance, aesthetics, and Afro-Asian intimacies. His current doctoral work specifically explores how Anglophone Caribbean music, dance, vocality, and embodiment offer salient archives to pursue critical erotic place- and self-making practices within and among queer Indo-Caribbean diasporas. Outside of academia, Ryan is a community organizer with the Caribbean Equality Project, and performs as a drag artist where he goes by the stage name of Tifa Wine.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

It's a new year which means we're celebrating two years in podcasting! Listen to this brief episode on our goals for 2023, including something big we've got in the works!Take our listener survey now and be entered to win a gift card for your support!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

What a year 2022 has been! What a better way to close our second year of podcasting than with a discussion of some of our most popular episodes as we gear up for 2023. Listen to "Celebrating the Holidays in the Caribbean." Take our listener survey now!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The Caribbean has influenced fashion and style all over the world, especially in global music culture. In this episode, Alcot Laing joins us for a brief discussion on some of the keen ways that Caribbean people have contributed to, challenged, and shaped fashion culture and our hopes for greater recognition of Caribbean style and pattern!Alcot Laing is the creative genius behind the Caribbean fashion apparel line Rice & Tees. Through clever wordplay and ingenuity, the brand fuses Caribbean culture, fashion, and art in an unprecedented way. Alcot is a FAMU graduate originally from Spanish Town, Jamaica, raised in both the US and Canada. As the owner of several highly successful businesses, Alcot aims to leave a cultural footprint and legacy for those to come. Follow Rice & Tees on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok and be sure to read our Instagram post to enter our co-sponsored holiday giveaway!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

On November 18, 1803, Haiti, or what was then Saint-Domingue, successfully defeated the French in the Battle of Vertières, the final conflict in the Haitian Revolution that led to Haiti's proclamation as the first independent Black nation months later. In this episode, I discuss this momentous victory on its anniversary over 200 years laters ahead of  Battle of Vertières and Armed Forces Day.  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

One of the most defining events of the last century in St. Lucia is the Great Fire of Castries Fire, which destroyed most of the island's capital on June 19, 1948.  In this episode, Milt Moise joins us to discuss the events of the fire, its impact in rebuilding St. Lucia's infrastructure, and its social and creative legacies as a the subject of one of the nation's most revered poems. Milt Moise is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Florida. His current project examines the uses of absence in contemporary American bipolar fiction. His research interests include consciousness in literature, film and television, prestige TV aesthetics, self-referentiality, Caribbean and Postcolonial literature, and trauma narratives. He is the co-founder of the Television Reading Group at the University of Florida. Follow Milt on Twitter and Letterboxd. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Closing out Hispanic Heritage Month, Marley Pulido joins us for this second of a two-part conversation on Cuban independence. Together, we highlight the importance of Afro-Cubans to the island's early movements for liberation and discuss the consequences of their erasure in the subsequent storytelling late-19th and early 20th century Cuba.  Marley Pulido is a Cuban-born community builder, historian and archivist. Marley runs Historia Negra de Cuba, a multilingual digital archive and multimedia creative hub preserving the Black Cuban historical memory of the island and the diaspora. Follow Historia Negra de Cuba on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Rarely do nationalist movements arise over night. This is also true for Cuba as we discuss in this first of a two-part series on Cuba's independence movement. Join us in commemorating 154 years since Cuba's Declaration of Independence this week by listening and sharing this episode. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Did you know that, outside of Ireland, the only other nation to celebrate St. Patrick's Day as a national holiday is the Caribbean island of Montserrat? Montserrat's celebration of its Irish connections go beyond a long history of Irish migration and colonialism to also honor its history of Black freedom and attempted emancipation. Ursula Petula Barzey joins this episode to discuss this history and prompts us to consider racial myths and identity in contemporary times.  Ursula Petula Barzey is the Founder & Digital Content Creator of Caribbean & Co. Established in 2014 the aim is to promote Caribbean travel, culture and its expanding luxury lifestyle to potential visitors from across the globe. A native of Montserrat who resides in London, United Kingdom, she travels to the Caribbean often to feature the best cultural and foodie experiences, places to stay and live/work opportunities.  Thrown in the mix is Caribbean history and heritage.  Ursula's mission is to showcase that there is more to the Caribbean than sun, sea and sand.  It is this distinction that has earned Caribbean & Co. has won five Travel Media Awards in recent years. Follow Ursula and Caribbean & Co. on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The West Indian Day Parade is a decades long staple in New York culture. In this brief episode, listen to how the parade was founded as an ode to its post-pandemic return. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Bush medicine, herbal medicine, or roots are all names for traditional forms of medicine used across the African diaspora. These traditional forms of healing carry legacies of history and knowledge as we discuss with Dr. Julia S. Jordan-Zachery following the release of her documentary, Healing Roots, on Bajan women's healing practices. Julia S. Jordan-Zachery is professor and chair of the Women’s Gender and Sexualtiy Studies Department at Wake Forest University. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on African American women and public policy. She is also the author of the award winning books “Black women, cultural images and social policy” (2009 Routledge) and “Shadow Bodies: Black Women, Ideology, Representation, and Politics” (Rutgers University Press, 2017) as well as a number of articles and edited volumes including “Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag” (Arizona University Press, 2019). Jordan-Zachery was awarded the Accinno Teaching Award, Providence College (2015-2016). Jordan-Zachery serves as the President of the Association for Ethnic Studies. Follow Dr. Jordan-Zachery on Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

