Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In Puerto Rico, Afro-descendants celebrated the Fiesta de San Miguel (Feast of St. Michael the Archangel) every year on September 29 with performances that reflected their Afro-creole culture. The festival had deep colonial roots, though its documentation is most robust for nineteenth-century San Juan and its environs. Like other Black Atlantic traditions, the festivities showcased the celebrants’ social cohesion. The festival was a potent form of cultural agency for Afro-Puerto Ricans overcoming many obstacles to stage it annually, including efforts to suppress it. This article builds on the growing scholarship on Afro-Atlantic festive traditions. It expands on some of the theoretical approaches proposed in this literature and adds to a growing understanding of Afro-Atlantic festive traditions as forms of joyful Black resistance by addressing the historical importance and meaning of the Afro-Puerto Rican Feast of St. Michael. While it highlights broad Atlantic connections, its principal aim is to analyze how Afro-Puerto Ricans formed communities of joy despite the opposition they faced.
Source: Journal of Festive Studies
Author: Ricardo Mariani Ríos
Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4416664680
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