People who live in the U.S. go through identity issues from time to time. This can be caused by many different things, including parents’ separation, school bullying, immigration, and, most importantly, skin color. The term AfroLatino is a word I don’t hear too often, but it is of cultural importance. There are many people from Colombia, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other countries that love their culture and claim their African roots. More people should be aware of this side of the Latino. But it is certainly misrepresented and sometimes even feared.
When you Google the word AfroLatino, you get some good resources and stories. Google Images also provides some interesting insights into this sensitive subject. Even so, when you’re of mixed descent or just dark-skinned, sometimes finding out who you are is just difficult. “My family is the rainbow coalition,” says Jesse Bermudez, a Philadelphia native. “I got white, blonde hair (family members)…my father was a Spaniard-this-and-that, my grandmom is as black as a frying pan from the mother’s side.” However, while in the military, Bermudez was labeled a negroid just because of the color of his skin.
Jesse Bermudez is one of eight people highlighted in a new photo exhibition at Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia. What it means to be Afro-Latino in Philadelphia: Stories from El Barrio is a photo-portraiture and documentary project exploring the AfroLatino concept as well as the experience and artistic/cultural expressions of North Philadelphia Latinos. These eight stories highlight the positive contributions of being AfroLatino, but also the troubles of growing up AfroLatino.
One particularly memorable story was from Evelyne Laurent-Perrault. She recalls the time she worked at a bookstore and took a call from a woman wanting to purchase a book. The woman ended up coming to the bookstore. When Evelyne said hello, the woman said, “Sorry, you’re not the person who helped me.” The woman continued to badger Evelyne, hinting that a dark-skinned woman could not have been so polite. After finding out it was Evelyn, the woman felt horrible. This is one example of how the color of your skin can affect so many lives.
So what does it mean to be AfroLatino? There can’t be a real definition without first admitting Latinos are a mixed breed of Spanish, African, and Indigenous culture. Angie Ruiz, Shippensburg University student, says, “I think AfroLatino/Latina means the influence of the African culture in the early development of the Latino culture as we have come to know it.” I’m hoping more and more people become aware of this cultural significance and of the sensitivity behind it.
By guest contributor, Eric Cortes of hisPanic.
About Being Latino Contributors
Thank you so much for this great article. I am Honduran from San Francisco, Ca living in Houston, TX. Sometimes people here (Hou) still think if you are Latina u are probably Mexican but they look at me and I think, get confused because of the way I look & speak. These days, I find it amusing the ignorance of how people still don’t realize Latinos are so mixed & come in all colors.
Great article! There are so many different perspectives to this but the one thing that is always noted is how we have the best of multiple worlds. I still am not quite sure if I fit into this but being that there are so many labels out there, i’m content in not trying to fit into just one. I’m all-encompassing! When one speaks of Afro-Latinos or if an Afro-Latino speaks of the experience, it almost always seems like you have to be dark-skinned to be considered a part; which is ridiculous if I may say so.
My mom is a dark-skinned Dominican (racially, she’d be considered black) with notable indigenous lineage and my dad is Cuban & Panamanian (racially he’d be considered white or white & native) he’s very light but I honestly never looked at my dad as white, i see him as more jabao, which is light or white-skinned, with blond or reddish, light brown colored hair & with at least one facial feature that is more african..in his case, it’d be his nose, everything else about his face comes off as European. But everyone else has called him blanco or blanco de jojoto, some derivative of white boy, all of his life. His hair was light auburn/reddish BTW growing up, so although he already stood out among his siblings, that made him stand out twice as much!
Blend those two together & you have my cafe con leche tone with a swirl of caramel! (: I was a little girl with long auburn/reddish blond curly/kinky hair. I have really full lips which is said to be an African feature but other than that I don’t know where exactly I would fall into; although I’d prefer to stay standing, falling into something just doesn’t sound like much fun no matter what the circumstances. Lol! I guess i’m a mulata o trigueña. I really never thought about the special terms until here lately after I joined a FB group focused entirely on color & race. I post this to say, that I feel like I can relate to AfroLatinidad because I was raised to be proud of my African roots (as well as the Native & Spanish) and I can relate to the “black experience” as well as I can relate to the Latino experience & culture, but I find myself feeling like other Afro-Latinos may not accept me since I am much more light complected so they don’t think.I have to face similar struggles (which I do in plenty of ways!). While at the same token, I’m not always completely accepted by Latinos who fit the stereotypical look because I don’t look like that either. Apparently, on the outside looking in, I look mixed or “exotic” (i despise that word association with us mixed people!) But I just look like me! So I think that is the label I’ll stick with. I have the best of too many worlds to list! (: Sorry for the length, but I did enjoy this piece and I’m so glad BL is starting to cover the Latinegro/a experience more! Ciao~
Thanks for talking about this issue. I’m Black and Mexican and folks don’t know how to describe me. I don’t consider myself Afro-Latino. I consider myself Black and Mexican. I have one parent of each culture. It’s funny that so many Latinos obviously have a lot of Black (dominant) genes, but will not admit to being Afro-Latino due to criticism.
