Too black to be Latino and too Latino to be black is a feeling many Afro-Latinos know too well ― but the reality is that these two identities are far from mutually exclusive.
Not only is it possible to be both black and Latino, it’s also fairly common within the Latino community. In the United States 24 percent of Latinos self-identify as Afro-Latino, according to survey results the Pew Research Center released in March.
HuffPost Latino Voices asked six Afro-Latinos to share what it really means to grow-up black and Latino. Because as writer Janel Martinez explains, it can be quite complicated at first.
“Growing up black Latina, was a bit complex for me,” she said in the video. “I didn’t always want to identify as Black, there were times when I didn’t want to identify as Latina.”
Watch Martinez and others discuss everything from pride in their African roots to the challenges with erasure in the Latino community in the video above.
This video was edited by Terence Krey, shot by Jon Strauss and produced by Megan Robertson, Katherine Santiago, Melissa Montanez, Choyce Miller, Carolina Moreno and Tanisha Ramirez for HuffPost Originals.
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