In the bonus episode, of Strictly Facts: A Guide to Caribbean History and Culture, we’re doing an episode swap with Carry on Friends: The Caribbean American Podcast. In this episode, Keisha and Ashley are American-born with strong Jamaican family ties and discuss how their identities motivated them to obtain their Jamaican citizenship. They dive into what inspired them to consider dual citizenship. Ashley explains that while she didn’t need validation from getting her Jamaican citizenship, it is an opportunity that exists and she chose to take advantage of it. She also encourages others to explore this option.We also touch on dual citizenship for children. Keisha, who has applied for Jamaican citizenship for both her daughter and herself, shares that Jamaica feels like a second home and she wants her daughter to feel the same way through having official Jamaican citizenship.Additionally, they speak about the application process for Jamaican citizenship. Due to COVID, the process has been delayed so those considering this option should manage expectations, and ensure that they have all the details and documents they need to avoid delays. The process is relatively simple and Ashley’s platform provides resources to help guide those interested in dual citizenship. While this conversation mainly focused on Jamaican citizenship, it can and should be extended to all other Caribbean countries. It’s a privilege to have dual citizenship and we should take advantage of it.Mentioned in this episode:American Born, Caribbean RaisedReimagining the American DreamWatch Ashley’s video on Dual CitizenshipConnect with Ashley:  Instagram | Twitter | Website Connect with Keisha: Instagram | WebsiteSupport the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The anglophone Caribbean and other parts of the former British empire celebrate Emancipation Day on the First of August, commemorating the abolition of slavery on August 1, 1804. In this episode, Dr. Natasha Lightfoot joins us for a discussion on Antigua's intricate story of emancipation, freedom, and the impact of colonialism then and now.  Natasha Lightfoot is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Faculty Fellow in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. Her research and teaching interests include Atlantic slavery and emancipation, Black community formation and acts of resistance, and daily practices of freedom in the nineteenth-century English speaking Caribbean. She is the author of Troubling Freedom: Antigua and the Aftermath of British Emancipation (Duke University Press, 2015), which focuses on black working people’s struggles and everyday forms of liberation in British colonial Antigua after slavery’s end. She has also been published in The New York Times, as well as a number of academic journals including The CLR James Journal, Slavery & Abolition, Small Axe, and most recently the William and Mary Quarterly. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Ford Foundation, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the British Library, and most recently from the American Council of Learned Societies. She is currently writing a book titled Fugitive Cosmopolitans about enslaved people’s mobility, imperial subjecthood and struggles for freedom between empires in the Caribbean. Follow Dr. Lightfoot on Twitter.  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

