LatiNegr@s Project: Epsy Campbell Barr

A LatiNegra from Costa Rica whose grandparents are Jamaican, Epsy Campbell Barr is a politician and has worked with the Human Rights of Women and People of African Descent. She has announced her intention to run for President of Costa Rica under the Partido Acción Ciudadana/Citizen Action Party. We will discover what the Costa Rican people decide in late May 2010 (YES, less than 3 months!). Here is a video of her announcing her candidacy:



She's said at UNICEF Consultative Group of Afro-descendant Leaders meetings:

The biggest problem facing Afro-descendent children is exclusion. We can see exclusion in the face of health, education and social justice. We have the highest HIV infection rates, the highest infant mortality rates, and many of our children run into trouble with the law.

She could be speaking of the US, no? Interesting how the social construction of race and how we are classified is very similar in some contexts. Here she speaks about how women can be included in politics in Central and Latin America



You may also follow her on twitter!



foto credit: aldia.cr

LatiNegr@s Project: Nancy Morejón

Cuban poet and author, Nancy Morejón, who has used her craft to present issues of race in Cuba, Blackness and its connection to women, feminisms in Cuba, and the relationship between Cuba and the US. She's been the president of the Cuban Writers and Artist Union and is an advisor to the famous Casa America in Cuba.

Read more about her in English y en espanol here.

Below is a video of her presenting at the First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance in Toronto from April 24 to 30, 2009



Botella Al Mar


foto credit: radiobaruga.cu

LatiNegr@s Project: Rafael Cordero Molina

Rafael Cordero Molina (1790–1868) is often described as The Father of Public Education in the island of Puerto Rico. He's said to have offered children on the island education for free regardless of their class status or race. He established his home as a classroom to teach youth and today his home is historically preserved in Puerto Rico (unfortunately the Afro-Taino museum was not). He died before having to bear witness to a new form of colonization by the US in 1898.

His work has influenced several educators. One such educator is Arturo Alfonso Schomburg as it has been written:

Schomburg was also inspired by educators. His favorite figure in the field was Rafael Cordero Molina. It was Schomburg's admiration for this Black Puerto Rican educator and his extraordinary contributions, which helped to shape his own educational philosophy. Rafael Cordero Molina founded the first school for Blacks, mulattos, and the poor in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1810. Cordero's school was said to have been one of the best schools in Puerto Rico. The students at the school achieved high levels of literacy and academic achievement after short periods of enrollment.

Rafael Cordero Molina believed that the first duty of a nation was to educate its people. He felt that education should be available to all members of a nation and that no one should be left behind, regardless of class, race or gender. The goal of education was to cultivate and empower the individual so that he could improve his life and position in society, and ultimately free himself and others from repressive situations. For this reason, Cordero believed that education was of primary importance to minorities, the poor and the disadvantaged. It became apparent that Cordero's educational approach enlightened his young learners. They became increasingly concerned about their rights and their role in society. Cordero's school produced several renowned figures in Puerto Rico's political and literary history, such as José Julián Acosta, the famous abolitionist, Román Baldorioty, political reformist, and Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, "the Patriarch of Puerto Rican Literature."

Nearly all of San Juan, Puerto Rico's schools at that time charged tuition. Cordero Molina's school, however, offered education at no cost to poor children of any race. The school gained so much respect that even San Juan's upper class began to enroll their children. Schomburg's strong identification with Rafael Cordero Molina may have accounted for his strong beliefs in equal‑opportunity community education.

Read more about him in Espanol aqui.

foto credit: artistasdepuertorico.ning.com

LatiNegr@s Project: Toña la Negra

Yo soy mulata y orgullo tengo tener la sangre de negro en mis venas.


A singer from Veracruz, Mexico, Toña la Negra changed how we listen. Punto. how we LISTEN. She began singing in the 1930s and continued for decades. She was part of the "Golden Age Of Cinema" in Mexico, and one of the few darker skinned woman. Her existence at such a time in the world, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean influenced several LatiNegr@ entertainers. Her discography is not only extensive, it's stunning.

Check out a few of her songs below.
Yo soy mulata y no me importa que me critican si yo tengo bemba.

Yo soy mulata y orgullo tengo te tener piel tostada...

Y no me importa si tengo nada yo soy mulata de verdad...

"Yo Soy Mulata" Toña la Negra











foto credit: weblo.com

National Condom Awareness Day

My homeboy Brian posted this earlier this week and thought it fun to share with you all. Click on the image to see it larger. Since it is National Condom Day, check out those last two stats/facts!

