The films were accessed from various streaming sites such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, from

local library resources, as well as from personal copies purchased by myself or my mentor. In
order to form an objective analysis, I consulted other forms of publications including movie
reviews, journal articles, newspaper/magazine articles, interviews published online, and other
forms of published film critique.

 
1. Paula Garcés

 
2. Jessica Alba

 
3. Aimee Garcia

 
4. Zoe Saldana

 
5. Eva Longoria

 
6. Vanessa Hudgens

 
7. Ana de Armas

 
8. Penélope Cruz

 
9. Francia Raisa

 
10. Bárbara Mori

 
11. Ali Landry Monteverde

 
12. Lacey Chabert

 
13. Sofía Vergara

 
14. Fernanda Romero

 
15. Thalía

 
16. Alana De La Garza

 
17. Eva Mendes

 
18. Mónica Cruz

 
19. Maite Perroni

 
20. Bérénice Bejo

 
21. Leticia Dolera

 
22. Tulisa

 
23. Roselyn Sanchez

 
24. Christian Serratos

 
25. Naya Rivera

 
26. Michelle Rodriguez

 
27. Yvette Yates Redick

 
28. Catalina Sandino Moreno

 
29. Salma Hayek

 
30. Clara Lago

 
31. Anahí

 
32. Amaia Salamanca

 
33. Blanca Suárez

 
34. Paz Vega

 
35. Katy Jurado

 
36. Sandra Delgado

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls050585903/

More Latinas Are Choosing to Identify as Afro-Latina

Thanks to vocal celebrities and social media, women at the intersection are
proudly embracing this label.
By Natasha S. Alford

Oct 4, 2018
ELIZABETH ACEVEDO

When Aisha Cort walks into a convenience store with her

rich brown skin and tiny dark locs, she knows she has the
power to cause confusion by speaking Spanish. Cashiers
behind the counter will reply back to her in broken
English, showing visible surprise and questioning how she
knows the language.
“I'm aware of how people see me,” says Cort, a 34-year-
old professor in Washington, D.C. whose mother is Cuban
and father is from the South American country of Guyana.
“But being Afro-Latina is just who I am. It's not
something that I’ve ever had to overthink. ”

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The term Afro-Latina—or Afro-Latinx, a more recent
adaptation of the phrase Latino for anyone who chooses to
remove gender binaries from their identity—is used to
describe descendants of Latin America with African roots.
Simply put: Black Latinos.

In Spanish, nouns are categorized as masculine or

feminine. To remove gender bias, many communities are
using the term "Latinx" as an alternative to Latino or
Latina. If someone identifies as Afro-Latinx or Afro-Latina,
it just means: They're a Latin American of African
descent. Though it's a masculine term, Afro-Latino is used
in the plural form.
There are millions of Afro-Latino people around the
world, from Honduras to Puerto Rico to the Dominican
Republic, who have hundreds of combinations of skin
colors and hair textures. But for many, the unifying
experience comes from their visible Blackness. While
some believe identifying as Afro-Latino is a personal
choice, others argue it has more to do with a person's
physical traits—skin color and hair texture, for instance.
Black Latinos lack the privilege that lighter-skinned
Latinos have, with an experience that's more akin to the
racism and struggles of African-Americans.

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Popular culture, however, has only just started to catch up

to the existence of Afro-Latinas. Historically, when
Hollywood or magazine covers have featured Latinas,
they’ve been lighter-skinned celebrities like Salma Hayek,
Jennifer Lopez, and Eva Longoria. More recently, Afro-
Latina celebrities have been opening up about their
identity, like host and actress LaLa Anthony, Orange Is
The New Black's Dascha Polanco, and singer and Love
and Hip-Hop star Amara La Negra. She told
Refinery29 earlier this year that “a lot of Americans are
only familiar with the race and colorism struggles of
African-Americans, but this exists for Latinos as well.”