US Immigration policies have historically marginalized people of color across the world. In this episode, Joy Charles joins us to discuss how these policies have disproportionately affected immigrants from the Caribbean despite our long history and major contributions in the United States. A proud daughter of Afro-Latino heritage, a New Yorker and practitioner of the Afro-Brazilian tradition Candomblé, Joy Charles graduated from Hunter College, CUNY, with a BA in Political Science and Anthropology. As a student at Quinnipiac Law, Joy is interested in the areas of international and immigration law where she seeks to become a powerful agent of change by creating policies that effectively address the pressing concerns of communities of color. She is an active member of Juristas Negras (Black Women Jurists), an international collective based in Brazil that focuses on the empowerment and advancement of Black women in the law. Joy is particularly interested in championing the advancement of more people of color in the legal profession and building connections with legal professionals and leaders across the Afro-Diaspora. She is also interested in pursuing research that explores Caribbean migration and US immigration policies as well as the intersectionality between religious racism and the law. In her spare time, Joy likes to travel, read, and practice self-care.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Long before Puerto Rico became known for reggaeton, the island had bomba. A music and dance tradition created by enslaved and self-emancipated Africans to forge community and even incite rebellion, bomba has continued to grow as a space of Black identity, community, and ancestral connection. In this episode, Dr. Sarah Bruno shares with us this history.  Sarah Bruno is the 2022-2023 postdoctoral fellow in Latinx Art, Cultures, and Religions in the Humanities Research Center at Rice University. Her research and art lie at the intersections of performance, diaspora, and digitality. She is currently creating a digital exhibition of the Fernando Pico papers, and as a member of LifeXCode: Digital Humanities Against Enclosure and Taller Electric Marronage. The Pico Papers informs her first manuscript, Re-Sounding Resistencia where she uses the Afro-Puerto Rican genre of bomba as a site and method in constructing a cartography of Black Puerto Rican femme feeling throughout history.  Dr. Bruno was a Mellon ACLS Dissertation Fellow in 2020-2021 and the 2020 awardee of the Association of Black Anthropologists Vera Green Prize for Public Anthropology. Bruno was the 2021-2022 ACLS Emerging Voices Race and Digital Technologies postdoctoral fellow at the Franklin Humanities Institute and in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University.  She charges herself to continue to write with care about the never-ending process of enduring, imagining, thriving, and healing in Puerto Rico and its diaspora. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

What a better time to catch up on some Caribbean history books than during  Caribbean American Heritage Month! We're reading Aunty Roachy Seh by Louise Bennett-Coverley, Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, and Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean by Aliyah Khan. Read along with us and let us know what else you're reading this summer! Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Happy National Caribbean Heritage Month! In this episode, we celebrate the life and legacy of Sir Randol F. Fawkes, Bahamian "Father of Labor," in honor of  Sir Randol Fawkes Labor Day this Friday, June 3rd. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

In this bonus episode of Strictly Facts, we’re doing an episode swap with Carry On Friends The Caribbean American Podcast featuring the episode "Solidarity". In this episode we discuss the legacy of Caribbean Americans in Civil Rights and the importance of continuing our participation for equal rights.In the words of Black Uhuru's "Solidarity!" Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Celebrations of national heroes in the Caribbean pay homage to individuals who have had an immense impact on the region. In this quick chat, we discuss Barbados' national heroes and their impact, and even talk about who we'd like to see as national heroes moving forward. Let us know who you think should be your island's next national hero!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Formerly known as Saint Domingue, Haiti is the world's first Black republic and the first independent Caribbean nation. Despite these facts, Haiti has faced a series of postcolonial challenges rooted in the racial threat the Haiti Revolution (1791-1804) posed to the rest of the world. Dr. Yveline Alexis joins our discussion to discuss the legacy of the Haitian Revolution and the numerous examples of neocolonial imposition Haiti faced in the aftermath of independence.  Yveline Alexis studies the Global Black past. She is an Associate Professor at Oberlin College. Her first book, Haiti Fights Back gained the prized Haitian Studies Association Book award and a nod in The Times Literary Supplement as a 2021 Book of the Year. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

