The terms “Afro-Latino” and “Afro-Latina” refer to those Latinos and Latinas in the United States who are of African ancestry and choose to identify with blackness as a racial identity in addition to identifying along ethnic lines with their Latino national origins. (It should also be noted that activists of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean have begun to use the same term to refer to their own persons of African descent.) As the Latino population has grown in the United States, so has the number of Latinos and Latinas of African descent. According to the 2000 U.S. census, the 35.3 million Latinos and Latinas in the United States (the nation's largest pan-ethnic group) account for 12.5 percent of the country's population. About 2 percent of those Latinos and Latinas also identified themselves as “black” on the 2000 census. That compares with close to half who said they were also “white” and the 42.5 percent who described themselves as “some other race.” (The census permits Latinos and Latinas to select a “Hispanic/Latino” ethnic origin category in addition to selecting any number of the racial categories of black, white, Asian, or “some other race.”)

Most Afro-Latinos in the United States can trace their origins to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, though nearly a quarter of a million people of Mexican heritage also defined themselves as black in the 2000 census. As compared to other Latinos, Afro-Latinos are much less likely to be immigrants and are more likely to speak English in their homes. In fact many Afro-Latino families have had a historical presence in the United States for many generations. Some scholars trace the first Afro-Latino in the United States to Estebanico, an explorer from Spain. Estebanico was one of four survivors of the infamous voyage of the Spanish explorer Pánfilo de Narvaez, which shipwrecked along the Florida coast in 1528 and was later immortalized in the memoirs of Cabeza de Vaca.

Other Afro-Latino personages are the writers Junot Díaz, Loida Maritza Pérez, Pedro Pietri, and Piri Thomas; the musicians Mario Bauzá, Frank Grillo “Machito,” Chano Pozo, and Mongo Santamaría; the journalists Jesús Colón, Pablo Guzmán, and Felipe Luciano; the athlete Roberto Clemente; and the esteemed bibliophile Arturo Schomburg (one of the foremost collectors and bibliophiles of the African diasporic experience). In addition a number of celebrities recognized as African Americans were also of Afro-Latino heritage; for instance, Sammy Davis Jr.'s mother, the Harlem vaudeville dancer Elvera “Baby” Sanchez, was Puerto Rican.

The beginnings of a sizable Afro-Latino community in the United States began in the mid-nineteenth century with the migration of Afro-Cubans to southern Florida. The burgeoning cigar industry brought thousands of Afro-Cubans to the cities of Tampa, Key West, and Ybor City as cigar workers. With the decline of the cigar industry, the main locus of Afro-Latino density slowly shifted from Florida to New York City, and its members shifted from Afro-Cuban to Afro–Puerto Rican. With Operation Bootstrap in the 1940s and 1950s bringing hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican migrants to New York, many Puerto Ricans of African descent migrated as well. After 1966 massive immigration from the Dominican Republic accounted for the increase in the U.S. Afro-Latino population. (After 1966 U.S.–influenced changes in the economic development policies of the Dominican Republic encouraged massive emigration from the country.)

Although Latinos and Latinas who explicitly identify themselves as black by using the terms “Afro-Latino” and “Afro-Latina” make up a small percentage of the U.S. Latino and Latina population, they often trace their origins to Latin American and Caribbean countries with significant numbers of people of African descent. Indeed 90 percent of the estimated 10 million African slaves brought to the Americas were transported to Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, whereas only 4.65 percent were transported to the United States. The number of people of African origin in Latin American and the Caribbean varies widely from country to country (See Table 1). Most Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas in the United States come from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, though nearly a quarter of a million people of Mexican heritage also defined themselves as black in the 2000 census.

