Americans to Santiago de Cuba, which historically is more of the Black side of Cuba. We had a conference with one of the ladies at the African culture center there. We had a meet and greet and a conference at the hotel. The whole meeting was about the Afro Latino, the religion and culture in Cuba, and about our heroes, like Antonio Maceo, one of our generals in Cuba. I said to the people whom I brought,‘ you feel welcome in my country. But when I was in your country, growing up, and for us who have accents or not from America, we’ re not treated the same and we’ re not welcomed the same. We were looked upon as a Martian or something’. It’ s different.
What experience do you think Black Latinos bring to the larger Hispanic community in this country? Was your experience based on your darker skin?
Oh, definitely. Just like with the Latinos. I remember growing up, my mom would say,‘ you know, we’ re Cubans, we’ re Latinos. I don’ t want you hanging out with African Americans. Because you’ re come to this country to learn’. We would hear things like that. And it’ s funny because we also hear that from the Latino community, about us, we don’ t want you hanging around with the Blacks. Even if you’ re a Latino. You know, we’ re like the invisible. We were the invisible people for a long time.
You’ re learning more and more that we exist, but we didn’ t fit in with the Latinos and we didn’ t fit in with the African Americans. But what we have found what with my organization and just wanting to teach about our culture we bring and unite both sides. One of the things we do is go to schools, whether it’ s elementary schools or universities to teach about culture, diversity, and, you know, leadership.
I’ m glad you brought up the food part because of my affinity for Brasil. In Salvador, Bahia, there’ s a cooking school. Whether it’ s okra, whether it’ s shrimp, rice, or whether it’ s cassava. Whether it is the kinds of things that we eat, we take this food for granted in the United States. Absolutely. And the linkage is Africa. The enslaved people were dropped off in so many different areas and countries and the coast. They brought what they knew with them in their minds on how to cook the foods and whatever they didn’ t have in their countries.
Whatever the country where they were dropped off had similarities. You talked about rice, and you talked about grains, and you talked about okra, all of that, and especially shrimp. Mostly coastal type of foods because of where the ships landed, right? I link all that back to our Motherland Africa. Because when you see the food, it’ s just different names, maybe a little bit different in style, but when you talk about Creole, it’ s the same type of cooking and food because it was brought from the motherland.
The enslaved people had just their memories to how to cook these meals. Food is really essential when you talk about our history, because from that we can link the two even in music for example, Brazilian music, Cuban music. You hear the drum; you hear the gong players. In Puerto Rico. You hear the Dominican musicians. It all comes from the motherland.
And we try to unite our communities by talking about the differences, talking about culture, talking about food, the similarities that we have, and things that were brought from Africa that we’ re using and all these different countries that really have the same culinary dish but named differently. For example, in Cuba, we have paella. And in New Orleans, it’ s jambalaya. It’ s just different things made different ways. You know, we have them all in all Latin American countries, and they’ re made differently, but they still have the roots from Africa. And that’ s some of the things that we discussed and how we unite our communities and the importance of being Afro Latino is being able to embrace that we’ re African Americans, we’ re Latinos, we’ re Afro Latinos. We have the best of all worlds.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 20