In a similar fashion to other Caribbean islands, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Haiti remained in close connection throughout France's colonialism. Dr. Philippe Zacaïr joins this episode to discuss how these connections strengthened after Haiti's triumph as the first Black republic in 1804.Philippe Zacaïr was born and raised in Guadeloupe, in the Eastern Caribbean. He received his Ph.D. in history in 1999 from the University of Paris-Sorbonne Nouvelle in France. He has been a faculty member of the History Department of California State University Fullerton since 2002. He teaches Latin American, Caribbean, and world history. He is the editor of Haiti and Haitians in the Wider Caribbean (University Press of Florida, 2010). His work has appeared in Cahiers du Monde Hispanique et Luso-Brésilien, Caribbean Studies, The Journal of Caribbean History, French Colonial History, the Bulletin d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe, and Recherches Haïtiano-Antillaises. His current research projects explore political and economic migrations within the Caribbean basin after the abolition of African slavery, and the relations between the Republic of Haiti and the French Caribbean colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique until the turn of the twentieth century.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Jewish life in the Caribbean extends as far back as the fifteenth century with Jewish-European migration following patterns of trade and colonialism to the region. Ainsley Henriques, Jewish-Jamaican genealogist and Administrator of Kahal Kadosh Sha'are Shalom synagogue in Kingston, Jamaica, joins Strictly Facts to map out this long history and describe how it figures into the Caribbean's ethnic diversity. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Originating in the nineteen century, calypso is a genre of Caribbean music that can be traced since spread across the region and its diaspora through migration. In this episode, we discuss calypso's evolving history, impact, and representation of Caribbean culture and society.  Meagan A. Sylvester - Music Sociologist.Author.Researcher is a published author of over fifteen book chapters and journal articles and is a well know public academic in her native Trinidad and Tobago where she participates in both television and radio discussions on the Calypso and Soca musical artforms. Her research topics of interest are Music and National Identity in Calypso and Soca, Music of Diasporic Carnivals, Narratives of Resistance in Calypso and Ragga Soca music, Steelpan and kaisoJazz musical identities, Gender and Identity in Calypso and Soca music and Music and Human Rights in the Americas. She has presented academic papers and hosted scholarly workshops in several spaces across the globe including Europe, Latin America, South America, the United States and numerous islands in the Caribbean.She has recently completed her a Ph.D. in Sociology of Music at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago and holds memberships in professional organizations include the Society for Ethnomusicology, the International Association of the Study for Popular Music, Caribbean Studies Association and the Association of Black Sociologists. Follow Dr. Sylvester on Facebook and Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The Garifuna are an Afro-indigenous community  native to Saint Vincent who,  in the late eighteenth century, were forcibly exiled to Central America after surrendering to the British during the Second Carib War. Dr. Paul Joseph López Oro joins this episode to discuss this history and the preservation and legacy of Garifuna traditions throughout Central America and the US today. Dr. Paul Joseph López Oro is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Smith College and the 2021-2022 Miriam Jiménez Román Fellow at The LatinX Project at New York University. His research and teaching interests are on Black Latin American and U.S. Black Latinx social movements, Black Feminist & LGBTQ activism and political mobilizations, and Black Queer Feminist ethnographies in the Américas. His in-progress manuscript, Indigenous Blackness in the Americas: The Queer Politics of Self-Making Garifuna New York is a transdisciplinary ethnography on how gender and sexuality shapes the ways in which transgenerational Garifuna New Yorkers of Central American descent negotiate, perform, and articulate their multiple subjectivities as Black, Indigenous, and Central American Caribbeans. Follow Dr. López Oro on Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Following the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, some West Indian migrants returned home, but also many stayed and formed new West Indian-Panamanian communities. In this episode Dr. Khemani Gibson shares the challenges and experiences these newly formed communities faced and helps us reconsider the limits of nation and empire in the Caribbean.  Khemani Gibson is a historian of the African Diaspora focusing on the Black migration in the Caribbean Basin looking at the West Indian immigrant community in Panama during the twentieth century. For his manuscript entitled: Citizens of Their Own Nation: The West Indian Immigrant Community in Panama, 1914-1961, he examines how West Indian immigrants used migration and claims making as methods to achieve full freedom in the post-emancipation circum-Caribbean. The manuscript explores the development of the West Indian immigrant community in Panama and how its members responded to the racial antagonism they encountered while dealing with the Americans, the British, and the Panamanians. Moreover, Khemani argues that despite the various strategies community members used to navigate the racial politics of the Isthmus, the experiences of the West Indian immigrant community in Panama forces us to reconceptualize our understanding of diasporic citizenship.While committed to his work as an academic, Khemani is deeply committed to bridging the gap between the academy and marginalized communities. Khemani uses his training as a historian to help lead workshops that illuminate the ways that inequalities of the past have a continued effect on Black and brown communities. Moreover, Khemani is committed to blending historical inquiry with modern day technology via mediums such as social media and interactive websites to make academic knowledge more accessible to others beyond the academy. It is Khemani's hope that he not only produces groundbreaking scholarship that helps us to understand how marginalized people navigated racially antagonistic societies but also to use his research and expertise to help community organizers and leaders strategize about how to address social ills.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The Caribbean is rich with diversity, including our languages. In this episode, Keisha I. Wiel joins us in sharing about the history of Papiamentu/o, the widely spoken language in the Dutch Caribbean islands, and even official language in Aruba and Curaçao, that combines Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese. Keisha Wiel is a PhD candidate in the anthropology department at Temple University with a concentration in linguistic anthropology.  Her dissertation research examines language socialization, multilingualism, linguistic rights, and education in a postcolonial state.  Her research interests primarily focus on the socialization of language ideas in education how it frames the identity of students.  Specifically, her dissertation research is based on how children are socialized into ideas about Papiamento/u and Dutch in secondary education in Aruba and Curaçao. Follow Keisha on Twitter here.  Don't forget to take the Strictly Facts 2022 Listener Survey. Complete for a chance to win an Amazon gift card and let us know what you'd like to see from us in the new year!  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

