Jylynn Heads
Born in (city), United States on (date, month), 1994
Narrator: Jylynn Heads
Video recorded by: Marisa Hicks-Alcaraz
Date of recording: October 24, 2021
Jylynn and I meet for the first time in front of City Hall in Claremont, CA. Claremont happens to be a half way point for us. I am coming from Whittier, where I currently live, and she is coming from a farmers market in Chino where she sells her home-pressed juices.
Jylynn is the daughter of a Black American father and a Garífuna mother. She grew up alternating between Southern California, where her mother and her family live, Washington state, where her father lives, and Honduras and Guatemala, where much of her extended Garífuna family live. Today, she lives in (city), Belize with her two-year-old daughter, (Aja?), as a single mother, young entrepreneur, and vegan chef. Home-cooking is a central theme in her testimonio. To Jylynn, home-cooked meals with fresh ingredients are a powerful source for nourishing Black love, community, and life.
Jylynn brings (Aja) to the interview, explaining that she was unable to convince her mom to watch her—which is understandable. (Aja) has inherited Jylynn’s curiosity and eagerness to learn and engage with the world. She tirelessly tests the boundaries around her, and today is no exception. Clearly having mastered the art of multi-tasking, Jylynn narrates her experiences with enthusiasm and incredible detail, while jumping off screen to prevent (Aja) from wandering off or putting whatever new thing she finds into her mouth.
Jylynn’s grandmother, Cynthia Lewis, connected us. Cynthia was the first person to be interviewed as part of this project and I have continued to work closely with her on digitally preserving her personal photo collection, as well as the archival collection at the Garífuna Museum of Los Angeles (GAMOLA), where she volunteers as a tour guide, as does Jylynn when she’s in town. Following her own interview, Cynthia mentioned the testimonios project to Jylynn. She was interested in being a narrator and Cynthia encouraged me to reach out to her before she returned to Belize for Garífuna Settlement Day.
In Belize, Garífuna Settlement Day is celebrated on November 19, commemorating the day that the Garínagu (plural of Garífuna) arrived on the shores of Belize in 1802 after being exiled by British colonial forces from their homeland St. Vincent. The Garínagu are an Afro-Indigenous People who are descendants of shipwrecked enslaved West African and Arawak and Carib Peoples expelled to the coast of Honduras in the late 18th century. Today Garínagu live across the Caribbean coast of Central American—Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua—as well as in major port cities in the United States. In this testimonio, Jylynn narrates the complex process of the formation of her racial/ethnic identity as simultaneously a Black woman, Latina, and Garífuna.
Author: Marisa Hicks-Alcaraz
* Gender neutral Spanish translation, transcripts, Flickr photo album coming soon