{"id":50446,"date":"2016-12-05T01:58:54","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T01:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=50446"},"modified":"2016-12-09T00:35:55","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T00:35:55","slug":"afro-latinos-a-vision-of-houstons-mixed-race-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=50446","title":{"rendered":"Afro-Latinos: a vision of Houston’s mixed-race future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Afro-Latinos: a vision of Houston’s mixed-race future<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Houtson Chronicle<\/a>
\nHouston, Texas
\n2016-11-19<\/p>\n

Olivia P. Tallet<\/strong><\/a>, Reporter<\/p>\n

Afro-Latinos embody Texas’ mixed-race future<\/em><\/p>\n

It happens all the time. At the taco truck, Raul Orlando Edwards placed his fajita order: “Se\u00f1orita, por favor, p\u00f3ngale la cebolla bien cocida” (“I’d like the onions well-done.”)<\/p>\n

“Man,” said the African-American behind him in line, “how did you learn to do that?” Meaning: Why, for a black man, is your Spanish so good?<\/p>\n

“I’m Latino,” Edwards answered. The director of the Strictly Street Salsa Studio<\/a> and founder of the Afro-Latino Festival of Houston<\/a>, he’s a Panamanian-Jamaican immigrant.<\/p>\n

The guy stated the obvious: “I thought you were black!”<\/p>\n

“I’m blacker than you are!” Edwards replied. And, he says, they laughed.<\/p>\n

These days, in both Texas<\/a> and the U.S. at large, skin color is an ever less reliable indicator of identity. According to a 2015 Pew survey, about a quarter of U.S. Hispanics identify themselves as Afro-Latino. Like Edwards, the vast majority (70 percent) are foreign-born.<\/p>\n

Afro-Latinos generally are descendants of African slaves brought to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America<\/a> and the Caribbean<\/a>. Most are biracial or multiracial. Being Afro-Latino, says Alain Lawo-Sukam<\/a>, professor of Hispanic and Africana Studies at Texas A&M University, is less about skin color than about identity and a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n

By their very existence, Afro-Latinos challenge the traditional “one-drop<\/a>” view of race in the United States: the idea that one drop of African blood makes a person black. Afro-Latinos like Edwards aren’t simply black, white or Hispanic. They’re a combination – and as such, a vision of the United States’ racially and ethnically complex future. They’re a minority inside a minority; a melting pot within the melting pot…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afro-Latinos: a vision of Houston’s mixed-race future The Houtson Chronicle Houston, Texas 2016-11-19 Olivia P. Tallet, Reporter Afro-Latinos embody Texas’ mixed-race future It happens all the time. At the taco truck, Raul Orlando Edwards placed his fajita order: “Se\u00f1orita, por favor, p\u00f3ngale la cebolla bien cocida” (“I’d like the onions well-done.”) “Man,” said the African-American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,24,33,14646,8,1249,20],"tags":[25639,25646,25641,25645,25642,25643,25638,25644,25640],"class_list":["post-50446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-arts","category-census","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-texas","category-usa","tag-alain-lawo-sukam","tag-heydel-cepero","tag-houtson-chronicle","tag-jasminne-mendez","tag-olivia-p-tallet","tag-olivia-tallet","tag-raul-orlando-edwards","tag-stephen-klineberg","tag-the-houtson-chronicle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50497,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50446\/revisions\/50497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}