This week we're celebrating Strictly Facts's first birthday! This brief episode is a massive thank you to all our listeners and a note to take the Strictly Facts 2022 Listener Survey. Complete for a chance to win an Amazon gift card and let us know what you'd like to see from us in the new year!  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Maroon populations across Latin America and the Caribbean have a unique history of self-emancipation  and, for some, sovereignty. In this episode, His Excellency, Chief Richard Currie, Head of State of Cockpit Country, one of Jamaica's maroon communities, joins us for a necessary discussion on the maroons' origins and their significance in Jamaican history. Follow Chief Currie on Instagram and Twitter and support Cockpit Country's fundraiser. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

It is indeed the most wonderful time of the year with family and traditions bringing us together for the holidays. Our penultimate episode of 2021 discusses just some of the ways we celebrate the holidays in the Caribbean with food, fun, and of course music and culture. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Made up of the main islands of Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands has remained under colonial rule since Danish invasion in the latter 1600s.  In this episode, Dr. Hadiya Sewer historicizes local revolutions and reception to the USVI's longstanding occupation, also highlighting the effects of American colonialism over last century.Hadiya Sewer is a Research Fellow in the African and African American Studies Program at Stanford University and a Visiting Scholar in the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. Dr. Sewer's work uses a non-sovereign territory in the Caribbean, the United States Virgin Islands, as a case study for tracing the conceptions of freedom and the human that exist under contemporary colonialism. Sewer earned their Ph.D. in Africana Studies at Brown University. Their scholarship focuses on environmental justice and Africana decolonial, feminist, queer, and political theories. They are currently working on two monographs titled, “(De)Colonial Desires: Blackness, Aporia, and the Afterlives of the Dead,” and "Black as Nature: Climate Disaster, Covid-19, and the Coloniality of Power." Dr. Sewer's research, teaching, and advocacy provide phenomenological, ethnographic, and historical examinations of anti-blackness, colonialism, imperialism, and the climate crisis. As a community-engaged scholar, Sewer is also the President and Co-Founder of St.JanCo: the St. John Heritage Collective, a land rights and cultural heritage preservation nonprofit in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands and a founding member of the Virgin Islands Studies Collective. Follow Dr. Sewer on Twitter and Instagram. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Formerly known as British Honduras, Belize's culture has evolved from a series of Black and indigenous people moving to and from the country. In this episode, Dr. Nicole Ramsey shares how these movements have been critical to Belize's identity formation, as well as the growing diaspora in the U.S west coast.  Dr. Nicole Ramsey is an interdisciplinary educator, writer and researcher from Los Angeles, California. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American an African Studies at the University of Virginia. Her research examines formations of blackness, identity and nation and is concerned with conceptions of belonging across the circum-Caribbean and particularly in Belize and the Belizean diaspora in the U.S. Follow Nicole on Twitter and Instagram. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The Panama Canal was envisioned as a waterway to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans hundreds of years before its construction. When official building began in the 19th century and continued into the 20th century, thousands of  Francophone and Anglophone Caribbean people migrated as laborers to the canal zone. Dr. Kaysha Corinealdi joins us to talk about how their migration transformed Panamanian society and Panama's growing diaspora. Dr. Kaysha Corinealdi is an Assistant Professor of History at Emerson College. Her research and teaching interests include twentieth century histories of empire, migration, feminism, and Afro-diasporic activism in the Americas. Her forthcoming book, Panama in Black, centers the activism of Afro-Caribbean migrants and their descendants as they navigated practices and policies of anti-Blackness, xenophobia, denationalization, and white supremacy in Panama and the United States. Her research and reviews can also be found in the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, the International Journal of Africana Studies, the Hispanic American Historical Review, and the Global South. Dr. Corinealdi’s research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Follow Dr. Corinealdi on Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Rastafari reggae musician and activist Peter Tosh (1944-1987) was born Winston Hubert McIntosh in Westmoreland, Jamaica. Tosh quickly went on to found musical group The Wailers alongside Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer. After the group disbanded in 1974, Tosh continued to make music as a solo artist, with hits like "Legalize It" and "Equal Rights," as well as being an advocate for Black freedom in Jamaica and across the world.  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

