Having been born in New York to a Puerto Rican family, Ronald Flecha is, at the same time, Hispanic and black. Since the African heritage is especially strong in the Caribbean, Flecha thought that his genes and his ancestry would save him from being discriminated by other blacks. But he was wrong.Full story in the Havana Journal
When I was in the Army's basic training, back in 1968, I got caught in the middle of two discriminatory feelings. I was chastised by both ends of the spectrum: the African Americans were not agreeable with me, and the anglo Americans weren't either. There was a kind of two-way racism in there.
Monday, December 26, 2005
black and hispanic
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i am a black us American who speaks spanish and am often mistaken for dominican, and sometimes cuban or puerto rican. i have romantic ideas about black and latino solidarity that arent always true. and i think that its most difficult for me to recognize racism that black folks show toward other latinos black, white, or brown. i think i generally think of it the other way. black latinos/latinos not wanting to be black and distancing themselves from the "other morenos." because i speak spanish people tend to treat me differently. you get another perspective. i want latinos to see me as a black american who learned Spanish in Santo Domingo and Havana. not some kind of pretend dominican. i think it bothers me just because people still hold stereotypes about blacks assuming that we have no culture and nothing to offer. so many black folks in addition to wishing they were "Indian" also think is more interesting or "exotic" to be puerto rican as if they have nothing to be proud of. i think other groups think that as well.
i also have a spanish middle name "valdez"--purely coincidence. And even when I explain that im not Latina nor or my parents. Some people just assume that im claiming American heritage and don’t know where I came from. And my spanish isn’t even perfect. Its like people cant fathom that a black girl learned spanish, so she must be dominican. Wearing hijab adds another twist. Today I went to a dominican restaurant in Atlanta. One lady (who I met last week) finally understood that I was in no way dominican. The others didn’t think I spoke spanish because of my hijab. I told them all that i became Muslim in santo domingo where they are from. They were shocked . . . e’ta en don bosco, calle la francia #66
I would identify as Black and Latino and also grew up in the US. Growing up I think I had a very simplistic and compartmentalized notion about identity basically because of the different environments I was in. (outside of my family, the Blacks around me weren't Hispanic, and the Hispanics around me didn't identify as Black) So in college (when I started meeting darker Puerto Ricans and Dominicans) is when I had more of a concrete sense of Afro-Latin culture and identity.
Now, to be honest, I'm not sure if I can sum up where I'm at in a few words. (Arguably, that's what this blog is for). The clearest most concise thing I would say is that I see race (Blackness) religion (Islam) and culture (Latin-ness) as three very different kinds of dimensions, but they obviously relate and interact in different ways.
I think thats interesting because i find myself in all 3 dimensions in a way. i have purposely traveled to places in latin america that have more black folks. even when i went to mexico i went to "mexico negro" to meet the afro-mexican communities in different areas.
i think i go to affirm a kind of afro-diasporan identity. because for the afro us american in particular identity isnt all that concrete. we have a culture but at the same time we dont have the same (african) cultural retension as latinos or folks in the caribbean for example. furthermore people dont recognize us as a mezcla of cultures/races. black us americans seem to have more idigeneous (american) roots than say dominicans and yet dominicans often claim that they are taino, despite the numbers of indigeneous people that were killed very early on. a man darker than myself might say that he is more taino than african/black.
furthermore many aspects of our culture arent as obviously african as the roots of salsa or the practice of la regla de ifa, or even the words we use. i feel like africa isnt as present or tangible for the african us american so we have to create our own identity which can sometimes be problematic.
i will say that coming from the land of the one drop rule, it is easy for black people to impose their ideas of race on to other people. i think that we are at times insecure about people affirming any other identity. usually everyone can unanamously agree that they dont want to be us. and in an effort to force solidarity or humble the "other" we just say "you black". i have a habit of using black very generically in a way that implies black is simply not white. but i realize this offends some people.
when i think latino. it is hard for me to think outside of myself. i think of latino as it is a part of black or as it relates to black. and i cant seem to get out of the paradigm. i can tell you where the black people live in almost every latin american country. even the places where people say that dont exist. and i seem to be very adehment about affirming the black presence in latin america.
i attended the university of havana for a semester and found the most concsious idea of blackness in cuba. lots of rastas (some fake), hip-hop heads rapping about afro-cuban identity, etc. they knew about the black american struggle and understood the concept of diaspora in a deep way.
after becoming Muslim, i sought more latino muslim communites (also looking for afro-latino muslims in the mix). because i wanted to know how they reconciled their culture with Islam. i think its different for black americans because identity has been constructed differently.. my dads family is from the Bahamas and upon a recent trip there i asked Bahamian Muslims the same thing. while the Bahamian culture is strong it is again different because brown/black people are in the majority and have this very defined culture. they dont have to be in your face about it because it just is. for the Bahamian Muslims the issue didnt seem that deep. i guess for me culture is something that ive always had to activily seek and hold on to.
to me Islam supercedes culture and race. and puts things into persepective because i tend to put too much emphasis on culture and race. tawhid is a really deep concept for me. im still learning.
