A Puerto Rican Finds Her Black Identity

Real Latinos come in all colors, including black. However, there are many Latinos of African ancestry who, despite being descendants of African slaves and experiencing home-grown racism in their respective countries, deny their black skin, and some their African heritage. 

They confuse their race with their nationalities. For example, a Puerto Rican woman of my complexion stated to me bluntly, “African Americans are black—I'm not black, I'm Puerto Rican.” She got very upset and began hurling insults at me when I pointed out that her nationality is Puerto Rican, but her skin is black.

In the video below, Rosa Clemente, a self-identified black Puerto Rican activist and Ph.D candidate in Black Studies, explains the confusion among so many Afro-Latinos, and discusses the black awakening that she herself achieved through education. She is being interviewed by Afro-Panamanian filmmaker Dash Harris who produced multiple documentaries on the Afro-Latino identity and experience.

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Puerto Rican Beauticians Make Hurftul Comments in Spanish About Black Client

“The assumption that being black and Latino is not possible isn’t only false — it can have harmful consequences on a person’s sense of identity, as revealed by one woman in a recent video that’s going viral.”

Link to original article and video:
Why You Should Never Assume That
A Black Person Can’t Be Latino

 

Not one Latino has ever been able to explain to me why they enjoy music like salsa, bachata, and reggaetón, which has major black Latino contributions, but is so quick to assume that a black person among them cannot be Latino.

 

I have known black Latinos who are a lot more outspoken than the one in this article and video who are quick to roll out their Spanish to set fellow Latinos straight, and almost give them a cardiac arrest from the shock they experience to see black faces speaking Spanish so fluently.

 

One black woman told me the reason she keeps her Latina heritage on the down low around a lot of non-black Spanish speakers is to see if they are going to talk “smack” about her in Spanish so she can put them in their place with embarrassment. 

 

There was an incident on a New York City Subway train where a black Latina was riding quietly with her two children. A group of unsupervised black American teens happened to pass through the subway car doing what teens normally do after school, and another Latina passenger went on a loud Spanish-speaking tirade to a friend about how wild and crazy black people are. The black Latina didn't respond to the passenger, but instructed her kids, in Spanish, to sit closer to her. 

 

The loud talking Latina passenger realized what she had done, and out of pure shame, apologized in Spanish to the black Latina after she had already expressed her true feelings about black people. Exactly what was the black woman supposed think or feel?

 

It's bad enough when black Americans, especially here in New York where there is a large Afro-Latino population, don't recognize that a black person can also be Latino and alienate them, but Latinos themselves should really, really know better. They really should!

 

Link to original article and video:
Why You Should Never Assume That
A Black Person Can’t Be Latino

 

Women's History: Fighting for Equal Rights of Black Puerto Rican Artists

Women's History Month is an annual declared month celebrated during March in the United States, corresponding with International Women's Day on March 8.

Sylvia del Villard

February 28, 1928-February 28, 1990

 Sylvia del Villard, an outspoken Afro-Puerto Rican activist who fought for the equal rights of Black Puerto Rican artists, was also an actress, dancer, and choreographer. In 1968, she founded the Afro-Boricua El Coqui Theater, which was recognized by the Pan-American Association of the New World Festival as the most important authority of Black Puerto Rican culture. The Theater group was given a contract which permitted them to present their act abroad and in various universities in the United States.

Del Villard received her primary and secondary education in the Santurce section of San Juan, Puerto Rico where she was born, and upon graduation, the Puerto Rican government awarded her with a collegiate scholarship. Sylvia went on to study Sociology and Anthropology at Fisk University in Tennessee. However, after enduring so much anti-black discrimination and segregation prevalent in the southern US during that time, she returned to Puerto Rico and enrolled in the University of Puerto Rico where she earned her degree.

After graduation, Del Villard traveled to New York City and enrolled in the City College of New York where she developed a passion and love for her African heritage. She joined the song and ballet group called the "Africa House," and even traced her African roots to the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Sylvia took dance and voice lessons with Leo Braun at the Metropolitan Opera, and launched an extensive acting career in Puerto Rico and abroad.

In New York where she founded a new theater group which she named Sininke making many presentations in the Museum of Natural History. In 1981, she became the first and only director of the office of the Afro-Puerto Rican affairs of the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture. In 1989 in California, Del Villard was diagnosed with lung cancer and returned to the island of Puerto Rico where she passed away on February 28, 1990 in San Juan.

“Blacks Have No History!”

San Juan, Puerto Rico
January 24, 1874 – June 8, 1938

Today, January 24 is the birthday of black historian, writer, and activist who researched and raised awareness of the great contributions of black people worldwide, especially Afro-Latin Americans and African-Americans. Arturo was born in the town of Santurce, Puerto Rico (now part of the capital San Juan). While in grade school, one of his teachers claimed that blacks have no history, heroes, or accomplishments. Inspired to prove the teacher wrong, Arturo Schomburg determined that he would find and document the accomplishments of continental Africans and those throughout the diaspora, and became an important intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance.

