Black Americans, Afro Latinos and Afro Carribeans: Expressions of BLACKNESS part I

By Richard Graves, MA American History: November 14, 2018

Looking at the relationship between Black Americans, Afro Latinos and Afro Carribeans

Black Americans, Afro-Latinos and Afro-Caribbeans share a history rooted in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. However, significant differences exist in expressions of Blackness between Black American communities, Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean communities. Moreover, expressions of Blackness vary widely across Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean populations in the Caribbean, South America, and Central America. As larger numbers of Afro-Latinos and Afro-Caribbeans move to the United States alongside Black Americans, questions frequently arise about where they fit within the historical, social, and cultural binary of Whiteness and Blackness.

When I was younger, I encountered people who looked “Black” like me but had Hispanic surnames—Hernandez, Perez, Garcia, Torres, Gonzalez—spoke Spanish, and ate foods different from mine. It confused me when they identified as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, etc., and said they were not like me, “Black.” Some responded politely, others seemed offended by the suggestion, and some even claimed they were “White”—which puzzled me further, since many lighter-skinned relatives of mine were clearly recognized as Black.

As I entered my teens and began to understand the world more richly, I realized these friends came from different countries, and some even self-identified as Black. My awareness deepened in a conversation with my Puerto Rican friend’s mother. She had just chastised us during a breakdancing session (yes, I am that old) after a lighter-skinned Puerto Rican youth called me a "n****r." She firmly told us that Puerto Ricans share African ancestry with Black Americans—that we were, in her words, cousins. She elaborated that West African slaves had been transported not only to the future United States but also to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Central America, South America, and Brazil. These voyages were mainly under Spanish, Portuguese, and French flags. I knew little about my African heritage beyond the fact that some of my ancestors were West African slaves, so her words ignited my desire to learn more.

In my twenties, after leaving the University of Illinois Chicago to join the Marines—and passing through a militant Blackness phase (Public Enemy, X-Clan, KRS-One, etc.)—I found myself perplexed. Afro-Latinos and Afro-Caribbeans in Chicago, New York, and elsewhere seemed less invested in their Blackness. I also found at Pan-American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Caribbean festivals I attended, their art, music, and culture clearly embodied West African influences. Despite this, their identities were firmly rooted in their nationality: Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and so on. During that post–Malcolm X, Dr. King era, Black Americans understood that Europeans were our oppressors, our names originated from slave masters, our culture was predominantly European, and Africa felt distant.

Because of this, many Black Americans harbored resentment toward having ancestry to European slave traders from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France. Yet Afro-Latinos and Afro-Caribbeans often embraced their Spanish, Portuguese, and French surnames—the names of conquerors and colonizers—and, in some instances, identified with Spanish, Portuguese, and French cultural influence.

It wasn’t until my graduate studies in history that I grasped some stark historical and cultural distinctions between Black American, Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean communities. The system of chattel slavery differed across the Americas—this is not to minimize the brutality inflicted on African slaves or the genocide of indigenous populations—but rather to clarify historical circumstances that shaped divergent cultural attitudes toward race, especially regarding the binary of Blackness and Whiteness. One often-underappreciated fact is the presence of Amerindian ancestry among Afro-Latinos and Afro-Caribbeans, which is foundational to Latino identity in Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and elsewhere. In contrast, although some Black Americans have Native American heritage, it is rarely central to Black American identity.

“The average African-American genome, for example, is 73.2% African, 24% European, and 0.8% Native American”[1]

Afro Latinos and Afro Carribeans have similar genetics to But Americans, but Latinos in general have a higher Amerindian percentage of DNA than the average Black American. This speaks to the overall identity of Latinos, because no matter how little or much Amerindian ancestry, this ancestry is central to many Latinos regarding their various nationalities and how they define and relate to each other. For example: “The average Puerto Rican individual carries 12% Native American, 65% West Eurasian (Mediterranean, Northern European and/or Middle Eastern) and 20% Sub-Saharan African DNA.”[2] In contrast, while people from Mexico are “Mestizo, meaning they have a mixture of indigenous, European, and African ancestry” and unlike Puerto Rico that was home to the Taino Indians, “Mexico contains 65 different indigenous ethnic groups.”[3] So even comparing different Latino groups to one another can be a serious lesson in variation itself. Also, it must be noted, because nationality is more central than binary race in many Latin American countries, we are comparing ancestry of total populations in Latin American countries to the comparatively small group of Black Americans within the United States, not just specifically Black Americans to Afro Latinos. Looking at the 2010 Census regarding Puerto Ricans: “75.8% of Puerto Ricans identify as white, 12.4% identify as black, 0.5% as Amerindian, 0.2% as Asian, and 11.1% as "mixed or other.”[4] That 12.4% is almost the same percentage as those who identify as Black in the United States. Whereas according to the 2015 Intercensus estimate, 1.2% of Mexico's population has significant African ancestry, with 1.38 million self-recognized as Afro or Black Mexicans. Which brings us to the next point, how Latinos and Carribeans relate to Spain, Portugal and France and their repsective ancestry in comparison to how Black Americans relate to their European ancestry.

Latino and Carribean countries generally have Spanish, Portuguese or French as the primary language of those nations. And Spanish, Portuguese and French culture is evident in those nations as the English culture is in the United States. One of the primary differences I found in my studies was that the African slaves in Latin American countries were able to maintain some degree of their art, culture, language, food and music; whereas, during the slave trade in North American this was not the case. In what would become the United States African slaves were forbidden to maintain any of the culture from the various West African people groups they were taken from. This allowed for a mixture of culture to happen in the Americas outside of what would become the United States.

“In the Caribbean, Central and South America, African Slaves were imported in larger numbers to supplement indigenous laborers, and the recover of the Amerindian population from epidemic diseases all promoted great racial and ethnic diversity. European rule had destroyed indigenous and African culture in the Indies, instead they had become ‘mutually entangled’.” [5]

As stated, this is often evident in the food, art and culture of Latin American countries and embraced. In many cases Afro Latinos and Latinos in general have a greater understanding of and connection to their African heritage than Black Americans. Yet at the same time have a very different range in commitment to the idea of Blackness that Black Americans have embraced. Yet with the growth of the Pan African movement in the United States and Latin America, it seems that Black Americans, Afro Latinos and Afro-Carribeans have an opportunity to learn from each other.

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Works Cited:

[1] Wade, Lizzie. “Genetic study reveals surprising ancestry of many Americans.” Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dec. 18, 2014, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/genetic-study-reveals-surprising-ancestry-many-americans

[2] Vilar, Miguel. “Genographic Project DNA Results Reveal Details of Puerto Rican History.” Changing Planet, National Geographic Blog, July 25, 2014, https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2014/07/25/genographic-project-dna-results-reveals-details-of-puerto-rican-history/

[3] Wade, Lizzie. “Genetic study reveals surprising ancestry of many Americans.” Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Jun. 12, 2014, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/06/people-mexico-show-stunning-amount-genetic-diversity

[4] U.S. Census Bureau Delivers Puerto Rico's 2010 Census Population Totals, Including First Look at Race and Hispanic Origin Data for Legislative Redistricting". US Census Bureau (Press release). March 24, 2011.

[5] Greene, Jack P. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal. (Oxford: University Press, 2011), 64