Black history month post: Afro-Latinos
Black history month post: Afro-Latinos
In a Q&A for his 2011 PBS documentary “Black In Latin America,” Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said:
“There were 11.2 million Africans that we can count who survived the Middle Passage and landed in the New World, and of that 11.2 million, only 450,000 came to the United States. That’s amazing. All the rest went south of Miami as it were.”
There’s no doubt that the intersection between Black and Latino identity runs deep, and yet the Afro-Latino experience remains largely invisible in mainstream media. In honor of Black History Month, we asked HuffPost Latino Voices and HuffPost Black Voices readers to send us their thoughts via Facebook on what it means to be Afro-Latino. What makes being Afro-Latino beautiful? Challenging? Unique?
We received dozens of responses and compiled a list of our favorites below. We also paid homage to a few of the many Afro-Latinos who’ve influenced American culture.
Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates slides back into first base while playing the Baltimore Orioles at the 1971 World Series October.
--------------------
· “Being Afro Latino is being a bridgebuilder, standing squarely at the crossroads of pan Africanism in the US. I am a proud Black Panamanian! We exist! And we exist with the knowledge that Blackness is global in its scope. No one has hegemony on Blackness and we are the proof!” - Merrick Moise
· “Afro-latino is not about being Black and Latino, Afro-Latina means to be a Black Latina/Latino hence why the term Afro-latino came about in the late 70’s. Since Latino is not a race, its really not even an ethnic group, it is false to say that folks are Black and Latino, we are racially Black and then many refer to their ethnicity or i.e Afro-Boricua, Afro-Dominican. Often in the US Black becomes synomus [sic] with those that are African-American which then does not take into account the millions of african descendants, Black people globally that are in the world and in the USA.” - Rosa Clemente, Ph. D candidate at UMass Amherst’s W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.
Singer Celia Cruz appeared as a musical guest on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno in June 1992.
----------------------
· “It’s obviously about people who identify as Afro Latino...to complicate what it means to be black and Latino and any combination because the diversity of black identity is often oversimplified. Just because people are both doesn’t mean they are less of one...” - Sophia Raine Surage
· “It was always difficult because I was never Boricua or Black enough. Other Puerto Ricans didn’t accept me because I wasn’t a fluent Spanish speaker and too brown. I also wasn’t ‘dark’ enough to be Black. These Black girls tried to jump me in the third grade because my Taino roots gave me long, wavy hair and they wanted to ‘tear it out and prove if was a weave.’
I grew up in No Mans’ Land. I loved collard greens and mofongo. At Thankgiving we ate fried chicken and arroz con gandules.
After my first trip to Puerto Rico last year as a grown Black woman (that’s how I had finally chosen to identify), I’ve never felt more complete! I was seen as just Puerto Rican, whether I speak Spanish or not. I didn’t need to prove anything. I am proud to say I am AFRO-LATINA. I’ll be taking my son next month for his first trip. I can’t wait to share the experience with him!” - Kadyn Velez
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” author and MIT professor Junot Diaz.
------------------
· “Everyone in puerto Rico is african too..just many wont accept it.” - Elizabeth Velázquez Romero
· “Black is the racial group, while the pan ethnic identification of ‘Latino’ refers to language, culture, and nation of origin. To be a Black Spanish speaker in the Americas means to feel, taste, hear, see, etc the West African heritage at all times in our phenoytype, in our music, in our dance, in our rhythms, in our food, in our language/daily lexicon, etc. We are the manifestation of our cultural memory. Often overlooked, when the very aspects of our culture that are praised as being ‘Latino’ come from the African influence on the Americas. We transmit the knowledge passed on to us from our ancestors through our very being; the very act of us living, surviving, and thriving is an act of resistance in the face of white supremacy in both the United States and the rest of the Americas. Sometimes this means living life on the hyphen, to borrow from Professor Juan Flores, neither being perceived as ‘Black enough’ nor ‘Latino enough’...but we’re Afrodescendientes and proud.” - L.Tamar Minter
· “I am black and Latina...I might only be HALF black, but I am still black. It is silly to take pride in black history month yet to singlehandedly exclude those of us who are TREATED like blacks, yet some of our black sisters and brothers refuse to accept us as one of ‘them’. As a biracial minority, we grapple with a constant state of acceptance from both cultures.” - Olivia Love
Journalist Soledad O’Brien receives the NAACP President’s Award in 2007.
