Diasporic Blackness

Vanessa K. Valdés

Description

A Black Puerto Rican–born scholar, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874–1938) was a well-known collector and archivist whose personal library was the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. He was an autodidact who matched wits with university-educated men and women, as well as a prominent Freemason, a writer, and an institution-builder.

While he spent much of his life in New York City, Schomburg was intimately involved in the cause of Cuban and Puerto Rican independence. In the aftermath of the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1898, he would go on to cofound the Negro Society for Historical Research and lead the American Negro Academy, all the while collecting and assembling books, prints, pamphlets, articles, and other ephemera produced by Black men and women from across the Americas and Europe. His curated library collection at the New York Public Library emphasized the presence of African peoples and their descendants throughout the Americas and would serve as an indispensable resource for the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. By offering a sustained look at the life of one of the most important figures of early twentieth-century New York City, this first book-length examination of Schomburg's life as an Afro-Latino suggests new ways of understanding the intersections of both Blackness and latinidad.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Silence and the Meaning of It All

1. “Patria y Libertad”: Schomburg and Puerto Rico

2. The Diasporic Race Man as Institution Builder

3. Afro-Latinx Chronicles: Schomburg’s Writings

4. “Witness for the Future”: Schomburg and His Archives

5. “Furtive as He Looks”: The Visual Representation of Schomburg

Conclusion: The Dynamics of Afro-Latinx Subjectivity

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Latin American
• Ethnic studies
• Latin America
• Caribbean

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781438465159
• Langue: English

