Dear you, My “Dominican side” is not showing. It didn’t make an appearance as if my blackness was hiding it. My American status doesn’t take away from the culture I was raised in. Dear you, I am Dominican. I shout in Spanish when I’m frustrated; curse words roll off my tongue when I’m angry….
Tag: Cultural Idenitity
Growing Up Afro Latina In the South – Kisha Gulley
“My name is Captain so and so where are you from?” “I’m your flight attendant Kisha, I’m from Arkansas.” “No you aren’t.” At this point I roll my eyes. Introducing yourself to your crew is customary in the aviation world. You want to know who you are working with. For me though it always got…
United Nations of Melanin
By Yokary Cruz-Garcia — Growing up in the Dominican Republic, people told me how lucky I was that my light-skinned father is a fourth generation Spaniard. I was the “piel morena ” with good hair, blessed because I didn’t need a “desrizado ” to straighten my hair. People made comments about my dark-skinned mother’s good fortune…
Representing her Afro-Latina: Miss Houston Caribbean Queen
We shape our own identity and it is essential that we understand our own cultural experience. We learned this with Afro-Latina Ashleigh Lugo our recent Miss Houston Caribbean Queen as she embraces her roots and represents her community in pageants. What is your perspective behind the term” AfroLatina”? What does it mean to you?…
Roots and Identity : An Afro-Cuban’s Discovery of Self
When I think of this word, it holds so much weight. Everything a person does is rooted in their identity. Identity to me is not so cut and dry, but ever evolving. When a baby is born, they are given a name. Their name serves as a building block to their identity. When that child…
Code : Race , Ethnicity , Culture
Growing up I didn’t always feel obligated to identify with a specific race. However, I was always more intrigued when it came to recognizing my own culture. In this country there is so much pressure to classify with a specific race. We put people into this box based off their appearance and we automatically…
Acknowleding, Accepting and Embracing the AfroLatina Perspective
By Bianca Betancourt—Growing up, I didn’t know there was such a thing as “AfroLatina” and how diverse, complex and complicated that term could really be. When people would (intrusively) ask me “what I was” I would always answer the same way: “Puerto Rican, Black and Native American.” Puerto Rican—because of all the minorities that make…
Stop Shaming ; Start Embracing
Mexican , Puerto Rican , Cuban , Dominican , Haitian , Jamaican , Panamanian , Black , Asian and the list can go on. We are all seen as minorities in the land of America. In the eyes of many there is no separation between us except our geography , we are not seen as a…
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