---------------------
· “I am mixed AfroLatina. My father is Black and my mom is Latina. I was born in Puerto Rico, raised in Hawaii before settling here in California where I’m married to my Korean husband. Together we raise our 4 children as ‘mini global citizens’ by instilling pride in all of the cultures and learning about others in this multicultural world.
For me being mixed meant some tough times because you are searching for your identity. You don’t ‘look’ black are others may not think you’re ‘Latin enough’. You speak Spanish but may not be fully accepted in either community.
Because of this I set out to find my community. Now I am vice-president of a multiracial organization and am also part of an AfroLatino community here in LA where we share what it means to be an AfroLatino and celebrate it.” - Sonia N. Kang, Owner of Mixed Up Clothing
· “Yes being black and Latino is challenging, beautiful and unique. From growing up filling out job applications that asked if I was: White, Black, Hispanic, Hispanic not of African decent. Which left me having to choose only part of who I am. To being told by my Black and white friends ‘your not Black your Cuban’. To also experiencing racism from white Cubans from remarks they would make toward me but now at me. But when I would respond to those remarks in Spanish I would hear this ‘Ohh tu eres Cubano, perdon el mano’. As if now I became less black because I spoke Spanish.” - Roger Garcia
Actress Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson, the powerful managing partner of one of New York City’s most prominent law firms, in USA’s “Suits.”
----------------
“Try explaining to your middle school friends that you are Black AND Hispanic back in the 80’s when there weren’t many of us in the neighborhood. My twin sister and I were sore thumbs!
So we took advantage of our unique background and weaved seamlessly between my white hispanic friends and my African-American friends. We listened to hip-hop and Celia Cruz. We participated in a number of choreographed Quinceañera parties with my hispanic friends and met my black friends at R&B concerts.
My life was never unusual to me. It was great. I was questioned about my ethnicity and race for as long as I can remember. And although many of my peers asked me to choose sides or tried to make me prove how ‘Cuban’ I really was, I didn’t hold it against them. I was comfortable in my skin, still am. And I continue to answer the same questions that were asked years ago. ‘Say something in spanish!’ It never gets old. I don’t mind it at all. I love surprising them. I love the interesting stares I get. And whoever needs to be informed on the history of the Afro-latino, feel free to ask. I don’t take offense. Many are just not informed.” - Yvonne Rodriguez, Owner of Tres Lindas Cubanas Cigars
Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat painting in Switzerland in 1983.
------------------
SOURCE 1.
-------------------------
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics (OP: document is from March 1, 2016)
Identity for U.S. Hispanics is multidimensional and multifaceted. For example, many Hispanics tie their identity to their ancestral countries of origin - Mexico, Cuba, Peru or the Dominican Republic. They may also look to their indigenous roots. Among the many ways Hispanics see their identity is their racial background.
Afro-Latinos are one of these Latino identity groups. They are characterized by their diverse views of racial identity, reflecting the complex and varied nature of race and identity among Latinos. A Pew Research Center survey of Latino adults shows that one-quarter of all U.S. Latinos self-identify as Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean or of African descent with roots in Latin America. This is the first time a nationally representative survey in the U.S. has asked the Latino population directly whether they considered themselves Afro-Latino.
In the U.S., Latinos with Caribbean roots are more likely to identify as Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean than those with roots elsewhere (34% versus 22%, respectively). Those who identify as Afro-Latino are more concentrated on the East Coast and in the South than other Latinos (65% of Afro-Latinos live in these regions vs. 48% of other Latinos). They are also more likely than other Latinos to be foreign born (70% vs. 52%), less likely to have some college education (24% vs. 37%), and more likely to have lower family incomes. About six-in-ten Afro-Latinos reported family incomes below $30,000 in 2013, compared with about half of those who did not identify as Afro-Latino (62% vs. 47%).
