{"id":46651,"date":"2016-04-21T00:35:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T00:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46651"},"modified":"2017-04-05T17:34:09","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T17:34:09","slug":"how-poet-ariana-brown-became-the-afro-latina-role-model-she-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=46651","title":{"rendered":"How poet Ariana Brown became the Afro-Latina role model she needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

How poet Ariana Brown became the Afro-Latina role model she needed<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Poetry<\/a>
\nPBS NewsHour<\/a>
\n2016-02-08<\/p>\n

Corinne Segal<\/a><\/strong>, Online Arts Reporter\/Producer<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nPoet Ariana Brown<\/a>. Photo by Christopher Diaz<\/a><\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

Poet Ariana Brown<\/a> is the role model she needed.<\/p>\n

Growing up in San Antonio<\/a>, Brown said she struggled to find other representations of herself \u2014 an Afro-Latina woman from a working class family \u2014 both in her community and literature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember reading books and being so invested in the characters and the story, and then I would get to a certain line in the story where it would describe what the character looked like. And then I would realize, this book is not talking about me,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of my work is to always go back for little girl Ariana and figure out what it is she needed that she didn\u2019t get.\u201d<\/p>\n

In high school, Brown picked up the autobiography of Malcolm X<\/a>. He was \u201csomeone who was also working class, from a poor family, a family of color, who didn\u2019t have access to opportunities, who came from a neighborhood where you weren\u2019t expected to excel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Reading about the way Malcolm X<\/a> used language to command attention gave her a road map for her own future, she said…<\/p>\n

…Brown\u2019s poem \u201cInhale: The Ceremony\u201d speaks to her relationship to her ancestors, a history that she said is often unacknowledged or disrespected. \u201cI\u2019m never racialized as Latina. I\u2019m always racialized as black. My whole identity isn\u2019t acknowledged [and] I\u2019m assumed to be an outsider in almost every space I enter. That is a very isolating feeling,\u201d she said…<\/p>\n