that Black Latinos bring to the larger Hispanic community? A lot, actually.“ Music for sure. When I listen to reggaeton that’ s like a huge platform. It’ s actually Black musicians that had a huge impact in that form of music. It’ s a genre that was shaped by Africa. And Afro Americans, they impact a lot of music, a lot of genre music, because as you can see throughout the years, it got more and more popular. And Daddy Yankee, when he came along, he made the song Gasolina and that became a global hit song. Then you have other songs, like Meow by Bad Bunny. You see the seed that Afro Latinos plant and it bears all these different types of fruits, and I think it’ s really cool. They have made a great impact in sports and education. I learned about this Astrophysicist, Neil Tyson deGrasse. He is Afro Latino. His mother is Puerto Rican.
Growing up, Jaylen always felt like he had to choose a side.“ I was surrounded by a lot of Latino culture and my dad was always working. And you know, I was living with my grandparents, so I was always exposed to Spanish music, Spanish culture, Spanish food. And with my dad it was like, whenever he can, we visited a family member in Los Angeles. Or somebody that he’ s related to, to be exposed to more Black people and Black culture,” he added.
“ And sometimes he didn’ t want to take us to certain places. He has family in Watts, but he felt like it was too dangerous for us to visit because they lived in the projects, with the stereotype of the projects being ghetto. But growing up, especially now I learned to identify as both. I think of it as Spanglish, which I identify as I speak English, and then sometimes I come off speaking Spanish. You may get both, but by the end of the sentence, you’ ll understand what I’ m trying to say.”
Akira
Akira Féliz
Akira Féliz was born in the southwest part of New York City’ s Bronx borough near Yankee Stadium. Her parents were immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Today, she is a student in the new CDU four-year medical program who recently won a scholarship from the National Hispanic Health Foundation.
To the question of whether her family acknowledged their Afro Latino lineage, Akira responded thoughtfully.“ I was actually reflecting on coming from a country that was colonized,” she said.“ And there was this mixture of different races. I’ m the product of that, being Black, having my African ancestry, also being Spanish, Portuguese, and also American Indian. Our Afro heritage was never something that was truly acknowledged. What was acknowledged was being Dominican culturally and celebrating that.”
She said that she celebrates by making typical dishes, and dancing to traditional music.“ But as far as when you go down to a microscopic level of the Afro aspect, that was never really spoken about. I don’ t know if that’ s because of colonization, to taper down our Black heritage.” To the question of whether there were other Latinos of African background in the Bronx community growing up, she responded,“ There were a few of us but not many. It was mainly African Americans. You had Latino immigrants from Central America, South America and also immigrants from India, including immigrant children. Caribbean countries like Jamaica, St. Kitts, and Trinidad were represented. It was it was a mixture of kids but as far as Afro Latino, there weren’ t many,” she said.
“ It was actually a quite tough experience. I was bullied. And my first language is Spanish. That’ s what I learned to speak first, and when I went to school, I was placed in a bilingual class with other kids whose first language is Spanish. And then, after some time I was able to pass the exams, and I was transferred to a monolingual class where it’ s all English speaking.
She connected with her Black heritage later in life.“ I acknowledged that part of me as an adult. Because when you’ re in that time of youth, you don’ t really know. You’ re a child and you’ re just kind of like asking,‘ Why is this happening to me? Why am I being picked on?’ Reflecting back, I grew up in a poor neighborhood, and kids there come from many different backgrounds, with many different problems and family issues.
“ Children manifest trauma in different ways, and they can cause damage to others without really knowing why. Just being open minded about it all, and just acknowledging that people have baggage and trauma and that makes you act a certain way. And it’ s not necessarily that they deep down inside truly mean harm. They’ re just releasing their anger in the way that they know how. In a way, it’ s nobody’ s fault. Those kids grew up this way, in the type of
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 16