Shianne Hargrove

Professor Newlander

Anthropology in the News

April 7th 2016

Afro Latinos: Struggle for Acceptance

Ethnicity and nationality arent mutually exclusive, both represent someones identity,

however they

Defining Hispanic or Latino is not an easy task, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, writer for

Pewresearch.org discusses in her article Is being Hispanic a matter of race, ethnicity or both?

the difficulty of pinpointing the right terms in describing what Hispanic or Latino should be

identified as. Federal policy defines Hispanic not as a race, but as an ethnicity. And it

prescribes that Hispanics can in fact be of any race. But these census findings suggest that

standard U.S. racial categories might either be confusing or not provide relevant options for

Hispanics to describe their racial identity states Gonzalez-Barrera. The various identities that

make up the Latino/Hispanic community can intersect.

Afro-Latinos

An imagined community is one term that can used to dissect the structure of the Latin

community. With various ethnicities within the community, the idea of unity and inclusion of all

identities can sometimes be a however some groups within Latino community are sometimes left

out of the discussion of a shared collective. One group in particle can sometimes be eradicated

from the discussion. Afro-Latinos face the issue of identifying with their ethnicity or nationality,

or even both. In the book Rewriting the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean
author Robert Lee Adams Jr. discusses the issues that Afro-Latinos face in the Latin community.

He speaks on the exclusion of Afro-Latinos in the imagined community, and how their

contributions to the Latino community are sometimes overlooked. In the imagined community

narratives of Latin America, the presence of Afro-Latin Americans and their societal

contributions are rendered invisible in the name of national identity states Lee Adams Jr.

The issue of ethnic boundary markers can be used on the discourse of Afro-Latinos in the

Latino community. Ethnic boundary marking in the Latino community He goes on to state

Afro-Latin Americans are caught between the paradoxical tension of hyper-visibility and

invisibility
 References

Adams, Robert Lee Jr. "Chapter One." Rewriting the African Diaspora in Latin America and the
Caribbean: Beyond Disciplinary and National Boundaries. London: Routledge, 2013. 1. Print.
Gonzalez-Barrera, Ana. "Is Being Hispanic a Matter of Race, Ethnicity or Both?" Pew Research
Center RSS. PewResearchCenter, 15 June 2015. Web. 2 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/15/is-being-hispanic-a-matter-of-race-ethnicity-
or-both/>.