We have many differences in the Caribbean, namely language, but also many similarities. In this week's episode, Dr. Margo Groenewoud shares with us the creative, political, and social histories of the Dutch Caribbean and why she believes islands like Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao are sometimes neglected in discussions about the Caribbean region. Dr. Margo Groenewoud is a Caribbean lecturer and researcher working at the intersection of humanities and social sciences. She obtained a PhD degree at the University of Leiden (humanities) and the University of Curaçao (social sciences). As social historian she specializes in the twentieth century Dutch Caribbean, with as particular interests postcolonialism, social justice, cultural and intellectual history and digital humanities. She is senior lecturer at the University of Curaçao and board member of the University of Curaçao Research Institute (UCRI). Current research projects include Traveling Caribbean Heritage (NWO, 2018-2021) and the Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Institute (NEH, 2019-2020). Dr. Groenewoud teaches social justice and community development at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences and is involved in ZonMw funded Participatory Action Research in Public and Mental Health, studying policies and practices relative to equity and inclusion in small island developing societies.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Puerto Rico is one of America's remaining colonies after being ceded to the U.S. by Spain in 1898. In this episode, Puerto Rican scholar Nina Vazquez discusses the island's long history of colonization and activism in an attempt to become an independent Caribbean island and what are the current beliefs around independence today.  Nina Vazquez is an aspiring Caribbeanist Historian. She is originally from Aguada, Puerto Rico and she moved stateside where she has earned her Bachelor degree(s) in Criminal Justice and Political Science with a concentration in Racism. She recently graduated from the University of Connecticut with her Master’s Degree in Puerto Rican, Caribbean and Latinx Studies. Nina is an avid advocate for Puerto Rican independence and liberation for all women in the Caribbean and across the globe. She is known for her community activism in the state of Connecticut and in Puerto Rico. Nina Vazquez hopes to educate people on Puerto Rico’s history to better understand the island’s status today. Follow Nina on Twitter and Instagram!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Did you know Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Turks & Caicos used to make up the Colony of Jamaica, governed by the UK until 1959? In this episode, we trace the history of these islands and the others that were formerly part of the Colony of Jamaica and discuss why they disbanded.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