Afro-Latinos’ views of race are also unique. When asked directly about their race, only 18% of Afro-Latinos identified their race or one of their races as black. In fact, higher shares of Afro-Latinos identified as white alone or white in combination with another race (39%) or volunteered that their race or one of their races was Hispanic (24%). Only 9% identified as mixed race.
These findings reflect the complexity of identity and race among Latinos. For example, two-thirds of Latinos (67%) say their Hispanic background is a part of their racial background. This is in contrast to the U.S. Census Bureau’s own classification of Hispanic identity - census survey forms have described “Hispanic” as an ethnic origin, not a race.
The multiple dimensions of Hispanic identity also reflect the long colonial history of Latin America, during which mixing occurred among indigenous Americans, white Europeans, slaves from Africa and Asians. In Latin America’s colonial period, about 15 times as many African slaves were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies than to the U.S. Today, about 130 million people of African descent live in Latin America, making up roughly a quarter of the total population, according to estimates from the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) at Princeton University.
Until recently, most Latin American countries did not collect official statistics on ethnicity or race, especially from populations with African origins. However, a recent push for official recognition of minority groups throughout Latin America has resulted in most countries collecting race and ethnicity data on their national censuses.
In 2015, for the first time ever, Mexico allowed people to identify as black or Afro-Mexican through a new question in its mid-decade survey. About 1.4 million Mexicans (or 1.2% of the population) self-identified as black or of African descent based on their culture, history or customs, according to Mexico’s chief statistical agency.
Afro-Latinos make up significant shares of the population in some corners of Latin America. In Brazil, about half of the population is of African descent (black or mixed-race black). In the Caribbean, black Cubans make up about a third of that country’s population. In the Dominican Republic, black identity is much more complicated. Estimates of Afro-descent in the Dominican Republic range from about a quarter to nearly 90% of the population depending on whether the estimates include those who identify as “indio,” a group that includes many nonwhites and mixed-race individuals with African ancestry.
SOURCE 2.
In a Q&A for his 2011 PBS documentary “Black In Latin America,” Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said:
“There were 11.2 million Africans that we can count who survived the Middle Passage and landed in the New World, and of that 11.2 million, only 450,000 came to the United States. That’s amazing. All the rest went south of Miami as it were.”
There’s no doubt that the intersection between Black and Latino identity runs deep, and yet the Afro-Latino experience remains largely invisible in mainstream media. In honor of Black History Month, we asked HuffPost Latino Voices and HuffPost Black Voices readers to send us their thoughts via Facebook on what it means to be Afro-Latino. What makes being Afro-Latino beautiful? Challenging? Unique?
We received dozens of responses and compiled a list of our favorites below. We also paid homage to a few of the many Afro-Latinos who’ve influenced American culture.
Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates slides back into first base while playing the Baltimore Orioles at the 1971 World Series October.
--------------------
· “Being Afro Latino is being a bridgebuilder, standing squarely at the crossroads of pan Africanism in the US. I am a proud Black Panamanian! We exist! And we exist with the knowledge that Blackness is global in its scope. No one has hegemony on Blackness and we are the proof!” - Merrick Moise
· “Afro-latino is not about being Black and Latino, Afro-Latina means to be a Black Latina/Latino hence why the term Afro-latino came about in the late 70’s. Since Latino is not a race, its really not even an ethnic group, it is false to say that folks are Black and Latino, we are racially Black and then many refer to their ethnicity or i.e Afro-Boricua, Afro-Dominican. Often in the US Black becomes synomus [sic] with those that are African-American which then does not take into account the millions of african descendants, Black people globally that are in the world and in the USA.” - Rosa Clemente, Ph. D candidate at UMass Amherst’s W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.
Singer Celia Cruz appeared as a musical guest on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno in June 1992.
