Originally posted on the website Vida Afro Latina........
Let’s Celebrate Afro-Latin Identity All Year Long
Posted on May 26, 2008
Afro-Latin people are constantly negotiating identities, declaring loyalties, defining themselves, being inaccurately defined by others and living an “either/or” existence rather than accepting the complexities of a multi-layered identity.
Afro-Latinos are not half Latino and half Black. They are both fully Black and fully Latino. This can present a host of identity issues. An Afro-Latina may choose to deny her negritude or her latinidad as a means of survival, or she might elect to accept and validate her identities through difficult navigation process. The success of this navigation depends on self-acceptance and pride, the development of which necessitates learning an accurate version of history.
Today, Afro-Latin Americans, past and present, are invisible in Latin America. The problem of selective historical amnesia can be resolved when we replace or supplement the official history with the history of the African community in Latin America.
Although African history remains the root of many beliefs, practices and customs within Latin American societies, the history of Black people has been virtually obliterated. In many instances, Afro-Latinos themselves lack the deep historic understanding needed to develop an impermeable self-identity.
African Americans in the United States may be the most acknowledged and recognized Blacks in the Americas. However, only about 5 percent of all slaves brought to the New World were sold in the U.S., which entered the slave trade much later than other nations in the hemisphere. Approximately 95 percent of enslaved people stolen from Africa were sold in Latin America and the Caribbean. The majority, some 60 percent, were sold in a single country: Brazil
In various Latin American and Caribbean nations, Africans outnumbered Europeans. In 1570, enslaved Africans outnumbered Spaniards in Mexico three to one, but were reduced to only 10 percent of the population by 1810. On the Caribbean islands, Blacks outnumbered Whites by as many as 23 to 1.
Some Latin American countries do not even minimally acknowledge the existence of enslaved Africans, much less Black heroes. In Mexico, emphasis is placed on being mestizo, the cosmic race. Dismissed is the existence of significant numbers of Black Mexicans in certain regions throughout that nation’s history, including an Afro-Mestizo president—Vicente Guerrero—in 1829. The city of Morelia in Michoacán state and the states of Morelos and Guerrero are named after Afro-Mexican heroes, José María Morelos y Pavón and Vicente Guerrero respectively.
In contrast, other countries are beginning to embrace their African heritage. Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, readily cites his African ancestry. He also provides much needed assistance and attention to Black Venezuelans—until recently, the forgotten faces in the country.
In many Latin American countries, such as Ecuador, Black citizens themselves are continuing a tradition of researching and honoring their African heritage, even while still largely ignored by media, academia and other institutions. They have founded think tanks and cultural resource centers that disseminate information about Afro-Latin Americans throughout the region.
This information and much more needs to be discussed and celebrated. Afro-Latinos in the U.S. are in the privileged position to be able to publicly celebrate and commemorate Afro-Latinidad each year both in the month of February, Black History Month, and from mid-September to mid-October, Hispanic Heritage Month.
From my west coast perspective, few if any Black History Month celebrations include Afro-Latin historic or contemporary icons. During Hispanic Heritage Month, very few celebrations feature Afro-Latin heroes. How wonderful it would be to have a list of Afro-Latin celebrations during both months, but also in our communities throughout the year and in our homes every day.
Here are some suggestions for ways to commemorate our rich heritage on an ongoing basis:
• Host Afro-Latin movie nights featuring films which address issues of identity
• Host an Afro-Latin book club
• Write Afro-Latin children’s books
• Continue our storytelling tradition with your children
• Tell your children about historic Afro-Latin heroes
• Create an Afro-Latin Saturday Academy in your community
• Write letters to newspaper editors, to Univision and Telemundo, or other media outlets when this misrepresent or omit Afro-Latinos
• Engage African Americans in dialogue about our shared history
• Educate non-Afro-Latinos about our history
• Contact your local community center or cultural organization and offer to
host an Afro-Latino events during those Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month
• Write reviews of Afro-Latin books, films and music for your local paper
• Form a community group or research committee that will encourage local colleges and universities to include Afro-Latino-specific books and resources in Spanish, African American and Latin American studies courses
Our backs are bridges, but we don’t have to carry a burden. Let us look at our place as Afro-Latins as a divine role with which we have been entrusted. You probably know the saying, “God made me Black because He knew I could handle it.” Well, God put the Afro in your Latino because he knew you could handle it. Let the celebration begin.
Jameelah Xochitl Medina, a Ph.D. candidate at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif., is the author of “The Afro-Latin Diaspora: Awakening Ancestral Memory, Avoiding Cultural Amnesia.” For more information, visit
The Afro-Latin Diaspora: Awakening Ancestral Memory, Avoiding Cultural Amnesia or contact Medina at
lapazenmi@gmail.com.