Extrait

DIASPORIC BLACKNESS

DIASPORIC BLACKNESS

The Life and Times of
ARTURO ALFONSO
SCHOMBURG

Vanessa K. Valdés
Cover photograph by James Latimer Allen, ca. 1920s
Book design by Steve Kress
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Ryan Morris
Marketing, Fran Keneston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Valdés, Vanessa Kimberly, author.
Title: Diasporic blackness : the life and times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg / Vanessa K. Valdés.
Description: Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031412 (print) | LCCN 2017000321 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438465135 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438465159 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Schomburg, Arthur Alfonso, 1874-1938. | African American historians—Biography. | Historians—United States—Biography. | African American book collectors—Biography. | Book collectors—Biography. | Puerto Ricans—United States—Biography. | African Americans—Relations with Hispanic Americans. | African Americans—Intellectual life—20th century. | African Americans—Race identity. | Puerto Ricans—Ethnic identity. | Caribbean Area—Intellectual life—20th century.
Classification: LCC E185.97.S36 V35 2017 (print) | LCC E185.97.S36 (ebook) | DDC 002.075092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031412
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
F OR A RTURO A LFONSO S CHOMBURG ,
R OBERT V ALDÉS J R .,
AND ALL MEN LIKE THEM ,
MEN WHO MAKE MORE OF THEMSELVES
THAN THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES DICTATE
AND WHO DEFY CATEGORIZATION
CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION The Silence and the Meaning of It All CHAPTER 1 “Patria y Libertad”: Schomburg and Puerto Rico CHAPTER 2 The Diasporic Race Man as Institution Builder CHAPTER 3 Afro-Latinx Chronicles: Schomburg’s Writings CHAPTER 4 “Witness for the Future”: Schomburg and His Archives CHAPTER 5 “Furtive as He Looks”: The Visual Representation of Schomburg CONCLUSION The Dynamics of Afro-Latinx Subjectivity
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURE 5.1 Portrait of Arthur A. Schomburg, as he appears in Negro: An Anthology (1934) FIGURE 5.2 Arthur A. Schomburg, ca. 1896, age twenty-two FIGURE 5.3 Arthur A. Schomburg, writer, “Is Hayti Decadent?” Unique Advertiser 4 (1904), age thirty FIGURE 5.4 Arthur A. Schomburg, noted bibliophile FIGURE 5.5 Arthur A. Schomburg, in Masonic attire, age approximately forty FIGURE 5.6 Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, age four, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1878 FIGURE 5.7 Studio portrait of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and his sister Delores (Lola) Díaz, circa. 1905, age thirty-one FIGURE 5.8 Portrait of Arthur A. Schomburg from his United States passport, issued in 1926, age fifty-two FIGURE 5.9 Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, late in life
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I THANK GOD for the completion of this project, as well as all of His accompanying angels and saints. To my ancestors and orishas who accompany me, love me and protect me, and who guide all of my projects, I offer my highest praise and gratitude. To my parents, Iris Delia y Robert, who inspire me, always, and to my Madrina and best friend, Gina Bonilla, infinite thanks for your love and patience with me. Thank you to Leroy Martin Bess, Mercedes Robles, Ana Martinez, and Iya Dawn Amma McKen for all of your love and support through the years.
To the City College of New York, I thank you for the sabbatical year that allowed me to complete this project; I thank my friends, loved ones, and colleagues who understood and respected this much-needed time away.
I thank Doris Cintrón, interim dean of the Humanities and Arts Division of The City College of New York, for her support of this manuscript and its needed images; Moe Liu D’Albero, director of budget and operations in the Humanities and Arts Division of The City College of New York, and Thomas Lisanti, manager of Permissions and Reproduction Services of the New York Public Library. I thank Leo Peralta of the Humanities and Arts division for his technical assistance.
To Mary Yearwood, curator of the Photography and Print Division of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, thank you for your time and for guiding me in the joys of archival research. To her staff, including Michael Mery, Anthony Toussaint, and Linden Anderson for your assistance over the months as well.
To Steven G. Fullwood, curator of the Manuscripts and Rare Books Division of the Schomburg Center, thank you for your support and assistance from our first conversation.
To Chantel Clark, curator of Special Collections of the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library of Fisk University and inheritor of Schomburg’s collection there, thank you for your candor about the nature of the archive, as well as your support of this project.
To the following scholars, whose work inspired me and carried this project to completion, my immeasurable gratitude: Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Flor Piñeiro de Rivera, Lisa Sánchez González, Miriam Jiménez Román, Juan Flores, Antonio López, Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, Camara Dia Holloway, Nicole Fleetwood, Shawn Michelle Smith, Mark Anthony Neal, Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo, Ileana M. Rodríguez-Silva, Jossianna Arroyo, Virginia Sánchez Korrol, Edna Acosta-Belén, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Lorrin Thomas, Silvio Torres-Saillant, Kevin Meeham, William Luis, Michelle Ann Stephens, Amy Kaplan, Hazel V. Carby, Victoria Núñez and Victoria Ortiz.
To Beth Bouloukos, thank you for your support of this project, and to the anonymous readers of this manuscript who offered insightful suggestions that demonstrated their support of this study. I thank Rafael Chaiken for his assistance with the digital files of the photographs included here. I thank Ryan Morris, Senior Production Editor, Alan V. Hewat, copyeditor, and Fran Keneston, Director of Marketing and Publicity, for their contributions to the production of this book.
I wish to acknowledge the following archives, without which the completion of this study would not have been possible: the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library; Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives; Columbia University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library; the Center for Puerto Rican Studies / el Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños (Centro) of Hunter College and the City University of New York; and the Special Collections of the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library of Fisk University.
To the Dark Room Collective, whose intellectual exchange and humor has motivated me to push further and deeper, thank you.
A los pueblos de Vega Baja y Manatí, Puerto Rico: desde ahí vienen mis antepasados y ahí todavía puedo encontrar miembros de las familias Valdés y Colón; ofrezco este estudio humildemente. Luz a todos ustedes que andan conmigo, acompañándome en este camino, y a todos sus descendientes. Pido su bendición.
To the Nuyorican community, thank you for your inspiration, always.
To children of the diaspora, speaking in tongues distinct from those spoken by our ancestors, living in spaces unimagined by our predecessors, thriving in ways inconceivable to them.
Thank you to the students of the City College of New York, past and present, who motivate me on a daily basis.
Support for this project was provided by a PSC-CUNY Award, jointly funded by the Professional Staff Congress and the City University of New York.
The portrait of Arturo Schomburg, as he appears in Negro: An Anthology (1934), edited by Nancy Cunard, is from the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. All of the other portraits are from images found in the Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
INTRODUCTION

T HE S ILENCE AND THE M EANING OF I T A LL
Imagine a boy living in the city of his birth and not knowing who was the most noted native painter! It is true the fact was recorded on a marble tablet duly inscribed and placed on the wall of a building where it could easily be read. However, the inhabitants of San Juan knew but little of the man thus honored. The white Spaniards who knew, spoke not of the man’s antecedents. A conspiracy of silence had been handed down through many decades and like a veil covered the canvases of this talented Puerto Rican. Today we understand the silence and know the meaning of it all.
— ARTHUR SCHOMBURG , “José Campeche 1752–1809”
PUBLISHED IN 1934 in Mission Fields at Home , a journal published by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, Arthur Schomburg (as his name appeared then) provides for his aud