----------------------
· “It’s obviously about people who identify as Afro Latino...to complicate what it means to be black and Latino and any combination because the diversity of black identity is often oversimplified. Just because people are both doesn’t mean they are less of one...” - Sophia Raine Surage
· “It was always difficult because I was never Boricua or Black enough. Other Puerto Ricans didn’t accept me because I wasn’t a fluent Spanish speaker and too brown. I also wasn’t ‘dark’ enough to be Black. These Black girls tried to jump me in the third grade because my Taino roots gave me long, wavy hair and they wanted to ‘tear it out and prove if was a weave.’
I grew up in No Mans’ Land. I loved collard greens and mofongo. At Thankgiving we ate fried chicken and arroz con gandules.
After my first trip to Puerto Rico last year as a grown Black woman (that’s how I had finally chosen to identify), I’ve never felt more complete! I was seen as just Puerto Rican, whether I speak Spanish or not. I didn’t need to prove anything. I am proud to say I am AFRO-LATINA. I’ll be taking my son next month for his first trip. I can’t wait to share the experience with him!” - Kadyn Velez
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” author and MIT professor Junot Diaz.
------------------
· “Everyone in puerto Rico is african too..just many wont accept it.” - Elizabeth Velázquez Romero
· “Black is the racial group, while the pan ethnic identification of ‘Latino’ refers to language, culture, and nation of origin. To be a Black Spanish speaker in the Americas means to feel, taste, hear, see, etc the West African heritage at all times in our phenoytype, in our music, in our dance, in our rhythms, in our food, in our language/daily lexicon, etc. We are the manifestation of our cultural memory. Often overlooked, when the very aspects of our culture that are praised as being ‘Latino’ come from the African influence on the Americas. We transmit the knowledge passed on to us from our ancestors through our very being; the very act of us living, surviving, and thriving is an act of resistance in the face of white supremacy in both the United States and the rest of the Americas. Sometimes this means living life on the hyphen, to borrow from Professor Juan Flores, neither being perceived as ‘Black enough’ nor ‘Latino enough’...but we’re Afrodescendientes and proud.” - L.Tamar Minter
· “I am black and Latina...I might only be HALF black, but I am still black. It is silly to take pride in black history month yet to singlehandedly exclude those of us who are TREATED like blacks, yet some of our black sisters and brothers refuse to accept us as one of ‘them’. As a biracial minority, we grapple with a constant state of acceptance from both cultures.” - Olivia Love
Journalist Soledad O’Brien receives the NAACP President’s Award in 2007.
---------------------
· “I am mixed AfroLatina. My father is Black and my mom is Latina. I was born in Puerto Rico, raised in Hawaii before settling here in California where I’m married to my Korean husband. Together we raise our 4 children as ‘mini global citizens’ by instilling pride in all of the cultures and learning about others in this multicultural world.
For me being mixed meant some tough times because you are searching for your identity. You don’t ‘look’ black are others may not think you’re ‘Latin enough’. You speak Spanish but may not be fully accepted in either community.
Because of this I set out to find my community. Now I am vice-president of a multiracial organization and am also part of an AfroLatino community here in LA where we share what it means to be an AfroLatino and celebrate it.” - Sonia N. Kang, Owner of Mixed Up Clothing
· “Yes being black and Latino is challenging, beautiful and unique. From growing up filling out job applications that asked if I was: White, Black, Hispanic, Hispanic not of African decent. Which left me having to choose only part of who I am. To being told by my Black and white friends ‘your not Black your Cuban’. To also experiencing racism from white Cubans from remarks they would make toward me but now at me. But when I would respond to those remarks in Spanish I would hear this ‘Ohh tu eres Cubano, perdon el mano’. As if now I became less black because I spoke Spanish.” - Roger Garcia
Actress Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson, the powerful managing partner of one of New York City’s most prominent law firms, in USA’s “Suits.”
----------------
“Try explaining to your middle school friends that you are Black AND Hispanic back in the 80’s when there weren’t many of us in the neighborhood. My twin sister and I were sore thumbs!
So we took advantage of our unique background and weaved seamlessly between my white hispanic friends and my African-American friends. We listened to hip-hop and Celia Cruz. We participated in a number of choreographed Quinceañera parties with my hispanic friends and met my black friends at R&B concerts.