AISHA CORT
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“Growing up, I didn’t identify with Hispanics or Latinas at

all because I would see Latina media and I wasn’t
reflected,” says Nydia Simone, 28, a Panamanian and
African-American filmmaker. Simone founded the brand
“Blactina” in 2017 to represent Afro-Latina pride and is
creating a short film called La Bodega. She adds that she
first remembers hearing the term "Afro-Latina" in an
interview with Dominican singer Kat DeLuna. “I always
recognized myself more in Essence and Ebony, and I was
confused how I could be Hispanic and Black. Hearing
someone phrase it like that resonated with me.”
RELATED STORY

@Jstlbby Is Instagram's Inspirational Rising Star

It’s not just celebrities leading the charge. Many Afro-

Latinas are taking to social media to vocalize their Black
pride and ancestry, inspiring dozens of Instagram
accounts, meet-ups like the Afro-Latino Festival in New
York City, and independent documentary films like Afro-
Latinos: An Untaught Story. Each of these stories raise
cultural awareness of brown-skinned Latinas, sending the
message to the world that Afro-Latinas have always
existed. Now, the intersectional identity is finally
becoming more visible and more accepted by the
mainstream.

Census forms and similar applications may also be

changing to reflect the fact that while being Latino, Latina,
or Latinx is an ethnicity—a way to define the culture you
relate to based on where your family is from—your race is
more closely associated with your physical attributes.

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In 2016, the Pew Research Center issued their first

nationally representative survey to ask Latin-Americans
whether they identify as Afro-Latino. They found that 1
out of 4 Latinos in the U.S. identify as Afro-Latino—which
means one in four people in the United States would need
to check both the “Black” and the “Latino” box on census
or application forms. But as it stands, they're typically
forced to choose one or the other.
I think Afro-Latinx is really giving people a new access
point to being able to say: ‘Here are the many things and
places I come from.’
The Pew Research Center also found that Latinos with
roots in the Caribbean are the most likely to identify as
Afro-Latino. It makes sense: During the transatlantic
slave trade, more African slaves were taken to Spanish
and Portuguese colonies in the islands than to South
America or what would later become the United States.
Add to that the fact that many enslaved Black women
were raped by slave owners, and the result is a very
complicated legacy of racial identity for the ethnic group
that would eventually be called Latino.

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And one result of that painful history has meant that

many Latin American descendants ignore their African
roots—or reject them all together.
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“For some of the people in my family, good is associated

with whiteness, and Black is associated with being
inferior,” says Alicia, a 31-year-old Dominican-American
who preferred not to share her last name because of the
way her family might feel about her admission. “Members
of my family definitely make jokes about other people
because of their skin shade or their color...those are things
that are not uncommon in Latino culture.”
Because of those stigmas and stereotypes, for many Latina
women, proclaiming themselves Afro-Latina is
revolutionary; a direct challenge to the notion that Latinos
can't also be Black—and a statement that Black is, indeed,
beautiful.

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NYDIA SIMONE

But making that statement isn't always easy. In

September, Afro-Latina meteorologist Corallys Ortiz wore
her natural hair on-air for WBBJ in Jackson, Tennessee. A
viewer named Donna called in multiple times to tell Ortiz
that she hated the look, even leaving a racist
voicemail calling Ortiz's hair “n*ggery looking.”

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Ortiz recorded her own reaction video to the voicemail
and posted a passionate response online defending her
choice to be natural.
“For years on end, women of color have always been told
their hair wasn’t professional or 'neat' enough for the
workplace, and for years women of color would have to
adhere to 'white beauty standards' in order to get ahead,”
Ortiz wrote.
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Read an Exclusive Excerpt by Tayari Jones

“For a while, I didn't love my curly hair, but now I love
wearing it both ways,” Ortiz says now. “I feel like that's
happening more often now: People are embracing their
identities and not chemically straightening their hair.
They're getting more comfortable wearing their hair how
it looks naturally.”
The rise in Black consciousness amongst the Latino
community is also on display everywhere from
merchandise to fictional characters. One of the most
popular items on the hair care company MicMas Remix’s
website is a t-shirt with the phrase “Todo pelo es pelo
bueno,” which translates to “all hair is good hair.” It’s a
play on the common Spanish phrase “pelo malo,” often
used in Latino culture to describe “bad hair”—or Afro-
textured hair. And last year, DC Comics co-created an
anthology featuring the first Afro-Latina superhero, La
Borinqueña, a Puerto Rican college student who finds her
superpowers by going to her family’s island of origin.

