Category: Response 11

finale

 

After receiving this award yesterday and being this is my last blog post! I did a lot of thinking of what I have learned throughout this semester and how I have grown as a woman, an Afro-Latina woman. This award is a representation of everything and mostly everything I have learned from this class and have taken it out to the world. After listening to the final podcast, it was interesting some of the thoughts discussed with Rosa Clemente really hit home for me. Like me she was born and raised in the South Bronx who is activist for the community of Black and Latinos. She is an Afro-Latina woman and this made me realize that everything we have learned in this class and every single woman we have encountered in this class has made me a better woman, a better scholar, a better activist, and most of all woke. If I could I do it all over again I would, and I am grateful that I have women to look up to even more now, and that I too can be like Rosa, Caridad, Pabon and so much more …

!

AfroLatina

What I liked most about the reading was the relation to identity that was established. She is an Afro-Latina lesbian. There are a lot of intersections within that one identity. Because of this, she found it hard to relate to anyone at all. She questioned the validity of her identity and felt isolated from her communities.
Identity is often overlooked within the Latinx community. Although we all fall under this one large umbrella term, there is a lot that differentiates us from each other. Being of Salvadoran and Dominican descent, struggle with identity within my Latinx community is something I’ve faced first hand my entire life. We often times isolate ourselves from each other even though we all share this umbrella term subconciously. This is a problem that needs to be addressed because it divides us as a community and hinders any sort of progression. We need to understand that although our struggles might not all be exactly alike and we may not look alike either, we are still marginalized as a unit. It is only together that we will ever be able to destroy these boundaries that prohibit us from moving up the social ladder.

Unsteady

Blackness and brightness
All together as one
Should I be worried? should I be fine?

Blackness and strength
Together but not as one
Am I strong enough? Am I fine?

Blackness and me
I am the middle
I am blackness and brightness
I am fine

My strength is my blackness
My reflection is my brightness
I am fine

I can get confused
but I am the middle
I will be fine
I am fine

The Privilege of the Passport

I was really moved by Ana M. Lara’s piece “Uncovering Mirrors”, and a part that really resonated with me was when she spoke about the power that her U.S. passport gave her. I have traveled to and from Mexico for most summers of my life, and I was made aware of the privilege that came with my American passport at a young age. Other factors such as my fair complexion and the occasional accompaniment of my White father on these trips would make going through airport security even less stressful, but I think that the deep blue hue and U.S. emblem on my passport has helped me in all of my travels more than any phenotype I possess.

But my U.S. passport was not always an easy thing for my mother to maneuver in her travels with me, and especially when I was a toddler my mother would be questioned about whether or not she was actually my mother. So, while I have rarely been stopped and questioned because of my passport, it has been a much more difficult endeavor for my mother, and despite her joint citizenship, she is still heavily scrutinized every time she crosses the border.

My U.S. passport also allowed me to cross borders like a hot knife through butter when I found myself in Europe last year. Of course, border control in the European Union is much less strict than that of the U.S., but of course only in relation to the right bodies passing through–think of the xenophobia directed at refugees and those coming from the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Eastern Europe and how their experiences crossing Western European borders must be nothing short of harrowing.

Even this past winter, I crossed the Mexican border in a completely new way. I was visiting San Diego, the city of my birth, with my family. We decided to drive across the Mexican border into Rosarito in order to eat authentic tacos al pastor and watch the sun set on the beach over the Pacific ocean. On the way back to San Diego, crossing the Mexican border was a lengthy and annoying process. But as soon as we reached the check point, we were free to drive straight on to In-N-Out before heading home. As I looked in the rear-view mirror at the Mexican landscape behind me, I saw so many black and brown bodies frozen on the other side of the border. Citizenship is a privilege I had never felt so tangibly connected to until that crossing, and it makes me wonder what I could do with this passport in order to share this privilege with others.

Afro Latinidad

 

 

 

 

Resultado de imagen para afro latino identity

http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/03/03/afro-latinos-divided-on-their-racial-identity-more-claim-white-or-hispanic-heritage-rather-than-black-study-says/

Being Latino is complex enough. With all the cultures, religions, traditions, geographical compositions and mosaic of hues encompassed, it can be hard for Latinos to define themselves.Now add afro into the mix, and the questions about cultural makeup and identity are endless. Not only, is possible to be both things, but its actually pretty common. However,there is still a clear white and black line. Sadly, our society doesn’t understand that there is a mix of things and you don’t have to define if you are one thing or another. A lot of people have experienced being in this intersection were they don’t fulfill entirely the common characteristics thereby, they are not considered Latino neither Black,  they are in this grey area where they can’t find their identity and they are not fully accepted in either community.

Latinos come in all colors, all shades, you don’t have to make a choice, embrace who you are.

Poetry Response to “Nao Bustamante’s “Bad-Girl” Aesthetics,” In Performing Mexicanidad –

Poetry Response to “Nao Bustamante’s “Bad-Girl” Aesthetics,” In Performing Mexicanidad –

 

The body serves as an unspoken language, a way to communicate feelings and thoughts.

Non-conforming, radicalized, screaming and begging for some kind of change.

The worst part of it all?

Only those who choose to listen to our bodies can hear the pain, the sadness, the joy, and the yearning for more.

Posing our bodies against the backgrounds of our lives, using risque and scandalous art in order to induce some reaction, any reaction.

FEEL.

To get the viewer, the observer, the individual critiquing it to read much further than first glance.

We perform, dramaturgically, our ways through life, through controversies, and through injustices.

Who chooses to appreciate this art, to dig deeper?

That is up to you.