Havana hosts 1rst International Meeting on Ancestry in Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, November 7 (ACN) The House of Culture in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion municipality is hosting the rst International Meeting on Ancestry in Cuba: "Turban, Heritage, and Identity," from today until Sunday, November 9.

The first day, which began with an Afro-Cuban fair, features an academic program with lectures on African ancestry, Afro-Colombian hairstyles and turbans, the geopolitical struggle for peace, and Afro-Cuban entrepreneurship, among other topics.

The event includes the participation of national and international speakers who will offer diverse perspectives on the treatment of ancestry and African heritage in Latin America.

Among the Cuban academics is Gisela Arandia Covarrubias, whose research has shown how racial prejudices still survive in the social imagination and manifest themselves in discriminatory attitudes.

Also participating is researcher Julio Rolando Rensoli Medina, president of the Aponte Commission of the Cuban Writers and Artists Association, and secretary of the Executive Coordinating Group of the National Program against Racism and Racial Discrimination "Cuban Color," whose presentation on ancestry will open the event.

According to Rensoli Medina, the initiative honors Carlota, an enslaved woman of Lucumí origin, whose name inspired the internationalist struggle that changed the course of history in Africa and decisively contributed to consolidating the independence of the peoples of Angola and Namibia, and to the elimination of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.