I visited Italy in high school and decided to go to the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica with a couple of friends. We were on a school trip, so we asked the sponsors if we could go, and they said yes, as long as we got back in time. We convinced them we could run to the top, see everything, and come down within 15 minutes, so off we went. We did indeed make it to the top, out of breath and about to pass out, but we made it with time left to go down. Naturally, we followed the crowd of people going through a door, because where else would everyone be going except down? Well…up. For some reason, this didn’t occur to me until I had gone up a couple stairs and noticed everyone in front of me kept on going higher and higher. Once I realized this, I started to turn around to head back down but there was nowhere to go. Everyone behind us was already making their way up and with each step the stairwell kept on getting narrower, with nowhere to turn.
That story is a pretty accurate description as to what it felt to be a Latina, not born in her Latin country, living in America. It felt confusing and suffocating. On one hand, there was the weight of the dictator Trujillo’s atrocities committed on Haitians and Black Dominicans that every Dominican carries whether they want to admit it or not. This deeply rooted anti-Blackness (if not addressed) is not only perpetuated by Dominicans onto Black people, but onto themselves. Because of the tradition of anti-Blackness, it is hard for Dominicans to claim that inherent part of their identity: being Black. Consequently, for me, not being born or growing up in the Dominican Republic made me unable to fully grasp the culture for myself (for better or for worse in this case), but even further from being able to claim the inherent Blackness in me. On the other hand, there was the fact that while I felt super American living in a small town with neighbors who own farm animals and a county fair that has tractor-pulls (I mean, come on!), I was never going to be seen as truly American. The duality of this experience, of not being able to claim either part of me completely as I mentioned earlier, was confusing and suffocating.
It all changed for me on one Saturday night, when there was an event held on campus where a panel of people from the African diaspora talked about their experiences. Although it was hard for me to get my head around the fact that I was part of the African diaspora because I could barely claim being Dominican, I realized this feeling, my experience, wasn’t isolated. I wasn’t the only one who felt like this, caught in between two worlds, and this was the first time everything made sense. I don’t remember if the term “afro-latino” was being talked about just yet, but this was it. This conversation gave me the permission I didn’t know I needed to claim who I was. Being able to claim being Afro-Latina was a breath of fresh air. It was the experience of getting to the top of the Basilica after being trapped in the stairwell and being able to take a deep breath. After the panel discussion, I went home overjoyed and almost in a gospel way blurted out everything I had just heard about. While it was difficult to process this new information, it also gave my parents the permission they needed to fully claim themselves the same way I was able to.
I’ll forever be grateful for that day: the day I felt like I finally belonged somewhere, the day I finally felt seen, the day I became Afro-Latina.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.