Between South and North America, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, exists an isthmus made up of seven countries, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize, also known as Central America. Escuchar al Istmo, Listen to the Isthmus, focuses on the diverse musical and cultural landscape of Central America. Through music, vinyl record collections and special guests, the show explores cultural context, nostalgia and experiences of the diaspora. Tune in to hear the past and present sounds of the many cultures of Central America.

In honor of February Black History Month, this mix is a listening tribute to Eulalia Bernard Little’s poetry album titled Negritud, short interview excerpts of Eulalia, her former student, Epsy Campbell, and a collection of traditional and popular Costa Rican songs.

Eulalia Bernard Little (1935-2021) was born July 7, 1935, in Limón, Costa Rica, to Jamaican immigrant parents. She was a poet, professor, activist, and a pioneer of the Afrodescendant movement in Central America. Despite much opposition, her album Negritud was the first collection of poems published by Eulalia in 1976 in the format of a recording. On this album, Eulalia incorporated musical influences from reggae, jazz, and soul, and included references to figures such as Manu Dibango, Roberta Flack, Miriam Makeba, and the Love Unlimited Orchestra. She also included Costa Rican songs by the group Bocaracá and a traditional folk song called Pasión. This fusion of music and poetry in Spanish, English, and Limonese Creole reveals the transnational nature of her work, rooted in the African diaspora and its anti-colonial struggle. In addition to being a poet, Eulalia was the first Black woman to run for a seat in parliament for a communist party, the first Black woman to publish books in Costa Rica, and she founded the Chair of African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Costa Rica.