Afro-Latina Identity Circle

For Black women of Latin American and Caribbean Latin descent. Negra. Latina. Both, fully. Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Colombian, Panamanian, Garifuna, Honduran, Brazilian, Costa Rican, Mexican Afro-descendant, and more. The label varies — Afro-Latina, Black Latina, negra, Afro-descendiente — and we make space for the term each member uses for herself.

Membership includes Afro-Latina women across the diaspora and across the home countries. First-generation in the United States, second-generation, third-generation, and women born and living in Latin America or the Caribbean Latin region who join this network as part of an international conversation. Across languages — Spanish-dominant, English-dominant, bilingual, Portuguese-speaking for Afro-Brazilian members.

What we talk about. The family conversation about race. The abuela who refused to call herself Black even though we have always known what she was. The pelo malo language we grew up hearing and the way we have refused it for ourselves and our daughters. The relatives who pass and the relatives who explicitly do not. The light-skin and dark-skin dynamics within our own families. The family photographs that have been read differently depending on which audience is looking at them.

The community conversation. The Latin community's slow reckoning with anti-Blackness. The Black Lives Matter movements across Latin America and the Caribbean Latin region. The anti-racism activism inside specific national contexts — the Brazilian movement, the Colombian movement, the Dominican movement. The way the broader US Latino population has and has not centered Afro-Latina experience. The slow shifts and the places where the shifts have not happened.

The Black community conversation. The way we are or are not claimed by the broader Black American community. The way we are or are not claimed by Caribbean and African diaspora communities that share our skin tone but not our language and cultural background. The specific conversations about Afro-Caribbean Spanish-speaking versus Afro-Caribbean English-speaking community interactions. The way we navigate Black-American social spaces and how we are read in them.

The hair conversation. Salon politics. The salons in our neighborhoods that knew how to do our hair and the salons that did not. The natural-hair movement and the way it has reached Latin America with its own cultural inflections. The relationship between hair and respectability in our families. The intergenerational shifts in what is being passed down — and what is being refused.

The skin conversation. Skin-lightening practices in our home countries and the work of refusing them. The slow visibility shifts in Latin American media, where Afro-Latina actresses, presenters, and writers are now visible in ways that did not happen for our mothers' generation. The remaining gaps. The work still to do.

The language work. Bilingual code-switching as a daily practice. The Spanish or Portuguese we grew up with and the cultural context it carries. The English we speak in professional and civic settings. The way our children are growing up bilingual or are losing the home language and what we are doing about it. The specific vocabulary for race in our home languages and how it differs from US English vocabulary.

The cultural retention work. The food. The music — bachata, merengue, salsa, samba, reggaeton, plena, and the specific Afro-descendant musical traditions in each country. The dance. The holidays — Three Kings Day in some Caribbean Latin traditions, the carnival traditions that are deeply Afro-descendant. The religious practices that combine Catholic and African elements in our families' histories.

The political work. Voting and civic engagement as Afro-Latinas in the United States, which has often involved sitting at the intersection of Black political organizing and Latino political organizing without either fully reflecting our experience. The specific Afro-Latino political organizations and the way some members have helped build them. The international work on Afro-descendant rights in Latin America, including the recent moves at the OAS and the UN level.

Marriage and partnership. The partners we have chosen and the way our families have received them. The interracial relationships within the broader Latin community and the different ones across the Black-non-Latino lines and across the non-Black-non-Latino lines.

Parenting. Raising children who are Afro-Latina in the United States and elsewhere. What we are teaching them about their racial and cultural identity. The Spanish-language work with our children, given the cultural value we are trying to transmit. The visits to grandparents in our home countries and what those trips do for our children's identity formation.

Cadence: a weekly thread, often bilingual. A monthly long-form thread on one theme. Bilingual conversation always welcome. A quarterly virtual gathering. Regional in-person meetups in major cities with significant Afro-Latina populations. Subgroups by country of origin where the specifics matter.

Rules. Respect across nationalities. Respect across language preferences. We do not police anyone's language choice or cultural practice. No screenshotting. Confidentiality.

What we are: the room for the women whose racial and cultural identity has been navigated at this specific intersection from the beginning. Where Negra and Latina are not in tension. Where the full self is welcome and recognized. Where we get to talk to each other in the cultural register that our experience actually shares. That is the value of this circle.