With both Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean connections, Canada is one of the foremost locations of Caribbean life in the diaspora. Featuring Jamaican-Canadian historian Dr. Marlene Gaynair, we discuss Canada's longstanding, and at times problematic, historical relationship with the Caribbean and how West Indians abroad have created unity and community namely since the twentieth century.  Dr. Marlene Gaynair is a historian of the Black Atlantic, with a particular focus on North America and the English-speaking Caribbean. She is an associate editor at Gotham, The Center for New York City History, and architect of "Islands in the North," an interactive, curated exhibit (re)creating Black cultural and spatial identities in Toronto. In the coming year, she will be the William Lyon Mackenzie King Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Weatherhead Center, and thereafter, assistant professor of History at Washington State University. Follow Dr. Gaynair on Twitter at @blkatlanticCDN. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Before many of the formerly British Caribbean territories became independent nations, they attempted to create a political union known as the West Indian Federation. The short-lived union only lasted four years, but went on to influence future organizations for regional unity like the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), which later became the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Joined by Dr. Patsy Lewis, we discuss the history of the West Indian Federation, its failures, and current and future possibilities for regional integration. Dr. Patsy Lewis is a Visiting Professor and Faculty Fellow of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and the Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University. She is a graduate of Cambridge University (Mphil, PhD.) and the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica (BA). Before coming to Brown she was Professor of Regional Integration and Small States Development at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Her work explores the development challenges of small Caribbean states, with a particular focus on regional integration, globalization, trade, agriculture, migration and environmental and political crises.OECS- Organisation of Eastern Caribbean StatesCSME- CARICOM Single Market and EconomySupport the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Caribbean carnival is one of the region's most famous annual celebrations comprised with lively music, dancing, and of course lavish costumes. Shauna Rigaud joins us this week to discuss carnival's history and the history of  Barbados' Crop Over festival. Shauna holds a BA in African American Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a master’s in both Gender/Cultural Studies and Communication Management from Simmons University, in Boston. She is a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies program at George Mason University. As a burgeoning scholar focused on the Caribbean, she hopes to highlight experiences and stories that give a more nuanced understand of the Caribbean, its history and postcolonial condition. Her research interests include a focus on the Caribbean Diaspora, Performance and Performativity, Black feminism and Caribbean feminism. She is also the co-founder of Mayhem246 a concierge company that specializes in providing entertainment experiences during Barbados’ Crop Over Festival.Follow Shauna and Mayhem246 at @ne1nappy and @mayhem246.  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Our second "Big People Tings" highlight is Trinidadian Marxist, Black Feminist writer and political organizer Claudia Jones (1915-1964). Jones was one of the leading Black female organizers in the Communist Party in the USA and later went on to organize and celebrate the Afro-Caribbean community in the UK through her founding of the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News, Britain's first major Black newspaper, and first Caribbean carnival in the 1950s.  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Caribbean writers have undoubtedly left their mark on history. In this episode, we talk with  author Desiree C. Bailey about Caribbean literature, common themes that have inspired her story and her recently published book What Noise Against the Cane, which combines Caribbean history, music, and culture. Desiree C. Bailey is the author of What Noise Against the Cane (Yale University Press, 2021), winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. She is also the author of the fiction chapbook In Dirt or Saltwater (O'clock Press, 2016) and has short stories and poems published in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Short Fiction, Callaloo, the Academy of American Poets and elsewhere. Desiree has a BA from Georgetown University, an MFA in Fiction from Brown University and an MFA in Poetry from New York University. She has received fellowships from the Norman Mailer Center, Kimbilio Fiction, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Poets House, The Conversation and Princeton in Africa. She has received awards from the New York State Council on the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts and Poets & Writers. Desiree was born in Trinidad and Tobago, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Connect with Desiree on Instagram and Twitter. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Celebrate Caribbean American Heritage Month with us this June as we journey through movements of Caribbean people to the US in the latter twentieth century!Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

"Big People Tings" is a new continuing series where we highlight an individual Caribbean changemaker and discuss their contributions to our history and future. For our first episode of the series, we discuss Guyanese-born public intellectual and Pan-Africanist Dr. Walter Rodney (1942-1980) who played an integral role in the Black Power movement in the Caribbean and helped found the Working People's Alliance, a Guyanese political party for working class' rights, in the 1970s. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

