Mixed Race Studies

#BlackLivesMatter in Latin America: Race, Space and Consciousness

New York University Department of Social & Cultural Analysis
20 Cooper Square
New York, New York 10003
Monday, 2016-04-18 18:30-20:00 EDT (Local Time)

The hashtag turned social movement, #blacklivesmatter, has thrust police brutality and institutionalized racism into the American consciousness. African descendants in Latin America are concurrently mobilizing around issues not unlike those faced by blacks in the U.S., drawing inspiration, in part, from #blacklivesmatter. What are the points of convergence in past and present Afro-Latin American and African American struggles to attain human rights? Join us for a multi-media panel discussion on #blacklivesmatter as a globalized from of protest, declaration of black pride and transnational solidarity throughout the Americas.

Moderator:

Dr. Arlene Davila, Professor of Anthropology, Social and Cultural Analysis
New York University

Panelists:

Carmen Perez, The Gathering for Justice
Johanna Fernandez, PhD, CUNY Faculty
Diana Palacios, DRECCA
Wendi Muse, PhD Candidate, NYU

Supported by:

Gallatin Dean’s Office Human Rights Fund
Center for Multicultural Education & Programs
Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies
Department of Social & Cultural Analysis
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Afro-Latin@ Forum

For more information, click here.

‘Mejorar la Raza’: An Example of Racism in Latino Culture

Latino Voices
Huffington Post
2015-06-15

Maria Alejandra Casale-Hardin
University of California, Hastings, Law Class of 2018

Samuel Lange Zambrano portraying a 9-year-old Venezuelan boy obsessed with straightening his hair in the 2013 film Pelo Malo.

‘Mejorar la raza’ is a common phrase used in Latin American countries, which means ‘improve the race.’ It implies that you should marry or have children with a whiter person so you’ll have better-looking kids. The phrase is used by people of any race without much thought. A year ago, a Facebook post by a Latina living in Europe started a heated argument about the history of whitewashing in Latin America. She said ‘mejorar la raza’ to justify the massive rape of Indigenous women by European colonizers. A few hours later, the girl erased the post and dismissed it as a joke. I like to hope she felt embarrassed after being called a racist on social media.

As a child, I heard my aunt asking my cousin to break up with the girl he was dating because he should ‘mejorar la raza’. Her biggest concern seemed to be the girl’s Afro-Latino heritage, “You don’t want to bring ugly kids into the world. What if you have a girl and she comes out with pelo malo?” My aunt thought she was talking some sense into her son. After all, “pelo malo” literally translates to ‘bad hair’ but it really means ‘afro-textured hair.’ She didn’t think she was being racist or mean-spirited, she thought it was her duty to point out how hard her imaginary granddaughter’s life will be if she inherited her mom’s curls…

Read the entire article here.

Negra & Beautiful: The Unique Challenges Faced By Afro-Latinas

Latina
2011-11-29

Damarys Ocaña, Freelance Journalist

The frustrating ironies of being Afro-Latina hit Yuly Marshall with stunning regularity: At work at a Miami hospital, Hispanic patients of the Cuban-born radiology technician usually assume she’s African American, asking her, “Where did you learn to speak Spanish like that?” and expressing shock—even skepticism—that she’s really Latina. Other times, fellow Latinos will disparage African Americans in front of her with phrases like, “What can you expect from negros?” and then turn around and tell her, as if paying her a compliment, “But you’re not like that. You’re one of us.”
 
When Marshall talks about race issues with African American coworkers, they often tell her she has no idea what it’s really like to be black. Yet a few years ago, when Marshall dated a lighter-skinned black Latino, his parents persuaded him to break it off because of her dark skin. “They told him to find a white girl so he could adelantar la raza,” Marshall says, using a phrase that roughly means to ‘push the race forward’ by marrying a light-skinned person and producing children lighter than yourself.

“Sometimes I think, ‘When is this going to end?’” says Marshall, 31. “But I love my skin color. God created me this way, and I’m just as good as any other person.”…

…“People are increasingly identifying as Afro-Latino,” says Miriam Jiménez Román, who edited The AfroLatin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States, a collection of essays by Afro-Latino writers that recently won the American Book Award. “They’re aware now that such an identity is a possibility.”
 
If it sounds strange that some young Latinas don’t know that it’s okay to be black and Latina, it’s because of the barrage of mixed messages young Afro-Latinas get.
 
Of the estimated 11 million enslaved Africans brought to the New World from the late 1400s to the 1860s, most were taken to Latin America and the Caribbean, with only some 645,000 landing in the United States. “So when you’re talking about blackness, you’re really talking about Latin America,” Jimenez says…

…Many Latin American countries have de-emphasized race for another reason, says Arlene Davila, Ph.D., a New York University professor of anthropology. “National identity was supposed to trump racial identity,” she says, supposedly making everyone equal. Black Latinos were made to feel as if trumpeting their race made them less Cuban, for example, though in reality, the political and economic power lay with light-skinned citizens…

Read the entire article here.