Rooted Readings is an intimate gathering centered on the relationship between language, cultural memory, oral tradition, and the histories we inherit.
As part of Your Fruit Tastes Sweet, I Taste Sweat the program invites participants to engage with a selection of Belizean literary works, historical speeches, theatrical writings, and collections of oral wisdom. Together, these texts offer different entry points into understanding Belizean identity, the country’s colonial history, and the ways cultural knowledge has been preserved and transmitted across generations.
Belize occupies a unique position within the Caribbean and Central American landscape. Its history reflects a convergence of Indigenous, African, European, and other cultural influences, shaped by colonization, migration, labor, resistance, and the pursuit of independence. Through selected readings, shared reflection, and open conversation, participants are invited to encounter these materials not simply as historical artifacts, but as living expressions of culture.
What’s particularly interesting is the relationship between written archives and living memory. At its center is a simple question: What does it mean to inherit a culture, and what responsibility do we have to keep its stories alive?
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Readings
1. THE FRUIT OF THE TREE By River of Fire
The Fruit of the Tree enters the program through the themes of ancestry, familial relationships, and the transmission of knowledge between generations.
2. PING WING JUK ME: SIX BELIZEAN PLAYS By Carol Fonseca Galvez, George Gabb, Evan X. Hyde, Gladys Stuart, Shirley Warde, and Colville Young. Edited by Michael Phillips | Cubola Productions, Belizean Writers Series
This anthology brings together six works of Belizean theater, reflecting the country’s social experiences, cultural expressions, humor, folklore, and everyday realities.
3. CREOLE PROVERBS OF BELIZE Collected by Sir Colville N. Young
This publication preserves a collection of traditional Belizean Creole proverbs, documenting forms of language and folk wisdom passed between generations.
4. LET BELIZE LIVE: SPEECHES OF THE PREMIER Speeches by George Cadle Price
Published by the National Institute of Culture and History and the Belize Archives and Records Service, 2023
Let Belize Live brings together speeches from George Cadle Price, Belize’s first Prime Minister and a central figure in the country’s movement toward independence.