Afro-Caribbean and Garífuna Migration and Politics in the Central American Caribbean, 1910s–30s

This paper explores Afro-Caribbean and Garífuna migration in the early twentieth-century Central American Caribbean coasts as a political and social process whose implications remain only partially understood. Focusing on Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama during the height of Garveyism, it asks what becomes visible when we examine Afro-Caribbeans and Garífuna within the same historical frame rather than as parallel or isolated histories. How did overlapping circuits of labor migration, print culture, religious networks, and associational life shape emerging forms of Black consciousness? And to what extent did these circuits foster shared political languages—or reveal divergent strategies and worldviews?

Though considering Garveyism as foundational to the emergent Black politics in Central America, the paper considers it as one among several possible idioms of Black political life. How did Afro-Caribbean and Garífuna actors relate Garveyite internationalism to the constraints and possibilities of Central American national projects, many of which were consolidating anti-Black definitions of citizenship? Did engagement with nationalist frameworks foreclose diasporic or anti-national imaginaries, or did it produce hybrid understandings of belonging?

Finally, the paper raises questions about gender. How might centering women’s labor, mobility, and organizing reshape our understanding of these intertwined migrations and the political communities they made possible?