Garifuna History Comes Alive at Imagination Factri

Today, imagination met history at Belize City’s Imagination Factri, where author and researcher Myrtle Palacio brought the Garifuna story to life in a powerful and visually striking way. Through bold graphics on genocide, forced migration, and cultural resilience, Palacio peeled back the layers of Garifuna identity, not just to educate, but to inspire. Her session, based on her work The Primer on the People Called Garifuna, challenged participants to rethink history, embrace advocacy, and celebrate the enduring legacy of the Garinagu people. Here’s more on that impactful presentation.

 

Tanya Arceo, Reporting

From the painful legacy of genocide and displacement to the vibrant contributions of the Garifuna community, Myrtle Palacio’s presentation didn’t shy away from the hard truths. Instead, it called for action, urging participants to embrace decolonizing language and step into advocacy. The event opened with a welcome from cultural advocate Yasser Musa, setting the tone for a day of reflection, learning, and empowerment.

 

Voice of: Yaser Musa

“This is, in my mind, intellectual logic for this book but what’s incredible to me is what she wrote in the forward thirty plus years later, her updated forward, she says “The new and updated Primer Is the outcome of secondary or library research through an extensive literature review and narrative analysis. For that, I have provided a list of references. Identifying as Garifuna and as a member of the community, I applied the Feminist Standpoint Theory and the Theory of Indigenous Anthropology, as both research techniques empower the researcher to investigate one’s own. I maintained an emic perspective throughout and remained sympathetic to the Garinagu, a viewpoint that may be a novel undertaking in the literature on ethnicity.”

 

Myrtle Palacio, Author

“It is a belief that there are more than one spiritual beings, our ancestors, our Ahary group so we believe in several, innumerable ancestral spirits, that is animism. However, aspects of Christianity has entered Garifuna spirituality, we have accepted it and a part of our spirituality, a part of our belief systems, we have assimilated it into Garifuna spiritualism.”

 

 

 

Graphic panels told the Garifuna story in vivid visuals, all while the sound of traditional drums filled the air with pride and purpose. The event wasn’t just a feast for the senses, it also honored key contributors in an award ceremony, with guests including representatives from NICH joining the celebration. And this is just the beginning. These striking visuals are set to tour Houses of Culture and libraries across Belize, bringing this vital history to communities and classrooms nationwide.

 

 

Tanya Arceo

“If there is one thing you wish that every Belizean and every reader would truly understand about Garifuna history or identity what would that be?”

 

Myrtle Palacio

“I would like I am learning I mentioned the date of seventeen ninety-nine I would like that to resonate because that is a contribution to nation building another area is teaching the educators where our men from late eighteen hundred were dying in villages just to teach that was a job that they had accepted leaving their families for months for the whole term and that contribution to nation building I want us to understand that and to understand nineteenth of November those two areas to me are very much important.”

 

 

Storytelling has always been central to the Garifuna and Creole experiences, a powerful way of preserving history, identity, and resilience. From the days of enslavement to the blending of Arawak, Kalinago, and West African cultures, these stories reflect how two peoples became one. Rooted in the island of St. Vincent and the Lesser Antilles, this shared legacy is a living memory of survival, connection, and cultural fusion, inviting us all to listen, learn, and remember.

 

Hailey Williams, Storyteller

“Amerindian, thirty thousand years ago a group of Amerindians including the Kalinago and Arawak’s crossed the bearing straight from Eastern Asia and made their way from Alaska to South America at fifteen hundred BC the bearing structury as a voice to other theories.”

 

 

 

Voice of: Giovanni Pinelo, Storyteller

“We realized that what we call colonial expansionism in some books beautiful words and I know somebody else is going to speak about words but it was about total encroachment it was about dispossessing of people, displacing them of their lands, divesting them of their heritage of their caught Genocide, the definition of genocide under the union convention speaks to the radication of a people and this was precisely what was happening.”

 

 

 

As the event came to a close, there was a heartfelt reminder of why these stories matter. Minister of State Dolores Balderamos-García took a moment to reflect on the power of preserving and sharing the Garifuna narrative — calling it not just history, but a vital part of who we are. Her words capped off a day filled with culture, connection, and a renewed commitment to keeping these stories alive for generations to come.

 

Dolores Balderamos, Minister of State

“There is so much of our history as I have said before that we need to fill in all the gaps and I like the idea that we have to look at our history not  only from the point of view of the hunter but also from the point of view of the hunted so we must remember the victims of the colonial system in addition to reading the book from a European perspective of what the history of Belize is so we must know our history from the  indigenous people, from people who have been victims but from people who have contributed so much to what Belize is today.”

 

Reporting For News Five I am Tanya Arceo.