The Caribbean is made up of a number of ethnic groups, mostly as a result of colonialism between the 18th and 20th centuries. To commemorate Indian Arrival Day throughout the Caribbean, this week's episode discusses the roots of Indian indentureship with doctoral student Cristine Khan and how connecting these histories is integral to Caribbean connections moving forward.  Cristine Khan is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center where she works at the Teaching and Learning Center and also teaches at Hunter College and Queens College. With experience as a critical educator and researcher in Latin America and Europe, she currently conducts research on intergenerational Indo-Caribbean identity formations and racialization processes in New York City. She was born and raised in New York City to Guyanese parents, which has shaped her trajectory as a researcher and educator.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Class is in session! For this very brief episode, we recap major themes and takeaways from our first six episodes as part of our regular Review Sessions. With each Review Session, we ask you, our listeners, to fill out a brief survey on your thoughts and what you'd like to see from Strictly Facts moving forward. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Traditional or folk style and dress in the Caribbean has a long, intricate history that differs across the region. Speaking with textile researcher Lauren Baccus, we discuss folk style's early origins and its complicated evolution as a staple of cultural celebrations today. Let us know your thoughts via the Voicemail feature on our website! Lauren Baccus is a textile artist and researcher whose work centers around the construct and deconstruction of Caribbean identity through costume, textile and dress. She is strongly influenced by masquerade, the region’s legacy of resistance through clothing, and the universality of play through dress. Her most recent project, Salt and Aloes, is an archive of Caribbean material culture over the past century. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Dialects, creoles, patwa/patois, there are so many names for languages spoken in the Caribbean. Caribbean languages have been historically degraded in favor of the colonial position that has long advocated for "standard" English over our own native tongues. Speaking with linguistics expert Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson, we discuss how these languages have historically evolved and what we can do to better advocate for their celebration moving forward. Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson earned his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) focused on Linguistics from The University of the West Indies, Mona. He now serves as a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics in the Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy, and Deputy Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit. You can find more of his work here  and on social media @jtfarquharson, and the work of the Jamaica Language Unit @braadkyaasjamiekan. Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Religion is an integral part of Caribbean history and culture, some of which were introduced as a result of colonization and enslavement and others that are syncretic religions, or made up of a combination of religions. In this episode, Dr. Aliyah Khan and I discuss a handful of Caribbean religions, the influence of music and culture, and her recent book, Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean, that charts the growth of Islam in the Caribbean from both the Afro- and Indo-Caribbean experience. Dr. Aliyah Khan, a native of Guyana, is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature, and Afroamerican and African Studies, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Dr. Khan holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing--Fiction from Hunter College of the City University of New York. Her research areas are Caribbean literature and Islamic literature, with emphases on race, gender, and sexuality. Dr. Khan is the author of Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean (Rutgers University Press 2020), the first academic book on the history, literature, and music of Black and South Asian Muslims in the Caribbean. Her writing also appears in scholarly and popular venues including GLQ, Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, The Rumpus, Agents of Ishq, and Pree: Caribbean Writing. Dr. Khan is currently conducting research for a book on Caribbean hurricanes, the ship routes of the transatlantic slave trade, and their implications for contemporary migration within the Americas.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

This episode of Strictly Facts charts just some of the connections between the Caribbean and its diaspora as a result of slavery and migration. This episode charts both direct and indirect connections to places London, New York, Louisiana, and the southeast US coast to discuss how West Indian culture and ideas has impacted different parts of the world.  Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Caribbean geography is often defined by the Caribbean Sea, but our historical and cultural borders go well beyond these physical boundaries. In this episode, we talk about how to define the boundaries, inter-regional travel, and migration around the Caribbean with our very first guest, scholar Melanie White.Melanie White is an interdisciplinary scholar, writer, and researcher from Miami, Florida. She is currently a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow and PhD candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. In 2015, she earned her B.A. in Cultural Anthropology with a minor in Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Posse Scholar and Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. In 2017, she received her M.A. in African and African Diaspora Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Melanie's dissertation research dwells at the intersection of Black visual culture studies, Afro-Latin American studies, Caribbean studies,  and Black feminist thought. More broadly, her research interests include Black diasporic art, Black feminisms, Black cultural politics, and Black critical thought.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Kicking off Black History month, this episode discusses the importance of oral storytelling in the Caribbean. From familial stories passed down through generations to historically significant folktales, oral histories are not only one of the earliest forms of historical narratives, but this form of storytelling features details often left out of history books. Think of Strictly Facts as bridging the two! Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media

Strictly Facts: A Guide to Caribbean History and Culture is a podcast and educational platform that aims to educate and celebrate Caribbean history through our art and music, hosted by Alexandria Miller.Subscribe now to get our very first episode when it launches on February 3rd to kick off Black History Month.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | TwitterLooking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Produced by Breadfruit Media