{"id":59079,"date":"2019-10-22T01:10:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T01:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59079"},"modified":"2019-10-22T01:10:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T01:10:15","slug":"im-black-my-siblings-arent-what-people-need-to-know-about-latinos-and-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59079","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m black. My siblings aren\u2019t. What people need to know about Latinos and diversity."},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m black. My siblings aren\u2019t. What people need to know about Latinos and diversity.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Boston Globe Magazine<\/a>
\n2019-10-27<\/p>\n

Karina E. Cueavas<\/strong><\/a>, Producer
\nTelemundo Boston, NBC Universal<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\n\"<\/a>
\nAdobe Stock<\/small><\/p>\n

What Big Papi<\/a>, Gwen Ifill<\/a>, and Celia Cruz<\/a> have in common.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIs she adopted?\u201d That was the first question my brother\u2019s math teacher asked my mom as we awaited seating at his ninth-grade graduation ceremony. I was only in fifth grade and I didn\u2019t know what adopted meant. But I did see my mom\u2019s frown. Her mouth twitched and I knew what was about to come wouldn\u2019t be nice.<\/p>\n

Minutes later my dad walked up to my mom, who was fuming. Asked what happened and she let him know. My dad only wished he were present to give the math teacher a piece of his mind.<\/p>\n

My mom had already cursed Mr. Tonato out. And she had every right to do so. Now, let me make it very clear: Being adopted is wonderful, but I was the biological product of two very different looking people. And to many that was an alien concept. Little did I know that wasn\u2019t the first time my parents ever got asked that question. It was just the first time I ever heard it. It certainly wouldn\u2019t be the last.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Afro-Latina<\/a>. My mom is a white Latina and my siblings have her skin tone. Our dad is Afro-Latino. Both my parents are originally from the Dominican Republic<\/a>. And this has been our story throughout my entire life. My mom having to explain to people that I\u2019m her daughter. Me trying to teach people that Latinos come in different shades, sometimes all within one family. To add to some people\u2019s confusion, my siblings and I are bilingual \u2014 we speak Spanish, our parents\u2019 native language.<\/p>\n

The kicker here \u2014 I grew up in New York City<\/a>. The melting pot of the United States<\/a>. Sometimes it felt suffocating to navigate the streets feeling as if even in such a diverse city, I didn\u2019t belong. I wasn\u2019t alone in that train of thought. I was part of what the book The Afro-Latin@ Reader<\/em><\/a> describes in detail: \u201ca large and vibrant, yet oddly invisible community in the United States: people of African descent from Latin America<\/a> and the Caribbean<\/a>.\u201d…<\/p>\n

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

What Big Papi, Gwen Ifill, and Celia Cruz have in common.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,125,14646,8,20],"tags":[30401,4072,30399,30402,30403,20839,30400,5579,30398],"class_list":["post-59079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-identitydevelopment","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-big-papi","tag-boston-globe","tag-boston-globe-magazine","tag-celia-cruz","tag-david-americo-ortiz-arias","tag-gwen-ifill","tag-karina-e-cueavas","tag-the-boston-globe","tag-the-boston-globe-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59079","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=59079"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59082,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59079\/revisions\/59082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}