Table 1. Afro-Descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean Country Total Population Percentage of Afro-Descendants
Dominican Republic 9 million 84%
Cuba 11 million 62%
Brazil 170 million 45%
Colombia 40 million 26%
Panama 3 million 14%
Venezuela 23 million 10%
Ecuador 12 million 10%
Nicaragua 5 million 9%
Peru 27 million 5%
SOURCE: Inter-Agency Consultation on Race in Latin America (IAC), “Inter-American Dialogue Race Report,” January 2003.

But despite the varying numbers of people of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean, the historical legacy of slavery is pervasive throughout the region, and thus people of African descent are actively discouraged from identifying as Afro-Latinos. In Latin America and the Caribbean, like in the United States, having lighter skin and European features increases the chances of socioeconomic opportunity, whereas having darker skin and African features severely limits such opportunity and mobility. In general the poorest socioeconomic class is populated primarily by people of African (and indigenous) descent, and the most privileged class is populated by whites. An elastic intermediary class with socioeconomic standing exists for some light-skinned (mixed-race) mulattos and mestizos. Negative stereotypes about blackness abound in a region that simultaneously denies the existence of racism. Instead, residents are encouraged to disassociate from their blackness in favor of national identities mythologized as a harmonious blend of all races in the discourse of mestizaje.

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As a consequence many people of African descent from Latin America and the Caribbean harbor internalized racist norms and initially may choose not to self-identify as Afro-Latino regardless of how pronounced their African ancestry may be in their features and skin colors. The internalized racism manifests itself in a widespread concern with the degree of darkness in pigmentation, width of nose, thickness of lips, and quality of hair, with straight, European-textured hair denominated literally as “good” hair. This concern with European features and white skin also influences the choice of marriage partners. Marrying someone lighter is called adelantando la raza (improving the race) under the theory of blanqueamiento (whitening), which prizes the mixture of races precisely to help diminish the existence of Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas.

Thus migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean (Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas included) often arrive in the United States with their culture of antiblack racism well intact along with other manifestations of their cultures to transmit to younger generations of Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas in the country. Negative racial stereotypes are then reinforced by the racial hierarchy of Spanish-language programming broadcast throughout the United States. The two dominant Spanish-language television networks, Univision and Telemundo, reserve the newscaster slots for whites and permit Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas to portray only the demeaning roles of maids, gardeners, chauffeurs, or witchcraft practitioners on the soap operas that are the focus of the television programming.

It is thus not so surprising that Afro-Latinos in the United States consistently report receiving racist treatment at the hands of other Latinos in addition to being perceived as outsiders to the construction of Latino entity. For example, Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas are frequently mistaken for African Americans in their own communities and upon identifying themselves as Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas are told, “But you don't look Latino.” Indeed the 2002 National Survey of Latinos sponsored by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation indicated that Latinos and Latinas with more pronounced African ancestry, such as many Dominicans, more readily identify color discrimination as an explanation for the bias they experience from other Latinos and Latinas. In turn such experiences of bias within the U.S. culture of racial consciousness motivate Latinos and Latinas of African descent to begin self-identifying as Afro-Latino and Afro-Latina.

In addition studies suggest that the socioeconomic status of Afro-Latinos in the United States is more akin to that of African Americans than to other Latinos or white Americans. According to “How Race Counts for Hispanic Americans,” a study by the State University of New York at Albany released in July 2004, Latinos who define themselves as “black” have lower incomes, higher unemployment rates, higher rates of poverty, less education, and fewer opportunities and are more likely to reside in segregated neighborhoods than those who identify themselves as “white” or “other.” Based on such data, the study concluded that there are stark differences between the standard of living for Afro-Latinos and that of all other Latinos in the United States. The disparities in living standards among Latinos and Latinas of different races may thus also account for the increased willingness to identify as Afro-Latino and Afro-Latina in the United States. Furthermore the segregated residential patterns of Afro-Latinos in areas of African American settlement provide Afro-Latino youth with an exposure to African American culture and racial consciousness that also influences their choice to identify as Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas. Indeed, one study of Afro-Dominicans found that the longer Afro-Dominicans resided in the United States, the more likely they were to identify with African Americans.

