Mañana, J. La Cocina [Poster]. Richard A. Long posters, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Decatur, GA, United States.

This poster once belonged to Richard A. Long (1927-2013), an Africana historian based in Atlanta. It portrays three African women preparing a meal within a round house, most likely in Equatorial Guinea, where the artist is from. To me, the image captures a meaningful and intimate moment in the construction of social units and the reproduction of culture. Cooking and other forms of domestic labor are critical in placemaking and building community autonomy. Images like these may have a special resonance with members of the African diaspora living in the United States (and elsewhere), as many experience a collective nostalgia for ancestral cultures and ways of being. Black people in the United States tend to have far less access to land and food than their non-Black counterparts, and that has had far-reaching detrimental effects on the physical and social health of the population. Capturing the beauty of communal cooking helps center community and land in the radical imagination, recognizing them as the roots of our strength and joy.