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My being, my space, my body is not up for an argument.
It’s not up for debate that I exist in this world that you
also exist in.
While all of these moments are groundbreaking, they
don't mark the beginning of Afro-Latina consciousness in
America.
“There have been movements about negritude for years
and years and years. And I think this is a new generation's
arrival,” says Elizabeth Acevedo, an award-winning
Dominican-American author and writer of The Poet X,
whose spoken word piece “Afro-Latina” went viral in
2015. “On the one end, it's for the Afro-Latinx folks like
me who really didn't grow up with the language of
Blackness in our households. People like me who have
realized: I've always known there was a history we
didn't talk about...”
“The other side is that it's the folks who knew they were
Black, whose parents were like ‘You are Black,’ but maybe
didn't always know how to configure that with their Latinx
side,” she adds. “I think Afro-Latinx is really giving people
a new access point to being able to say: ‘Here are the
many things and places I come from.’”

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JAZMIN SAMORA

Jazmin Samora, a 28-year-old Afro-Latina

Dominican photographer who lives in New York City, says
she is reminded of her Blackness at every turn.
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“I had to choose on the playground as an 8-year-old if I

wanted to be Black or if I wanted to be Latino, based off of
the way other children had been learning history, race,
and ethnicity,” she says. Samora has recently stopped
straightening her hair with chemical relaxers, opting to let
her afro grow.
Since, she says sometimes people won’t speak to her in
Spanish at the airport, a microaggression that can be
painful.
I had to choose on the playground if I wanted to be Black
or Latino based on what other kids were learning about
history and race.
“I'm sad to think that there are people out there thinking
that I'm not Latina. Like how could you even question my
identity? My being, my space, my body is not up for an
argument. It’s not up for debate that I exist in this world
that you also exist in,” Samora says.
It’s a reality that highlights one of the many challenges of
this growing movement. With the increasing popularity of
the term Afro-Latina (or Afro-Latinx), who really gets to
claim it?

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Puerto Rican actress Gina Rodriguez, for example,

has gotten heat for calling herself Afro-Latina while
having fair-skin and straight hair, giving her a privilege
that darker-skinned Latinas don't have.

1 out of 4 people in the U.S. identify as Afro-Latino.

Samora believes this is indicative of a larger issue: Afro-
Latino isn’t a trend or a phase, but people wanting to
claim Blackness at their convenience is.
“I have a real problem with that, because this is a safe
space that we've created for ourselves,” says Samora. “I
think a lot of people want to say they're oppressed so that
they're able to hop between identities and be accepted
amongst everyone. But for women like me, this is a term
that encompasses all our identities under one name so we
can feel comfortable and not have to pick and choose. If
you can pick and choose, you definitely are not Afro-
Latina.”
While the movement to embrace Black identity expands,
there are still women at this intersection who prefer other
labels, like Janel Martinez, journalist and founder of the
website Ain’t I Latina.

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JANEL MARTINEZ

“Afro-Latina is designed to center Blackness, but I have

since seen a shift over the years,” says Martinez. As a
black Honduran who is also Garifuna (a distinct ethnic
group also present in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize),
Martinez’s textured hair, deep brown skin, and daily
experiences leave her searching for a term for her
Blackness that is completely unapologetic. So she’s
starting to refer to herself as negra, a Spanish word that
translates simply to: “Black woman.”

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“Afro-Latina is a term that I use for convenience purposes,

when I’m saying ‘I’m a black woman while culturally I feel
my community is in Latin America,’” says Martinez. “But
we were Black before these terms, and we are Black after.
As we are navigating through this crazy political climate,
I’m seeing a greater need for Black people across the
diaspora to be unified.”
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But even as the movement grows and evolves, there are

still Latinos who aren’t ready to fully embrace their roots
just yet.
“Afro-Latina is a new thing— and I don’t think anything is
wrong with it, but I don’t think I have that awareness,”
says Reina, a Brooklyn-based Latina who also chose not to
be named because of her complicated relationship with
her identity. Despite being mistaken as African-American
frequently and even dating Black men, Reina says she
feels the term Latina is sufficient to describe her
experience.
“If someone called me an Afro-Latina, I’m happy to be like
‘Yeah, I definitely have African roots, I’m not shying away
from that,” she says. “But when I look at myself, I see
other things—the texture of my hair and color of my skin,
I don’t necessarily know that I would call myself an Afro-
Latina...I don’t feel like that is descriptive enough of who I
am. I don’t think that would define me either.”