Sunday Night Common Sense

Today I am going to pull a quote that I shared from the amazing scholar, writer, activist and LatiNegra: Mayra Santos-Febres who I featured earlier this month. From her erotic story "Faith In Disguise" which was featured in the anthology Juicy Mangos:

"...I was ashamed that I couldn't hold it; that I came so easily without even having penetrated her once. I was the penetrated, the one who came first." p. 66

So many layers and challenges of the rigid gendered performances when it comes to what we find erotic, sensual, passionate.

LatiNegr@s Project: My Testimonio

I did not always identify as a LatiNegra. As many of my long-time readers know, my parents who are Puerto Rican immigrants, racially identify as White while they ethnically identify as Puerto Rican. I’ve always literally and figuratively been the Black sheep of my family. I’ve written about what that means to me in various capacities before. Today I want to share how I came to evolve into my LatiNegra identity.

Picture it: Beltsville, MD 2003. I’d just left my first ever full-time job with benefits when George Bush the second was re-elected President of the US. I realized that there would be no pay increase for me at my job where I provided training and did research on sexual health among adolescents and teen parents. What better way to stick out the next 4 years than in a PhD program in Women’s Studies? (I know there are many other ways, stay with me here).

I had earned a 2 year fellowship to study and part of the research I was doing with faculty of Color was creating an Intersectional Research Database (which was also used to help publish a book). As part of that research I came across an article by Dr. Lillian Comas-Díaz called "Mental Health Issues of African Latinas" which she wrote in the early 1990s. You can read my short Annotation in the Intersectional Research Database here. That was followed by an article by Marta I. Cruz-Janzen called Latinegras: Desired Women-Undesirable Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives where she writes:

Latinegras are Latinas of obvious black ancestry and undeniable ties to Africa, women whose ancestral mothers were abducted from the rich lands that cradled them to become and bear slaves, endure the lust of their masters, and nurture other women's children. They are the mothers of generations stripped of their identity and rich heritage that should have been their legacy. Latinegras are women who cannot escape the many layers of racism, sexism, and inhumanity that have marked their existence. Painters, poets, singers, and writers have exalted their beauty, loyalty, and strength, but centuries of open assaults and rapes have also turned them into concubines, prostitutes, and undesirable mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives.

Latinegras are marked by a cruel, racialized history because of the shades of their skin, the colors and shapes of their eyes, and the textures and hues of their hair. They are the darkest negras, morenas, and prietas, the brown and golden cholas and mulatas, and the wheat-colored triguenas. They are the light-skinned jabas with black features and the grifas with white looks but whose hair defiantly announces their ancestry. They are the Spanish-looking criollas, and the pardas and zambas who carry indigenous blood.

Latinegras represent the mirrors that most Latinos would like to shatter because they reflect the blackness Latinos don't want to see in themselves. (1) I am a Latinegra, born to a world that denies my humanity as a black person, a woman, and a Latina; born to a world where other Latinos reject me and deny my existence even though I share their heritage. As Lillian Comas-Diaz writes, the combination of race, ethnicity, and gender makes Latinegras a "minority within a minority." (2) Racism and sexism have been with me all my life. I was raised in Puerto Rico during the 19505 and 1960s, and lived on and off in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. Today, I still live in both worlds, and most of the gender and race themes I grew up with remain. This essay is my personal and historical narrative of the intersection of racism and sexism that has defined my life and that of other Latinegras.

It was like I had found home.

Prior to finding that article I had chosen to make a political statement and racially identify as either Other or Black. I was identifying as Black more so than Other. I had made this decision the last time I filled out the US Census on my own and chose Other and wrote “African, Taino, Spanish/European colonizer.” I thought I was a rebel. I still think I am.

There were several similarities I experienced with Black women that I did not with other Latinas and then there were other similarities I shared exclusively with Latinas and not with Black women. There was always that “in between space.” That “hyphen.” But what happens to that space between the hyphen. Look at it this way:

Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean.

Last year when I was reading the last book by Elizabeth Nunez called Anna In Between, she asked that question as she joined our book club reading: what about the space between the hyphens? That hyphen doesn’t connect the words because there are spaces between the words and the hyphen. They do not every join. It is a bridge. A connector. It is not an explanation.

I started to joke with one of my homegirls, a Black woman living in the US, Keeley, that we would be the LatiNegras of the crew (capitalizing the L and the N to see them BOTH as proper nouns). Since then it has stuck. It is who I am. There is no hyphen to join two different identities, it is one identity all the time. It is me. I celebrate it. Will you join in the celebration?

Visit the LatiNegr@s Project Tumblr page and consider submitting something!