In honor of February Black History Month, the next Escuchar al Istmo show will be a listening tribute to the entire Eulalia Bernard Little’s poetry album titled Negritud. The show will also include short interview excerpts of Eulalia and a collection of traditional, rare and popular Costa Rican songs 🇨🇷🔊. Tune in this Sunday, February 8th, 2026 2-4pm at
@dublab
Audio clips from Eulalia’s album, Archivo Nacional de Costa Rica, Marfil “Pregonero”, n Miel “Calispo Pa Limon”
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 shows 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 a book in Costa Rica, and she founded the Chair of African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Costa Rica. To this day, her legacy continues to offer us many teachings.
#eulaliabernardlittle #costarica #afrocostarricense #escucharalistmo
