feature: “why you should never assume that a black person can’t be latino”

“Not all Latinos are the same, as projects like #DefineBlack and #LatinosBreakTheMold are proving. Latinos come in many different races, and from many different parts of the world. It’s that diversity that makes the Latino identity so dynamic. Assuming that someone isn’t Latino simply because they don’t look “traditionally” Latino is problematic,” states writer Zeba Blay in a new article for Huffington Post (titled, “Why You Should Never Assume That A Black Person Can’t Be Latino”). The article was inspired by a video that recently went viral, in which Angeley Crawford (pictured) – an afro latina – shared her negative experiences growing up as a black woman of Costa Rican descent in the Puerto Rican neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn, New York. “If you don’t know that I speak Spanish, then you were likely to say a lot of things as you blow out my hair [at the salon],” revealed Crawford. “And I heard many things. Many comments on the color of my skin, on my weight. I would come home and… my mother would tell me to defend myself. But how do you defend yourself against an entire salon that is saying you’re not beautiful? That you have pelo malo (bad hair)?” CLICK HERE to check out Zeba Blay’s write-up and CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW to watch the aforementioned video.

By Alexander Aplerku, AFROPUNK Contributor