ELIZABETH ACEVEDO
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Aisha Cort says that in the end, “you can't force identity
on anybody. But me personally? I think everyone should
acknowledge their roots.”
Cort’s experiences growing up as an Afro-Latina at a
predominantly white school taught her that beyond her
family, she may be perceived as an outsider, but her
Blackness and her Latina identity would always be one in
the same. She’s even turned her knowledge of native
language into entrepreneurship, launching her own
Spanish tutoring business and encouraging other Black
women—however they identify—to learn another
language.
It’s a peace of mind she wishes for all the women who look
like her—who may be ignored, questioned, or told they
aren’t enough.
“Sometimes you feel like you have to prove it, but I got
over that a long time ago,” says Cort. “I don't have to
prove anything to anybody. This is me and I just happen
to be a wonderful hybrid.”
https://www.oprahmag.com/life/a23522259/afro-latina-identity/

https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/10-most-beautiful-places-latin-america

10 Most Beautiful Places in Latin

America
A light-skinned Latina like me will never be able to live in the land of
whiteness

Melissa Lozada-Oliva
This article is more than 5 years old
I’ve been told that I’m the ‘good’ kind of Latino because of my skin
color
“If I dress a certain way – put on some boat shoes, a polo, maybe some pearl
earrings – I could maybe even cross over into the land of
whiteness.” Photograph: Beepstock / Alamy/Alamy

W hat exactly does being a light-skinned Latina mean for

me? It means that all at once, I am just dark enough, too dark or not
dark enough at all. It means that I’m the color white people want to be,
but white people don’t actually want to be me.
In college, a white classmate once touched my arm and said that she
loved my tan. “How did you get like this in the middle of December?”
she asked. “You’re the perfect color!” I guess I was supposed to feel
honored. In that moment, however, I stopped being me. I wasn’t
my abuelita’s mosca or my father’s melangango. I wasn’t a writer or a
first-generation college student. I was just a nice tan. I may as well
have been a chemically constructed liquid, something she could
purchase in a bottle or spray on herself at the beach.

The idea of being a “perfect color” is a product of colorism. Colorism

favors people with lighter skin tones and violently dismisses those with
darker ones. My sister’s Venezuelan classmate once told her that he
didn’t speak to black or indigenous people because they were darker
than he was and thus, beneath him. I’ve been told that I’m the “good”
kind of Latino – that I don’t look like those “sketchy Dominican girls,”
or “those Indian-looking El Salvadorans with the wide noses.” My
“perfect color” means I won’t be followed around a store. You know
what? If I dress a certain way – put on some boat shoes, a polo, maybe
some pearl earrings – I could maybe even cross over into the land of
whiteness. I could get a seat in a cafe there. Listen to Tame Impala.
Just kidding - I’m still too dark for the Land of Whiteness. I’ll never be
white. Sometimes I’m too dark. My family will tell me to put on some
more sunscreen when we’re at the beach. I will be asked if I can spell or
speak English. A white customer at the bookstore I work in will
demand that I stop touching my hair because it’s “disgusting.”

And then, I can also be not dark enough – there are white people who
brag about being able to get darker than me. They’ll hold their arms up
to mine and say that they get spoken to in Spanish because they look
even more like me than me. To them, my identity is something so fluid
they could drink it. Buy it over the counter. Take it like a vitamin.

Isabel Quintero’s young adult novel Gabi: A Girl in Pieces centers

around a young, light-skinned Mexican-American girl. Writing about
Mexican Independence day, Gabi feels a lot of anxiety about how
“Mexican” she appears. She says: “People look at Sandra’s long brown
hair, dark brown eyes and skin, and they think, how exotic, how
perfectly Mexican.” She goes on to say: “My skin is there for all the
world to see and judge at … White girl. Gringa. I’ve been called all those
names. Skin that doesn’t make me Mexican enough.” Like Gabi, I feel I
need to prove my identity all the time.

