Black Women’s Global Activism: An Interview with Carmen Hutchinson Miller

This post is part of our forum on “Black Women’s Activism in the African Diaspora.”

Dr. Carmen Hutchinson Miller was most recently a lecturer at the Centro de Estudios Generales de la Universidad Nacional in Heredia, Costa Rica. She received her PhD in history from the University of the West Indies in Barbados. She has published scholarship extensively in both English and Spanish on themes related to gender, race, and culture in Costa Rica. She is also the first certified sisterlock consultant in Costa Rica and this experience is connected to the work she does as an Afro-Costa Rican historian. Dr. Miller is also the host of two YouTube channels, Aportes Afrocostarricenses y Diasporicos and Afrostry, through which she aims to educate African descendants throughout the diaspora on the history of Afro-Costa Rica. As the forum organizer for “Black Women’s Activism in the Diaspora,” I want to highlight the work of this woman scholar-activist whose scholarship is inextricably linked to the work she does in her community.

Kiana M. Knight (KMK): What motivated your scholarship?

Carmen Hutchinson Miller (CHM): Firstly, thanks very much for this amazing space to connect with the African diaspora in Abya Yala (this is the name the original people gave to the American continent). My scholarship is motivated by my commitment to my ethnic group, using the tools acquired through my discipline as a historian to make us a subject of history. The fact that I was not born within the hegemonic group in my country, Costa Rica, already gives me a disadvantage in terms of opportunities as an individual and this also means there is invisibility historically. It is important to note that I live in a country where the mestizos are the hegemonic group and there is no open recognition of institutionalized racism against afro descendants, indigenous people, Chinese, and the mix between these, since, in the majority of cases, this racism in daily interactions is not overt. Instead, it is evident through micro racism and other institutionalized silences, such as the limited and stereotypical information found within texts in the primary and secondary educational system.

KMK: How does women’s labor and activism appear in your scholarship?

CHM: As a feminist I also understand the dynamics of the patriarchal system in trying to convince women of their stereotypical roles within society. Understanding the intersection between race and gender forced me to be intentional with my historical research particularly on Afro-Costa Rican women.

KMK: How do political connections between African descendants in Costa Rica and the United States inspire the work you do both inside and outside of university spaces?

 CHM: The groundwork done by the second wave of the feminist movement was influential for my feminist awakening during my late teens and early adulthood. I was fortunate to participate in consciousness raising groups by women who had studied in the US and brought back the info and deemed it necessary to share with young women such as myself. As time went by, I gravitated to women’s organizations and later, through scholarship, to feminism. Names like Angela Davis, the Combahee River Collective, and Audre Lorde among many others served as the theoretical foundation that helped me translate their work and political activism to the reality of afro-descendants in Costa Rica in and out of academia.

KMK: What impact do you want your scholarship to have? 

 CHM: I would love my humble contribution to put people of African descent in Costa Rica on the world map the same way that the women’s scholarship I mentioned reached and impacted young Afro-women in Port Limon, Costa Rica.

KMK: Could you speak about the work you do as the first trained sisterlock consultant in Costa Rica? How does your work as a loctician relate to the work you do as a historian, if at all?

CHM: I’m so happy you ask this question because everything I do is for the empowerment of my people. Hair, especially for women of African descent, is one of the aspects both patriarchy and racism used to affect our self-esteem—trying to convince us through hegemonic discourses that we are not beautiful if our hair is not straightened and long. This messaging is so perverse that it forced us to accept what is not natural, like extensions and wigs, hating that what is growing naturally from our scalps, our beautiful and versatile kink.

I was introduced to the sisterlocks hairstyle while living and working in Barbados. I got my sisterlocks installed in 2003 and a few years later I became a consultant. I returned to my country [Costa Rica] in 2013 and the following year I introduced the hairstyle. I must confess that I did not realize how embedded the dislike for our hair was. What worked in my favor was the natural hair movement that little by little gave permission for loving and displaying our natural hair. Ten years in, most Afro-Costa Ricans know the term sisterlocks and with access to social media and other internet platforms, they know where they can search and get more info for themselves. Ten years in, I have seen my sisters amazed of the speed that their hair grows monthly, and awakened to the realization that kink hair can grow long naturally. There is still work to do. I have noticed over the past decade that my sisters have grown in confidence. Their love for their natural hair has led them to other self and historical discoveries about our African hidden histories.

KMK: Could you speak about your YouTube channel? What are you hoping to accomplish by discussing Afro-Costa Rican life and history on such a public medium?  

CHM: I can relate this question to the first one as to what motivated my scholarship. I want to use this platform to make visible Afro-Costa Ricans and our stories worldwide. I hope that this platform will bring us [Afro-Costa Ricans] together with others in the African diaspora and with the African continent. As we get to know more about each other, we will realize that we are not that different despite geographical, language, class, educational, ideological, and religious separation. Many times, there are privileges and limited opportunities within certain spaces that give us the illusion that we have arrived and that we live in a just society, when all along, it was the hegemony tokenizing some of us. If we are aware of this, it will make a great change in how we view each other as a people and utilize this limited access to help others enter these spaces and make them more democratic. As I am saying this, I wish that we were in control of some of these platforms and not continuing to utilize the master’s tools as Audrey Lorde reminds us. I believe in us. As African descendants we have come very far. The next step is recognizing the power we have in numbers locally and internationally and strengthen that in our different fields of endeavor. Again, thanks very much for this opportunity. This underscores what I just mentioned about our strength in numbers and working together. Gracias por entrevistarme (Thank you for interviewing me)!