Black Hispanic and Latino Americans

For Latin American person of Black African ancestry living in, or native to, the Americas, see Afro-Latin American
Black Hispanic and Latino Americans
Americanos hispanos y latinos negros
Total population
(Black Hispanic or Latino Americans
1,243,471[1]
0.4% of the United States population (2010)[1]
2.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans (2010)[1]
2.5% of all African Americans (2010)[1])
Regions with significant populations
Northeast • Midwest • West Coast • Texas and Florida
Languages
American English • American Spanish • Spanish creole • Spanglish • Nuyorican English
Religion
Roman Catholicism, but also Protestantism and African diasporic religions
Related ethnic groups

Afro-Latin Americans and other Latin Americans  • African American  •

Black people and African ethnic groups  • Hispanic and Latino Americans, and other ethnic groups of the United States

In the United States, a Black Hispanic[2] or Afro Hispanic[2] (Spanish: Afrohispano) is an American citizen or resident who is officially classified by the United States Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget and other U.S. government agencies as a Black American of Hispanic descent."[3] (For discussion on the term African American, please see that article.)

Hispanicity, which is independent of race, is the only ethnic category, as opposed to racial category, which is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau. The distinction made by government agencies for those within the population of any official race category, including "African American", is between those who report Hispanic backgrounds and all others who do not. In the case of Blacks of Latin descent, these two groups are respectively termed "Black Hispanics/Afro American Hispanics" and "non-Hispanic Black Americans/non-Hispanic Afro Americans", the former being those who report Black African ethnicity as well as a Hispanic ancestral background (Spain and Hispanic America), and the latter consisting of an ethnically diverse collection of all others who are classified as Black or African Americans that do not report Hispanic ethnic backgrounds.

Demographic information

States like New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut have some of the highest percentages of Hispanics identifying as Black, where up to 25% of Hispanics identify as black, compared to 2.5% of Hispanics nationwide.[4][4] Overall, the Northeast region has the largest concentration of Black Hispanics, this is partly because of the large Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other mostly or partly African descended Hispanic populations in the region.[4][5]

Black Hispanics account for 2.5% of the entire U.S. Hispanic population.[1] Most Black Hispanics in the United States come from within the Dominican and Puerto Rican populations.[6][7][8][9] Aside from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, large numbers of Black Hispanics can also be found in populations originating from Cuba, northern South America, and the Caribbean coast of Central America as well, including the Cuban, Panamanian, and Colombian communities, among others.[10]

The main aspects which distinguish Black Hispanics born in the United States of America from African Americans is their mother tongue Spanish or most recent ancestors' native language, their culture passed down by their parents, and their Spanish surnames. Of all Hispanic groups, Puerto Ricans have the closest relationship with the African American community, and because of this there is also increasing intermarriages and offspring between non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics of any race, mainly between Puerto Ricans and African Americans, which increases both the Hispanic ethnic and black racial demographics.[11][12][13]

Since the early days of the movie industry in the United States of America, when Black Hispanic actors were given roles, they would usually be cast as African Americans.[14] For those with Spanish-speaking accents that betrayed an otherwise presumed African American, they may seldom have been given roles as Hispanics, and the mulatto Hispanic and Latino actors of African appearance are mostly given Hispanic roles.

Those who claim that Black Hispanics are not sought to play Hispanic roles in the United States allege this unfairly leads the masses of viewers to an ignorance to the existence of darker skinned Hispanics. Further, some Black Hispanics who identify themselves as black but of also mixed race once affirming their Hispanicity may be deprived of their status as Black people among African Americans, and categorized by society as non-Black in the American historical context.

Same situation happens in U.S. Hispanic media; critics accuse U.S. Hispanic media, including Latin American media, of overlooking black Hispanic and Latino Americans and black Latin Americans in the telenovelas, mostly stereotyping them as impoverished people.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]

Black Hispanic culture

Although Black Hispanics are often overlooked or dichotomized as either "black" or "hispanic" in the United States of America, Black Hispanic writers often reflect upon their racialized experience in their works. The most commonly used term in literature to speak of this ambiguity and multilayered hybridity at the heart of Latino/a identity and culture is miscegenation.[23] This "mestizaje" depicts the multi-faceted racial and cultural identity that characterize Black Hispanics and highlights that each individual Black Hispanic has a unique experience within a broader racial and ethnic range.[24] The memoirs, poetry, sociological research, and essays written by the following Afro-Latino writers reflect this concept of mestizaje in addition to revealing the confusion and uncertainty about one's self-image of being both "Black" and "Hispanic". The psychological and social factors also prove to be central in determining how one ultimately defines him/herself.

Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas

Piri Thomas's autobiography, Down These Mean Streets[25] first published in 1967, told the broad American population Latino inner city youth's experiences with poverty, racism, and marginalization. A major theme of Thomas's book is his growing confusion about his racial identity. Though Thomas is of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, his dark complexion and facial features which expose his African ancestry and define him as "black" in the United States summarily subjects him to the racism imposed upon African-Americans during the 1940s:

I was on my way home from school when someone called: "Hey you dirty fuckin’ spic." I turned around and found my face pushing in the finger of an Italian kid about my age. He had five or six friends with him. "Hey you, what nationality are ya?" I looked at him and wondered which nationality to pick. And one of friends said "Ah, Rocky, he's black enuff to be a nigger. Aint that what you is, kid?" My voice was almost shy in its anger. "I’m Puerto Rican. I was born here." I wanted to shout it, but it came out like a whisper.[26]

Throughout Thomas's youth, he grapples with being defined as "Puerto Rican" by his family and "Black" by the rest of the world. After he reaches an epiphany that leaves him deciding that he is both Black and Puerto Rican, he has a confrontation with his blond-haired, blue-eyed brother that ends in a brawl. Thomas insists that he is ethnically "Negro" and not "Indian", the explanation that his family gives him for his and his father's dark skin. His brother, considered "white" by society, has internalized racism against blacks and refuses to accept his brother's newfound beliefs.

I don't give a shit what you say, Piri. We're Puerto Ricans and that makes us different from black people...We're Puerto Ricans and we're white.
Jose, that's what the white man's been telling the Negro all along, that 'cause he's white he's different from the Negro; that he's better'n the Negro or anyone who's not white.[27]

Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa

Borderlands, part manifesto/part poetry/part forgotten Latina history, is arguably Anzaldúa's magnum opus. In her book, a central theme is her revised self-definition as the "new mestiza". An ethnically Mexican woman, she redefines her race from being a Chicana Latina to a "Chicana, india, latina, black mestiza" who must "work to break down the subject-object duality that keeps her prisoner and show in the flest and through images in her work how duality is transcended".[28] Anzaldúa has a particularly unique experience because her appearance does not reveal her African ancestry, yet she embraces it as a part of the new mestiza consciousness. In one of her final poems, she shows her loyalty to not being defined as just one race, but as multiple, intertwined ethnicities.

To live in the Borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra española
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps
while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands means knowing
that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black[29]

Black Cuban, Black American by Evelio Grillo

Grillo's memoir is about his experience as a black Cuban immigrant in the United States of America who grew up in Tampa, Florida, during the 1930s among other Cuban immigrants. He and all other black Cubans was segregated from the white Cubans and ultimately integrated into the African-American community. Grillo says that the black Cuban parents, who did not speak English, did not allow their children to lose their Spanish, which led to tensions between the American blacks and Cuban blacks. Further, the racial identity did not completely bridge the gulf between the two groups. "Black Americans spoke English and followed Protestant religions. Black Cubans spoke Spanish and practiced Catholicism".[30] However, the common routines of attending the same schools, places of work, and sharing the same recreational activities overrode these initial differences. Grillo himself eventually completely assimilates to the lifestyle of American blacks, because he dealt with the same social ills of blackness (such as Jim Crow segregation and racism in school). Today, Grillo reconciles both his Black and Hispanic identities by being politically active in both Latino and black communities.[31]

Black Behind the Ears by Ginetta Candelario

Candelario's non-fiction ethnography about Dominican American's racial self-identity as "not black" reveals the historical and social processes that reared this now-popular belief. Through participant observation in a Dominican beauty salon, Candelario discovered exactly how prevalent "anti-black" feelings are. In her introduction, Candelario gives the reader an explanation for the title, and the major theme of her book:

Dominicans will often say 'Tenemos el negro detras de las orejas [We have black behind the ears] when speaking to matters of black and Dominican identity. They are affirming their overwhelming desire to "whiten"... For much of Dominican history, the national body has been defined as not-black even as black ancestry has been acknowledged. In place of blackness, officially identity discourses and displays have held that Dominicans are racially Indian and culturally Hispanic.[32]

Candelario interviewed hundreds of U.S.-born Dominicans about their self-defined heritage, and their relationship to their perceived blackness. Second-generation Dominican youth in Providence Rhode Island mark themselves as Hispanic, as opposed to black. They show that they can "speak spanish in order to counter others' assumptions that they are "black". They are regularly mistaken for African-American, but they mark themselves as Hispanic as a preferred alternative to blackness.[33] Dominicans are also very particular about determining group membership: who is "Hispanic" and who is "Black". There are categories in which every Dominican is placed arranged by corresponding skin color and hair type.