I explain my race and break it down into bite-sized pieces for white
people, the same way I give directions to tourists to the train. I dissect
it, minimize it, make an easy-to-digest travel brochure for my identity.
These consistent explanations, this never-ending need to prove myself
only reinforces the racism that constructs the idea of “a perfect color.”

In the same way white people ask how I became this “perfect” color,
they also ask what I am and where I’m really from. Growing up in a
predominantly white town, my brownness was something my peers
were always trying to conceptualize for me. I remember welcoming
comparisons to caramel, spices, Eva Mendes. It gave me a place, a
name. Helped me understand who and how I am and why I look this
way.

I don’t have an answer for how I became a certain color or where I’m
really from. Colonialism made sure that I would never understand my
history. I’m this color because of a history that decided white was the
most beautiful; because of destroyed indigenous temples I’ve never
heard of; the rape and slaughter of my ancestors that was ripped out of
history books; the brujas and the brown hands that loved too hard to
die and survived the destruction. I am this color because of love and
because of rage and the undefinable colors that exist between them
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/08/light-skinned-latina-never-live-in-
land-of-whiteness
Piel morena oscura, ojos y cabello color marrón oscuro o negro.

https://www.byrdie.com/south-american-beauty-secrets

7 South American Beauty Secrets Women Everywhere

Should Know
written by  

LINDSEY METRUS

UPDATED SEP 05, 2019

Gisele Bündchen, Shakira, Sofia Vergara, Alessandra Ambrosio, Izabel

Goulart—all seemingly unicorns, but something else they share is that they're all from
South America. We're not sure what it is about the women who hail from the continent
—the weather? the food? the culture?—but one thing's for sure: Something's in the
water in South America.

In hopes of garnering even an ounce of the intel these women know about looking
gorgeous on a daily basis, we took a trip to seven different countries within the
continent (from the comfort of our computers) and researched their best beauty secrets.
The results? Thankfully (and surprisingly) home-grown ingredients and natural
remedies are key. Keep scrolling to read what we discovered.

The Amazonian basin is 75% clay, so it's no wonder its inhabitants turn to the
ingredient for a wide variety of needs including their skin woes. However, instead of the
usual red clay you may be thinking of, Ecuadorian natives swear by the white
variety. This cult favorite mask from Aztec Secret ($8) will do the trick.

A recent study found that maqui berries, a fruit native to Chile and Argentina, is much
higher in antioxidants than strawberries and blackberries.1 If you're looking to get your
own super-antioxidant fix (but aren't traveling to Chile anytime soon), try purchasing
some maqui powder ($20).

"Argentine women are traumatized by body hair, so we consume a lot of hair removal
products, from wax and razors to different treatments for lasting effects," Sol Garcia
told Makeup.com. She explains that Argentine women prefer to do their hair
removal at home; if you'd like to give it a go yourself, try this bikini and body
wax kit from Completely Bare ($13).

"Brazilian women always keep feet soft and smooth by exfoliating and

moisturizing, wearing cute shoes, and getting foot massages from someone special as
often as possible," Camila Pierotti of Sol de Janeiro told us. Try the brand's Samba 2-
Step Foot Fetish Care ($27), which includes a smoothing board and slip-free foot lotion.

"I grew up on the coast [of Colombia], so there was often a lot of exposed skin, so I
learned early to make sure to care for the skin on my body—not just on my face. My
grandmother taught me an incredible recipe for a DIY body mask that I still use before
big events: Make a thick paste of ground oatmeal, honey, a bit of milk, some lemon
juice, ground flour, rose water, and pink clay; apply all over; and rinse after 15 to
20 minutes. It leaves your skin amazingly soft and glowing," Tata Harper told Byrdie
exclusively.

Very similar-tasting to green tea, yerba maté is a hugely popular plant in these
Latin countries (and Argentina and Brazil, too). People drink it in the morning
like coffee, but it's also a great skincare ingredient for a healthy, glowing complexion.
Try Goodal Yerba Mate Cleansing Foam ($20).
Avocados are big in Latin American diets, but they're also popular
mashed up and used as a mask or hair treatment. Bring the popular Venezuelan practice
into your own home and DIY some masks (then use the leftovers for guac).