I totally fully identify with talibha, i also am a black US American who happened to grow up hearing both spanish and english so i speak both, with little recollection of how i learned spanish because we do not speak it at home, it was always little things that my father would say such as "buenas noche" or "un poco" when i was younger, i thought those two were english words for a very long time now people often mistaken me for dominican or cuban, and even puerto rican becuase i can speak spanish, once again as if "una moyaita" can't learn spanish fluently at a young age, I know what i am and truthfully my family is mixed up reguardless, i have a white great grand mother as well as 2 native american great grandmothers, yet i know i am black its just that i have more than "african american" in my background, in my area we (meaning todo de los morenos" have come to realize that we are all one, just divided by language, and nationality, we also need to stop trying to draw lines b/t us that are unnecessary, i am not a "wana be dominican" ni "una dominicana, k nacio en los states, pero su familia es de la republica dominicana"(a dominican who was born in the states, but family is from the dominican republic) ethicity really is not a important issue, even now if we would open our eyes we would see that we are no longer the minority in the US...so i guess i fall in the category of a "black hispanic" because i am black, and according to the US census also an hispanic(any persons that speak fluent spanish)
its jus the simple fact that people want to somehow have something to claim as their own, that we cant identify with each other, even though we share more likeness than differences.......
the only thing that divides us basically are languages, we are the same color, our ancestors went through the same thing, and we face the same future problems, so why not unite and fight togheter to overcome rather then be the "systems" pawn and tear ourselves apart?
~jazmín
the article was removed from the original site but i found another copy and will quote it in full here:
Black Hispanics struggle for their racial identity
BY Juan Tornoe | 3/4/2005 3:32:20 PM
February 13, 2005
By Bruno Diaz
The pause and the silence at the other end of the line were eloquent: "Black Hispanics?"
Yes, black Hispanics.
"Well, the NAACP works for the benefit of all minorities, regardless of race" dutifully stated Yolanda Smith, executive director for the Houston branch of the decades-old civil rights association.
Her befuddlement is one many Americans share, whenever confronted with a reality that defies Hollywood-style stereotypes: Hispanics come in all colors and shapes. There are Asian Hispanics, white Hispanics, black Hispanics and even Latino Hispanics, as roughly 20 million people defined themselves, puzzled by the "race question" in the 2000 U.S. census.
But for the roughly 1 million black Hispanics who live in America, the question of their racial identity is one that pops up continuously along their lives, and not only once every 10 years during censuses.
"When people realized that my accent didn't match my face, they asked me where I was from. And when I told them that I was from the Dominican Republic, and that I spoke Spanish -- therefore my accent -- I always got this 'wow!-that-is-weird!' kind of look" recalled Eddy Bello, an electrical engineer who is now the manager of his wife's pediatric clinic in Odessa.
Back in the Dominican Republic, Bello's African heritage was a cultural undertone rather than a racial profile. It surfaced here and there, in the beat of merengue -- a very popular Caribbean genre -- in the spices of the country's most typical foods, in its literature, and, yes, in the white-on-black smiles of friends and relatives.
Having been born in New York to a Puerto Rican family, Ronald Flecha is, at the same time, Hispanic and black. Since the African heritage is especially strong in the Caribbean, Flecha thought that his genes and his ancestry would save him from being discriminated by other blacks. But he was wrong.
"When I was in the Army's basic training, back in 1968, I got caught in the middle of two discriminatory feelings. I was chastised by both ends of the spectrum: the African Americans were not agreeable with me, and the anglo Americans weren't either. There was a kind of two-way racism in there."
For both men, and for many black Hispanics in America, a mixed heritage often becomes a statement with an unexpected offshoot: blackness weighs more.
"Whether Hispanics choose to identify their race as white, Hispanic or black is not a matter of purely personal preference -- it reflects the social position of group members" John Logan concluded in a 2003 study by the Lewis Mumford Center at Albany University. "This is most evident in the case of the smallest group, black Hispanics, whose individual characteristics such as income and unemployment make them in many ways more similar to non-Hispanic blacks than to other Hispanic groups," concluded the study.
As blacks, black Hispanics tend to suffer higher poverty rates than other Hispanic subgroups. Put in perspective, their struggle resembles closely that of blacks.
It also illustrates how difficult it is to escape from racial predeterminations, even for those individuals for whom the race factor was never part of their identity.
But both Bello and Flecha shrug off the racial classifications and all its implications with one big smile. "Hispanics are not a race but members of a group with a common cultural background. To put all of us in the same bag is just ridiculous."
Rita Cuevas, a nun at Lady Guadalupe Catholic Church in Midland, and another Hispanic stereotype shredder, agrees with them.
As most Philippines, Sister Rita looks Asian but has a heavy Hispanic heritage, an inescapable byproduct of 350 years of Spaniards' colonialism.
"Spaniards left us many things that are now part of our identity: we are Catholics, we cook our seafood Mediterranean-style, our language is full of Spanish words and we are very 'family people,'" she said. But Philippines also owe vast areas of their identity pool to the Chinese influence, which puts them in the same place as black Hispanics: somewhere in the middle of two heritages.
Or perhaps beyond them.
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