Racial category Racial types Included
white rubio
blanco
pelirrojo
blanco jipato
white-mulatto range blanco jojoto
indio lavado
indio claro
trigüeño claro
trigüeño
mulatto pinto
pinto jovero
jabao
indio canelo
black-mulatto range trigüeño oscuro
indio quemao
black moreno
mulato
prieto
negro
cenizo
cocolo[34]

Some of the women whom Candelario interviewed claimed a self-identity as both Black and Hispanic, unlike many other Dominican women. One woman said, "I'm still Dominican, but there is no question in my mind that I'm also African. I describe myself as a black Hispanic woman. I'm black, but that's not all I am. ".[35]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010
  2. 1 2 "U.S. Census Bureau Guidance on the Presentation and Comparison of Race and Hispanic Origin Data". U.S. Census Bureau. June 12, 2003. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
  3. ↑ "2000 Census of Population, Public Law 94-171 Redistricting Data File: Race". U.S. Census Bureau.
  4. 1 2 3 "ACS DEMOGRAPHIC AND HOUSING ESTIMATES: 2013 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates". US Census Bureau. 2013. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Coming Out As Black, When You Were Hispanic". npr.org. June 6, 2013. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
  6. ↑ College Associate Hilary S. Szot. "Fix News". Fox News Latino.
  7. ↑ Jstor.org
  8. ↑ "NPR". NPR.org. 25 May 2013.
  9. ↑ "2010 Census". Medgar Evers College. Retrieved 2010-04-13.
  10. ↑ "NBC News". NBC News.
  11. ↑ Google Books.
  12. ↑ Google Books.
  13. ↑ "Detailed tables: Hispanic or Latino By Race". Census.gov. 2007. Retrieved 2014-11-29.
  14. ↑ "Hispanic roles on American television". Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  15. ↑ Quinonez, Ernesto (June 19, 2003). "Y Tu Black Mama Tambien". Retrieved 2008-05-02.
  16. ↑ The Blond, Blue-Eyed Face of Spanish TV. Washingtonpost.com (August 3, 2000).
  17. ↑ Blonde, Blue-Eyed Euro-Cute Latinos on Spanish TV. Latinola.com (October 24, 2010).(The term "brown" for the skin color is not only applied for native Latinos and mestizo Latinos, it is also applied to mulatto Latinos.)
  18. ↑ Latinos Not Reflected on Spanish TV. Vidadeoro.com (October 25, 2010). (The term "brown" for the skin color is not only applied for native Latinos and mestizo Latinos, it is also applied to mulatto Latinos.)
  19. ↑ What are Telenovelas? – Hispanic Culture. Bellaonline.com.
  20. ↑ Racial Bias Charged On Spanish-Language TV. Articles.sun-sentinel.com (August 6, 2000).
  21. ↑ Black Electorate. Black Electorate (January 2, 2001).
  22. ↑ Ernesto Quiñonez (2003). "Latinos are racist, too. Just turn on the TV: Soap Operas on Latin TV are Lily White". Newsweek. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
  23. ↑ "Pinn, Anthony B., and Benjamin Valentin. The Ties That Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino/a Theologies in Dialogue. New York: Continuum, 2001. 48.
  24. ↑ Pinn, Anthony B., and Benjamin Valentin. The Ties That Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino/a Theologies in Dialogue. New York: Continuum, 2001. 49.
  25. ↑ Berger, Joseph (October 19, 2011). "Piri Thomas, Spanish Harlem Author, Dies at 83". The New York Times.
  26. ↑ Thomas, Piri. Down These Mean Streets. 9th ed. Toronto: Alfred a Knopf, 1967. 24.
  27. ↑ Thomas, Piri. Down These Mean Streets. 9th ed. Toronto: Alfred a Knopf, 1967. 144-145.
  28. ↑ Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La New Frontera. 1st ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Book Company, 1987. 80.
  29. ↑ Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La New Frontera. 1st ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Book Company, 1987. 194.
  30. ↑ Grillo, Evelio. Black Cuban, Black American. Houston: Arte Publicio P, 2000. 11.
  31. ↑ Grillo, Evelio. Black Cuban, Black American. Houston: Arte Publicio P, 2000. 134.
  32. ↑ Ginetta, Candelario E. Black Behind the Ears. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. 1-2.
  33. ↑ Ginetta, Candelario E. Black Behind the Ears. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. 13.
  34. ↑ Ginetta, Candelario E. Black Behind the Ears. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. 17.
  35. ↑ Ginetta, Candelario E. Black Behind the Ears. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. 171.

Further reading

External links

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