Interview with Juanita Palacios Sims, Founder, International Society of Black Latinos
Please describe your background, including your family history. My mom was Cuban, my father Colombian. I was raised here in the United States. My mom and dad divorced when I was about seven. I grew up in the 70s. We moved to South LA, 45th and Broadway. I grew up in a community of African Americans, though we did have some Asians and whites in the neighborhood.
Where did you go to school? At West Vernon Elementary. My mom taught there for a minute. It was pretty interesting and kind of tough at the same time, because I really didn’ t speak English. Being a little Black girl with an accent and not really knowing the language was tough until later on when I learned how to speak English. I went to junior high school in Huntington Park. It was during the time of the Black and Latino gang wars. So, here I had both Latino Mexican girlfriends and Black girlfriends. And, you know, it was a time when I was asked to pick one side or the other.
I went to Westchester High School, where I learned to get rid of my accent and speak English well enough, and I never let my friends know when I was in high school that I was Afro Latina, Afro Cuban. During the week I was African American, and during the weekend I was Afro Cuban. Latina, because we listened to salsa music, the whole vibe. I went to a Spanish Baptist Church. After that, I went to junior college for a while, and by that time I was more and more embracing who I was as a Latina.
I attended the University of Phoenix and graduated. My background is accounting, and for a few years I worked for Entertainment Television as an accounting manager. I also managed a couple of salsa bands. Then I went on to Fox Family Channel. During all that time at ET, I was also traveling to Cuba with my mom to take humanitarian goods to my family there and some of the neighbors. Friends were asking could they go to Cuba with me. If I took someone, they would have to help out and take humanitarian goods because we were only allowed 44 pounds on our charter plane, your handbag and everything else.
From one year to the next, I would do this during my vacation time. And as I was doing this, my mom’ s friend’ s daughter decided to start an agency and asked me did I want to sell trips to Cuba. I was doing that anyway. 22 years later, I’ m still sending Americans to Cuba.
How do you see yourself in these worlds, having become American but also your heart being very much Cubana? On October 10, 2010, I started a nonprofit, the International Society of Black Latinos, to bring awareness of the Afro Latino and our contributions to society. I did this after taking so many groups to Cuba, because of my passion for the people and the need. Families needed things there. The community needed things. So that’ s really where I started, you know, taking folks and friends to Cuba to help us with the need at the time. On top of that, because I was learning more about who I was as a person and learning more about Black history not only in America, but around the world, the African diaspora.
I wanted to not only take people to help with humanitarian goods, but also with the purpose of learning about the African diaspora in Cuba. And that’ s been very important to me on any trip that I do now, whether it’ s Panama, whether it’ s Cuba, the Bahamas, wherever we’ re gonna learn about the African diaspora in that country and our contributions in society. My heart has always been not only to have a good time, but you’ re going to learn about the culture, and you’ re going to interact with the people. You’ re going to learn about the history, especially the African history in that country.
What are some of the things that the people who you bring to Cuba learn? And what do you think the Cuban people learn from the people who you’ re bringing there? You know what’ s interesting? I took a group of African
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 19