My life was never unusual to me. It was great. I was questioned about my ethnicity and race for as long as I can remember. And although many of my peers asked me to choose sides or tried to make me prove how ‘Cuban’ I really was, I didn’t hold it against them. I was comfortable in my skin, still am. And I continue to answer the same questions that were asked years ago. ‘Say something in spanish!’ It never gets old. I don’t mind it at all. I love surprising them. I love the interesting stares I get. And whoever needs to be informed on the history of the Afro-latino, feel free to ask. I don’t take offense. Many are just not informed.” - Yvonne Rodriguez, Owner of Tres Lindas Cubanas Cigars
Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat painting in Switzerland in 1983.
------------------
SOURCE 1.
-------------------------
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics (OP: document is from March 1, 2016)
Identity for U.S. Hispanics is multidimensional and multifaceted. For example, many Hispanics tie their identity to their ancestral countries of origin - Mexico, Cuba, Peru or the Dominican Republic. They may also look to their indigenous roots. Among the many ways Hispanics see their identity is their racial background.
Afro-Latinos are one of these Latino identity groups. They are characterized by their diverse views of racial identity, reflecting the complex and varied nature of race and identity among Latinos. A Pew Research Center survey of Latino adults shows that one-quarter of all U.S. Latinos self-identify as Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean or of African descent with roots in Latin America. This is the first time a nationally representative survey in the U.S. has asked the Latino population directly whether they considered themselves Afro-Latino.
In the U.S., Latinos with Caribbean roots are more likely to identify as Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean than those with roots elsewhere (34% versus 22%, respectively). Those who identify as Afro-Latino are more concentrated on the East Coast and in the South than other Latinos (65% of Afro-Latinos live in these regions vs. 48% of other Latinos). They are also more likely than other Latinos to be foreign born (70% vs. 52%), less likely to have some college education (24% vs. 37%), and more likely to have lower family incomes. About six-in-ten Afro-Latinos reported family incomes below $30,000 in 2013, compared with about half of those who did not identify as Afro-Latino (62% vs. 47%).
Afro-Latinos’ views of race are also unique. When asked directly about their race, only 18% of Afro-Latinos identified their race or one of their races as black. In fact, higher shares of Afro-Latinos identified as white alone or white in combination with another race (39%) or volunteered that their race or one of their races was Hispanic (24%). Only 9% identified as mixed race.
These findings reflect the complexity of identity and race among Latinos. For example, two-thirds of Latinos (67%) say their Hispanic background is a part of their racial background. This is in contrast to the U.S. Census Bureau’s own classification of Hispanic identity - census survey forms have described “Hispanic” as an ethnic origin, not a race.
The multiple dimensions of Hispanic identity also reflect the long colonial history of Latin America, during which mixing occurred among indigenous Americans, white Europeans, slaves from Africa and Asians. In Latin America’s colonial period, about 15 times as many African slaves were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies than to the U.S. Today, about 130 million people of African descent live in Latin America, making up roughly a quarter of the total population, according to estimates from the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) at Princeton University.
Until recently, most Latin American countries did not collect official statistics on ethnicity or race, especially from populations with African origins. However, a recent push for official recognition of minority groups throughout Latin America has resulted in most countries collecting race and ethnicity data on their national censuses.
In 2015, for the first time ever, Mexico allowed people to identify as black or Afro-Mexican through a new question in its mid-decade survey. About 1.4 million Mexicans (or 1.2% of the population) self-identified as black or of African descent based on their culture, history or customs, according to Mexico’s chief statistical agency.
Afro-Latinos make up significant shares of the population in some corners of Latin America. In Brazil, about half of the population is of African descent (black or mixed-race black). In the Caribbean, black Cubans make up about a third of that country’s population. In the Dominican Republic, black identity is much more complicated. Estimates of Afro-descent in the Dominican Republic range from about a quarter to nearly 90% of the population depending on whether the estimates include those who identify as “indio,” a group that includes many nonwhites and mixed-race individuals with African ancestry.
SOURCE 2.