Book Stories of Afroestimy. My curly hair was presented at FILVEN 2025
MINCULTURA Photos
Published at: 08/07/2025 02:40 PM
In the framework of the Venezuela International
Book Fair (FILVEN) 2025, the book Stories of Afroestimony was presented.
My Curly Hair, authored by the Cuban Yadira Rachel Vargas Horta, who
addresses racial discrimination from the perspective of boys and girls and proposes to
combat it from schools through education that reinforces the identity and pride of being black.
The presentation was given by the
president of the National Council for the Development of
Afro-descendant Communities of Venezuela (CONADECAFRO), Marisabel Blanco Sifontes, who
was accompanied by teacher Luisa Pérez Madrid, winner of the 2023 National Popular Culture Award.
The activity was also pleasantly
accompanied by the Minister of People's Power for Culture, Ernesto
Villlegas, together with authorities from the Egyptian diplomatic corps.
The work reflects the experiences of a large
number of girls in Havana who are exposed to situations “a little more
traumatic and complicated” because of their hair style, Blanco said, which they
“admirably managed to overcome” to reaffirm themselves as an Afro-descendant community.
He clarified that boys are also
exposed to these situations, in which they are accused of “not combing their hair, not
taking care of themselves and keeping themselves in disarray, because even that is what they tell them to wear their Afro hair freely”.
For his part, the representative of the cultural portfolio recalled that he is “son, brother, husband and father” of people of African descent, so he emphasized the importance of fighting for the dignity of this community in a “battle of the day to day, from hour to hour and from minute to minute”.