Other forces of increased racial consciousness include the organization of Afro-Latino identity-based social justice organizations and networks in the United States and abroad. For instance, Washington, D.C., is home to the community-based Afro-Latino Institute and the Institute for Afro–Latin American Studies. The premier predominantly black university, Howard University, uses “Cimarrones,” the Spanish term for fugitive black slaves, for its black student union, whose members include Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas. In New York City the Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center is a cultural arts organization that represents all of the diverse artistic expressions and traditions of the African diaspora, including those of Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas in the United States.

In addition a number of Latin American and Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries have begun to experience an increase in Afro-Latino activism. This activism garnered public attention when numerous Afro-Latino organizations from abroad organized an agenda of racial issues for the 2001 United Nations World Conference against Racism held in Durban, South Africa. The activism of those Afro-Latino/Afro-Latina organizations continues to get attention in the United States through the cooperative effort in Washington, D.C., called the Inter-Agency Consultation on Race in Latin America, a consortium that includes the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Ford Foundation, formed to address the special problems of Afro-Latino populations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Other sources of racial pride empowerment emanate from Internet Web sites. In short, Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas compose a growing community in the United States with an evolving racial consciousness connected to the racial issues in the United States and throughout the African diaspora. The issues of Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latinas will attract greater attention as they continue to develop their social justice networks and the public continues to seek them out as potential links between Latino and African American communities.

Bibliography and More Information about Afro-Latinos
•Afrolatino Web site. www.afrolatino.com
•Colón, Jesús. A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches. New York: International Publishers, 1982.
•Colón, Jesús. The Way It Was and Other Writings. Houston, Tex.: Arte Público Press, 1993.
•Dzidzienyo, Anani, and Suzanne Oboler, eds. Neither Enemies nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro Latinos. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2004.
•Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center Web site. caribbean culturalcenter.citysearch.com/
•Glasser, Ruth. My Music Is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917–1940. Latinos in American Society and Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
•Grillo, Evelio. Black Cuban, Black American: A Memoir. Houston, Tex.: Arte Público Press, 2000.
•Inter-Agency Consultation on Race in Latin America (IAC). “Inter-American Dialogue Race Report.” Inter-American Dialogue, 2003. Available at www.iac-race.org.
•Las Culturas Web site. www.lasculturas.com.
•Logan, John R. “How Race Counts for Hispanic Americans.” Lewis Mumford Center, University at Albany, July 14, 2003. Available at mumford1.dyndns.org/cen2000/BlackLatinoReport/BlackLati noReport.pdf
•Morris, Margaret Lindsay. An Introduction to Selected Afro-Latino Writers. Studies in Comparative Literature, 53. Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Press, 2003.
•MundoAfroLatino Web site. www.mundoafrolatino.com
•Sinnette, Elinor Des Verney. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, Black Bibliophile and Collector. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1989.
•Thomas, Piri. Down These Mean Streets. New York: Vintage Press, 1974.
•2002 National Survey of Latinos. Pew Hispanic Center. Available at www.pewhispanic.org
See also Bauzá, Mario; Black-Latino Relations; Blanqueamiento; Census; Clemente, Roberto; Colón, Jesús; Díaz, Junot; Dominicans; Guzmán, Pablo; Internalized Racism; Latino Identities and Ethnicities; Luciano, Felipe; Machito; Mestizaje; Mongo Santamaría; Native Americans/Mexicanos; Operation Bootstrap/Section 936; Pérez, Loida Maritza; Pietri, Pedro; Schomburg, Arturo; Thomas, Piri; and Whiteness.

Tanya Katerí Hernández



Read more: Afro-Latinos - Afro-Descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean, mestizaje, adelantando la raza, blanqueamiento http://www.jrank.org/cultures/pages/3574/Afro-Latinos.html#ixzz1E6jLREEQ