Over the years, Arturo Alfonso collected literature, art, slave narratives, and other materials of African history, which was purchased to become the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, named in his honor. The Schomburg Center is a branch of the New York Public Library located on Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, New York City, has been an integral part of the Harlem community since its inception. In 1978, the original building located around the corner on 135th Street between Malcolm X Blvd. and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd was entered into the National Register of Historic Places^. 

Every time I'm in New York, I always make to the

Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture 

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was educated at San Juan's Instituto Popular where he learned commercial printing. At St. Thomas College in the Danish-ruled Virgin Islands, he studied Negro Literature. Schomburg immigrated to New York on April 17, 1891, and settled in Harlem, New York City. He continued his studies to untangle the African thread of history in the fabric of the Americas. After experiencing racial discrimination in the US, he began calling himself Afroborinqueño (Afro-Puerto Rican). He became a member of the "Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico" and became an active advocate of Puerto Rico and Cuba's independence from Spain.

In 1896, Schomburg began teaching Spanish in New York. From 1901 to 1906 Schomburg was employed as messenger and clerk in the law firm of Pryor, Mellis and Harris, New York City. In 1906, he began working for the Bankers Trust Company. Later, he became a supervisor of the Caribbean and Latin American Mail Section, and held that until he left in 1929. While supporting himself and his family, Schomburg began his intellectual work of writing about Caribbean and African-American history. 

He was the co-editor of the 1912 edition of Daniel Alexander Payne Murray's Encyclopedia of the Colored Race. In 1916 he published what was the first notable bibliography of African-American poetry, A Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry.

 

The Lenox Terrace apartments in Harlem, NY where I 
grew up was only one block from the Schomburg Center 

After the NYPL purchased his extensive collection of literature, art and other materials in 1926, they appointed Schomburg curator of the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature and Art, named in his honor, at the 135th Street Branch (Harlem) of the Library. It was later renamed the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Between 1931 and 1932 Schomburg served as Curator of the Negro Collection at the library of the historically black Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, helping direct their acquisition of materials.

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg's work served as an inspiration to Puerto Ricans, Latinos and African-American alike. The power of knowing about the great contribution that black people have made worldwide, helped continuing work and future generations in the Civil rights movement.

Who Is Black? A Latina Asserts Her Identity!

I was just an 18-year-old Freshman at the State University of New York at Albany where one Saturday morning, a group black students gathered in front of our dormitory, Anthony Hall, and headed into town to network with active members of the city’s black community. Julio, whose family hails from the Dominican Republic, was one of the first to join us. As a naive 18-year-old kid surprised by his presence, I made a terribly ignorant remark to him, but you’re not black! Calmly shaking his head, Julio's response was, don’t piss me off in the morning. Another classmate rightfully frowned and scolded me for it.

The truth of the matter is that Julio is indeed the same complexion as I, and I'm black. What a lot of people, including many African-Americans, evidently do not understand is that slave ships set sail for the Spanish-speaking countries more than 100 years before they set sail for the US. In fact, there were blacks, slave and free, marching among the Spanish conquistadors.

Had Julio, who is very well read,  been in the mood that morning, he, with all of his academic prowess would have probably said the same thing to me as the writer of this article, Rosa Clemente, says to those whom she meets and try to deny her African heritage for no other reason than the fact that she is “Puerto Rican.” I just love how she breaks it down. 

Who's Black?
By: Rosa Clemente
This article was originally published Final Call newspaper.

Yesterday, an interesting thing happened to me. I was told I am not Black.

The kicker for me was when my friend stated that the island of Puerto Rico was not a part of the African Diaspora. I wanted to go back to the old school playground days and yell: “You said what about my momma?!” But after speaking to several friends, I found out that many Black Americans and Latinos agree with him. The miseducation of the Negro is still in effect!

I am so tired of having to prove to others that I am Black, that my peoples are from the Motherland, that Puerto Rico, along with Cuba, Panama and the Dominican Republic, are part of the African Diaspora. Did we forget that the slave ships dropped off our people all over the world, hence the word Diaspora?The Atlantic slave trade brought Africans to Puerto Rico in the early 1500s. Some of the first slave rebellions took place on the island of Puerto Rico. Until 1846, Africanos on the island had to carry a libreta to move around the island, like the passbook system in apartheid South Africa. In Puerto Rico, you will find large communities of descendants of the Yoruba, Bambara, Wolof and Mandingo people. Puerto Rican culture is inherently African culture.

There are hundreds of books that will inform you, but I do not need to read book after book to legitimize this thesis. All I need to do is go to Puerto Rico and look all around me. Damn, all I really have to do is look in the mirror every day.I am often asked what I am—usually by Blacks who are lighter than me and by Latinos/as who are darker than me.