It’s a good thing that people are recognizing that Latinos come in many colors/shades because of the mixing of the 3 “base cultures” if you will. LOL Yea for the beautiful people that make up the Latino diaspora of all shapes/colors!
WOW… As a dark-skinned Newyorican, I’m extremely proud of the mixed culture which exists in me. It’s high time we recognize, acknowledge and celebrate the beautiful ancestry embeded within us. Funny story … I fell in love with a light skin, green-eyed fine assed Puerto Rican many years ago. His mother and I spoke on the phone for about a year, and she was so happy that her son finally became engaged with an intelligent, competent Latina. When (former) suegra and I finally met, her jaw dropped and she couldn’t stop staring at my beautiful cocoa skin and coarse hair! This experience truly amazed me at how superficially vain some of our people from nuestra Isla del Encanto can be sometimes. Since then, I’ve carried such a profoundly confident stride and will never, ever feel insulted because of my AfroLatino traits.
On the one hand I like the effort you put into recognizing AfroLatinos, but on the other hand you almost took the easy way out- the path well traveled. I was disappointed because people often try to discount AfroLatinos as existing in solely in the early development of Latino culture when the dialogue with Africa is a continuous one and culture is not the only marker for being AfroLatino. AfroLatino-hood is also a movement that is sweeping parts of Argentina, Ecuador, and many other Latin American countries where these people are fighting for recognition and rights. They are fighting to be more then just a distant memory. They are human beings- are they defined the same as the U.S. basis of race? No, but they exist within their own self-identity and contributions that far outreach food, music, vocabulary, and dances. They are 3-dimensional marginalized human beings that fought for our independence and freedom. They are doctors, lawyers, councilmen, and so much more but they have rarely if ever received the recognition or honor they deserve. Also Latino culture is more than that old standby of indigenous, African, and Spanish culture- the fact is, just like the United States, our countries are a melting pot of cultures and ideas from every corner of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and beyond. We will never truly reach our potential until we fully realize our value.
Awesome article. People forget that Latinos are from all kinds of different tapestries of lineage. Thanks for bringing out this for wider awareness!
Gracias a todos for the great comments
I am not Hispanic…I am Puerto Rica/Latino with proud African, Taino blood. To call me an Hispanic is to insult me. I have nothing in common with the Spanish colonizers who raped, murder my people, and land, but I do have something in common with Dominicanos, Cubanos and othet people of color.
I agree with Sin Knight. I’m happy about the effort but it was written in such a distant way. It’s not only about African influence, which can exist beyond a body. It’s also about those who have black-racialized experiences because we exist on a very particular side of the ‘rainbow.’ To say “my grandmother is as black as a frying pan” – am I the only one who sees the privilege spelled in a statement like that? The insult? The ignorance? That that goes beyond saying ‘my grandmother was Black.’ Not all Blacks are dark skinned or darker -being blue black, purple, or as dark as a ‘frying pan.’ There’s something unique in the experience of a person in a dark complected body (and add a certain type of hair and/or physical feature) who could just be as easily assumed to be African (who can also be light, in the middle, or dark), African-American (who can also be light, middle, or dark), or another assumed authentic form of Black that those who may be considered visibly mixed or white may not experience.
This isn’t to be divisive, it’s to be real and honest. Who are our gazes tailored to? When we walk down the street, who do we expect to speak or not speak Spanish? Who may not speak it but have a black body and a Spanish surname? Who may have neither but have a black body and parents from Nicaragua, Panama, or Puerto Rico but either through a late West Indian family member or something and ended up with an Anglophone name? To say ‘Afro-Latino’ is a phrase I don’t hear too often – it’s another telling sign that this issue may be specific to a certain group, but should be familiar to us all – in more ways than those that recognize the food, music, religion, but also the physical bodies, and more than that – the implications, microaggressions, opportunities available associated with those bodies.
best of both worlds,,,,i would embrace both & relish in it