Out of the Shadows, into the Dark: Ethnoracial Dissonance and Identity Formation among Afro-Latinxs

Abstract

A 2016 Pew report reported that 24 percent of Hispanics identify as Afro-Latinxs, but researchers know very little about the significance of Afro-Latinx identity and how it develops. Using survey data administered to 94 self-identified Afro-Latinxs and in-depth interviews with selected survey respondents, the authors examine the socialization experiences that shape their identity formation. The authors illustrate that Afro-Latinx identity formation rarely occurred as a result of racial affirmation from families (as observed for other Black-identified groups in the United States). In the context of their families, Afro-Latinxs report the normalization of colorism and consistently negative appraisals of “black” racialized features (skin, hair, and facial features), silence about race and racism, and the encouragement of Latinx ethnicity contrasted with the stigmatization of blackness. Afro-Latinxs’ early racial socialization is marked by ethnoracial dissonance: a feeling of disidentification with, and from, racial schemas made available to them. Most respondents report that this dissonance is punctuated in secondary school and rarely reconciled through familial experiences. However, college experiences and participation in online communities ultimately exposed them to the history of the African diaspora, introduced them to the term Afro-Latinx, and offered alternative constructions of blackness that led them to adopt an Afro-Latinx identity.

How Race Counts for Latinx Homeownership

“…For some Latinx groups, whiteness may reflect how they are racialized in the United States or their countries of origin (Darity et al, 2005;Golash-Boza and Darity, 2008;Vargas, 2015). For example, elaborate racial schemas exist in Brazil (Hordge-Freeman, 2013Telles, 2012Telles, , 2014, and the processes of racialization in the United States are highly contextual (Hordge-Freeman and Veras, 2020;Roth, 2012;Soto-Márquez, 2019). Our findings show how these ideologies and experiences are intimately tied to the material realities of resource distribution and how race operates as a master status in housing inequality (Ray and Seamster, 2016;Seamster and Ray, 2018).…”

“…Anti-Blackness and anti-indigenous ideologies inform how Latinx groups identify, both in the United States and their countries of origin (Darity et al, 2005;Sue, 2013;Telles, 2012). These ideological stances are reinforced by material resources, social status, and racialized experiences (Haywood, 2017;Hordge-Freeman and Veras, 2020;Logan, 2010;Rivera, 2006). Among Latinxs, racialization and categorization may also stem from racial schemes held by individuals (Roth, 2012).…”

“Cops Only See the Brown Skin, They Could Care Less Where It Originated”: Afro-Latinx Perceptions of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

“…Beyond their experiences, as Lorgia García-Peña (2016) notes, the power of personal biography and framings of histories play a significant role in shaping the tensions between national identity and one's personal experience and understanding of blackness. Evidence suggests that Afro-Latinxs raised in the United States may experience socialization that comprised anti-Black or mixed-messages related to their "black" racial features, pressures to emphasize or downplay elements of their Black racial identity, and challenges to their authentic Latinidade by white Latinxs and by African Americans (Dache et al 2019;Haywood 2017;Hordge-Freeman and Veras 2020). These same aforementioned studies also emphasize how exposure to information about the African Diaspora and, as well, Afro-Latinxs' embeddedness within (virtual and in-person) communities that affirm their African heritage may provide the context for which more politicized Afro-Latinx identities can emerge (Paschel 2016;Rivera-Rideau et al 2016).…”

“…Traditionally, studies on Afro-Latinxs have highlighted the challenges faced in the context of families and within the Latinx community wherein blackness is devalued and stigmatized (Comas-Díaz 1994;Cruz-Janzen 2001). We build on this work, but we situate it as part of the contemporary push to emphasize how Afro-Latinxs exert agency by re-educating themselves and constructing Black-affirming communities and new epistemologies (Dache, Haywood, and Mislán 2019;Hordge-Freeman and Veras 2020;Langford and Speight 2015;Johnson and Nuñez 2015;Paschel 2016;Rivera-Rideau, Jones, and Paschel 2016).…”

‘It’s About the Way I’m Treated’: Afro-Latina Black Identity Development in the Third Space

“…Yet, its pervasiveness is not restricted to U.S. borders, as scholars have demonstrated how legacies of colonization and imperialism in Latin America have made anti-Blackness a foundational aspect of Latinx identity formation (Jiménez Román & Flores, 2010). Research has long documented how Latinx households maintain the ideology of mestizaje, or race mixing (Wade, 1993), through practices that encourage young people to reject Black identity (Hordge-Freeman & Veras, 2019). Afro-Latinx youth then, encounter anti-Blackness everywhere, from schools (Dumas, 2016), to the home (Cruz-Janzen, 2001), to the neighborhoods they live in (Shedd, 2015).…”