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    B&B Chronicles Blog — around world facts

    Black & Bilingual #AroundTheWorld - Italy

    Italy is a country located in south-central Europe that’s considered part of Western Europe. The Italian population is 60 million people of which around 1,000,000 are black people.


    Italy’s history starts in the classical era. Initially what now composes the Italian territory was occupied by Phoenicians, Celtics, Greek, and Cathargian people.

    An Italic tribe, the Latins, formed the Roman Kingdom. The kingdom became a republic and eventually, it conquered the neighbors, parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

    The Roman Empire was a reference for arts, culture, law, technology, religion, economy, and literature.

    Italy was feudal and endured invasions from different foreign people. Even with the feuds, some independent statelets were used as hubs to negotiate with Asia and Near East. This was the scenario until the Renaissance began.

    Italian Renaissance spread to Europe the interest for humanism, science, and art. During this period, Italy produced some of the greatest scholars and polymaths of all time.

    Italy was divided by the many invasions it endured since the fall of the Roman Empire. This caused the rise of a nationalist feeling and led to revolutions that resulted in the unification of almost all the Italian territory in 1861.

    Italy also had an important role in both World War I and World War II, which led to an economic crisis. The crisis was followed by the revolution that abolished the monarchy and established a Republic, followed by an economic boom that made Italy one of the biggest economies in the world.


    Afro-Italian People

    Italy has a colonial background in Africa that shouldn’t make any Italian proud. However, Afro-Italian people still face racism regularly not only from fellow citizens but also from the government that is working to make migration each time harder.

    From the second half of the last century, many Africans began to come to Italy either to study or to look for work opportunities. This mass migration made Italy more multi-ethnic, which fed the anti-migration feeling of 45% of Italians.

    Even now many Africans try to get to Italy through the Mediterranean in a dangerous crossing. They come from different countries and aim to have a better life in Italy. Unfortunately, many don’t make it to the Italian shore.

    Some Afro-Italians state that it’s confusing growing as an Afro-Italian because many Italians don’t fully accept them as Italian but at the same time they can’t say they’re from somewhere else.

    Being Afro-Italian means that you won’t learn about colonial history at school and that you won’t be able to claim your Italian nationality until the age of 18 if your parents are immigrants.

    Afro-Italians are facing fear because of the rise of nationalists that see them as intruders of their space. They don’t feel safe because many Afro-Italians are attacked or even killed by nationalists.

    There are humanitarian questions that aren’t brought up to discussion such as the fact that to sell cheap tomatoes to other countries many African migrants do work on those farms at an extremely low wage.

    The racism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration politics caused many Afro-Italians to leave their country with the hope to find the feeling of belonging somewhere else.

    Stella Jean

    She’s a Haitian-Italian fashion designer, the first Afro-Italian and person of color to be on the runaways of Milan Fashion Week. She’s considered Giorgio Armani’s protégé.

    Through her work, she brings multiculturalism and often mixes Italian techniques with a myriad of different elements of other cultures, creating unique collections.

    Her career began as a model in the Vogue Italia contest “Who’s On Next?” in 2011. She didn’t win it but got some eyes on her. She decided that she would rather do the clothes than dress them.

    She showcased her designs in the Armani/Teatro Space during Milano Moda Dona, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, at the FIT Museum in New York.

    She created the “Laboratorio delle Nazioni” where she bridges the Italian design with the work of women artisans from developing countries. This makes each collection have a unique aesthetic.

    The LDN also promotes cultural heritage as a driver to sustainable development. The women work together even though they are thousands of miles apart with the goal to preserve their cultural heritage. By doing that they are building their economic autonomy and gaining a seat on the global market table.

    Stela participated in the Black Lives Matter protests, she was the only fashion designer to participate in it and to denounce the existence of racial discrimination within the country of Italy.

    Rediet (Red) Longo

    He’s a graffiti artist who was born in Ethiopia and adopted by Italians by the age of 6. As he was growing up he realized that he couldn’t be either Ethiopian or Italian, he had to find his own way. This is when he star to refer to himself as Red. This could be an Italian name but is also the color of the African sand.

    He describes himself as a visual artist who likes to express himself through paintings and fashion and thinks that there is more in this generation than depressed kids.

    Black & Bilingual #AroundTheWorld - Germany

    Germany is a country located in Western Europe. The capital of Germany is Berlin. Germany has a population of about 83.02 million people, with about 1 million of that number being Black residents. 



    Historically, Germany was a country that was rarely united until the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 through conservative Prussian aristocrat, Otto von Bismarck. He broke the territory free from Austria, and united "Small Germany", which consisted of Prussia and the remaining German states. This led to the creation of The Reichstag. The Reichstag was the lower house of Parliament created during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. During this period, German saw a loss of territory, financial reparations, and a diminished military. In a nutshell, this all led to the start of World War II and the Holocaust. 