To answer the $100,000, 000 question, I am a Black Boricua, Black Rican, Puertorriqueña! Almost always I am questioned about why I choose to call myself Black over Latina, Spanish, Hispanic. Let me break it down.I am not Spanish. Spanish is just another language I speak. I am not a Hispanic. My ancestors are not descendants of Spain, but descendants of Africa. I define my existence by race and land. (Borinken is the indigenous name of the island of Puerto Rico.).

Being Latino is not a cultural identity but rather a political one. Being Puerto Rican is not a racial identity, but rather a cultural and national one. Being Black is my racial identity. Why do I have to consistently explain this to those who are so-called conscious? Is it because they have a problem with their identity? Why is it so bad to assert who I am, for me to big-up my Africanness?

My Blackness is one of the greatest powers I have. We live in a society that devalues Blackness all the time. I will not be devalued as a human being, as a child of the Supreme Creator.

Although many of us in activist circles are enlightened, many of us have baggage that we must deal with. So many times I am asked why many Boricuas refuse to affirm their Blackness. I attribute this denial to the ever-rampant anti-Black sentiment in America and throughout the world, but I will not use this as an excuse. Often Puerto Ricans who assert our Blackness are not only outcast by Latinos who identify more with their Spanish Conqueror than their African ancestors, but we are also shunned by Black Americans who do not see us as Black.

Nelly Fuller, a great Black sociologist, stated: “Until one understands the system of White supremacy, anything and everything else will confuse you.” Divide and conquer still applies.

Listen people: Being Black is not just skin color, nor is it synonymous with Black Americans. To assert who I am is the most liberating and revolutionary thing I can ever do. Being a Black Puerto Rican encompasses me racially, ethically and most importantly, gives me a homeland to refer to.

So I have come to this conclusion: I am whatever I say I am! (Thank you, Rakim.)

*First posted in The Final Call on July 10, 2011

*****

Rosa Alicia Clemente is a Bronx born Puerto Rican woman. She is a community organizer, journalist, Hip Hop activist and the 2008 Vice-Presidential candidate with the GREEN PARTY. She is currently a doctoral student in the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMASS-Amherst and is writing her first book entitled When a Puerto Rican Woman Ran for Vice-President and Nobody Knew Her Name. For more information about Rosa and her work, visit http://www.rosaclemente.org/

Growing Up Puerto Rican and Black

Journalist Roberto Santiago talks about how he 
came to grips with his race, culture, and nationality.

Roberto Santiago, a Puerto Rican journalist raised in New York City's Spanish Harlem, is the son of a dark skinned mother and a white-skinned father, and has been told repeatedly by fellow members of the Puerto Rican community that there is no way that he can be Black and Puerto Rican. Roberto insisted that he is and always have been both. 

Having learned to speak Spanish in the home before he spoke English, his life has been shaped by his Black and Latino heritages, and despite other people’s confusion, he feels that choosing one over the other would be denying a part of himself. While attending Xavier High School in New York, Roberto was called both nigger and spic by his White classmates and the institution's Jesuits looked the other way.

Growing up in East (Spanish) Harlem, Roberto was aware that he did not act Black, according to African-American boys on the block. His lighter-skinned Puerto Rican friends were of less help. “You’re not Black,” they would whine shaking their heads. “You’re a Boricua (Puerto Rican). You ain’t no Moreno (colored boy).” If what his Puerto Rican friends were saying were true, his mirror defied the rules of logic, he thought to himself. Acting Black, looking Black, Being Black. The fact is that he is Black, so why does he need to prove it?

The slave trade ran through the Caribbean basin, and virtually all Puerto Rican citizens have some African blood in their veins. His mother’s side of the family was black as carbon paper, but officially not considered black. There is an explanation for this, but an explanation that does not makes sense or a difference to a working-class kid from Harlem. 

Puerto Ricans identify themselves as Latino—part of a culture that originated from sons of Spanish conquests—mixture of Spanish, African, indigenous, which categorically is apart from Black. In other words, the culture is the predominant and determinant factor. But there are frustrations in being caught in a duo-culture, where your skin color does not necessarily dictate what you are.

His first encounter regarding race occurred when he had just turned six years of age. He ran toward the bridle path in New York's Central Park as he saw two horses about to trot past. Yea, horsie, Yea, he shouted! Then the White woman on horseback shouted, shut up, you F*cking nigger, shut up! She pulled  back on the reins and twisted the horse in his direction as he felt the spray of gravel that the horse kicked at his chest.  

He told his Aunt Aurelia who explained what the words meant and why they were said. A month before Aunt Arelia passed away, she saw that Roberto was a little down about the whole race thing, and she said, Roberto, don’t worry. Even if Black people in this country don’t, you can always depend on White people to treat you like a Black.