     ** DISCLAIMER: It is important to note that Black & Bilingual does not support Germany's role in the establishment and maintenance of colonization and white supremacy in many nations worldwide. This post was created to give a background of Germany and the Afro-German people that call the nation their home ** 




    Afro people’s history in Germany begins with the soldiers the French sent to occupy the lands Germany lost as reparation imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Around one-fifth of them were black, which made Germans feel humiliated and start racist propaganda.

    This propaganda was called “Die Schwarze Schmach” (the black shame) and both the government and civilians were behind it. Black people were described as rapists, savage beasts, and murderers.

    Hitler also mentioned black people in his autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle). He wrote that black people were brought to Germany with the clear intention to affect the pureness of the white race.

    Even with all the racist propaganda, many inter-racial affairs happened, and the so-called  "Rhineland bastards" were born. Their existence was a reminder of the defeat Germany faced in World War I so they were excluded.

    Their social and economical rights were disrespected, they couldn’t attend university and many jobs wouldn’t accept them, including the military ones.

    During World War II there wasn’t a plan to eliminate black people as there was to eliminate jews. This doesn’t mean that black people didn’t suffer during the Nazist rise.

    Afro-German kids were registered and sent to sterilization. Some of them were also measured and photographed to be used as data in the Nazist eugenic program. Officially, 436 kids were sterilized during this period but the number of unregistered sterilizations is much higher. Some of them were also used in experiments and others just “disappeared”.

    During the war, not only the children born from interracial relationships were targeted by the Nazists, Afro-Americans, and black Europeans were illegally arrested and taken to intern in the Nazist concentration camp system.

    Due to the segregation in the United States, Jazz music didn’t have much space to grow. This caused Jazz artists to go to Europe. The Nazist rise didn’t stop them and many of them were captured in the occupied parts of Europe. Those had the same fate as the war prisoners.

    There they suffered mistreatment, were forced to work to death in constructions, or died due to the tough conditions in the concentration camps. Some of them didn’t even make it to the concentration camps and were immediately killed by the SS or the Gestapo.

    Nowadays the biggest Afro-German population is found in larger cities such as Hamburg or Berlin, even though there’s a considerable population in formerly occupied cities.

    Aminata Touré

    She’s a politician part of the German Green Party and the first Afro-German -- and youngest person -- to be elected to assume a Landtag (State Parliament).

    She fights for equality, women’s rights, migration, children and youth, LGBTQ issues, and racism.

    May Ayim

    Born Sylvia Andler, she worked to unite black German people to fight against racism. She faced racism since before she was born. Her parents couldn’t keep her because, as an interracial couple, their children were a State ward and she was placed for adoption.

    She wrote her thesis about Afro-German history which was used as a base to the book “Afro-German Women Speak-Out” and founded the Initiative of Black People in Germany.

    When she decided to go after her ancestrality, she found her father in Ghana and then adopted his name (Ayim) as her pen name.

    Ika Hügel-Marshall

    She’s an activist who has felt the effects of racism since her early childhood. She’s a child of a German and an African-American soldier. She was raised by her mother and stepfather until she was 5 when her mother was forced to send her to an orphanage.

    At the orphanage, she suffered physical and mental violence. There she was told that since she was black her soul had sin placed in it. She got to a point where her deepest desire was to be white.

    She spent 39 years before seeing another black face beside her own. This happened when she attended the meeting of Afro-Germans. There she was empowered by the sense of community and started her life as an activist.

    Her life as an activist began when she entered ADEFRA (Afro-German Women), where they fight to be accepted as Germans despite their skin color.

    She also wrote her autobiography as an act of resistance, so people would know how it is to grow in racist Germany as a black person. She always fought to be seen, and she tells her perspective of how it is to grow up -- and to live -- like this in her book Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany

    Black & Bilingual #AroundTheWorld - Haiti

    The Republic of Haiti is a sovereign state located on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea. Port-au-Prince is the capital of Haiti. The population of Haiti is about 10.8 million people. Haiti is the second most populous nation in the Caribbean. 

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    Black & Bilingual #AroundTheWorld - Ecuador

    Ecuador is a South American country that lies on the earth's equator. The capital of Ecuador is Quito, but the largest city is Guayaguil. In 2016, Ecuador's estimated population was 16,385,068 people. 

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    Black & Bilingual #AroundTheWorld - Panama City, Panama

    The Republic of Panama is a Central American country bordered by Costa Rica and Colombia. Panama City is the capital of Panama, and it is home to about 1.5 million people. 

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