afro-latinxs

Public opinion polls consistently report data by the categories of white, black, and Latino. This approach erases the experiences of Afro-Latinos, who reportedly make up nearly ¼ of the US Latino population. How do such polls miss the mark on Latino public opinion? What would it look like if Afro-Latinos were centered in Latino politics?

Danielle Clealand received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Political Science and joined the faculty at Florida International University in 2012. Her research examines comparative racial politics, group consciousness, black public opinion and racial inequality with a focus on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and the United States.

Dr. Clealand’s book, The Power of Race in Cuba: Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness during the Revolution, winner of the 2018 Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association and W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, examines racial ideology and the institutional mechanisms that support racial inequality in Cuba as well as black public opinion. Previously an associate professor in the Department of Politics and international Relations at Florida International University, Dr. Clealand will begin as an Associate Professor in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in fall 2020.

Karma Chávez is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at UT.

Follow this week’s guests on Twitter:
Karma: @queermigrations
Danielle: @ClealandPhD

Visit Dr. Clealand’s website at danielleclealand.com

Additional Resources
I’m Afro-Latino, but I can’t join both the black and Hispanic caucuses in Congress. That must change.
Why This Census of US Afro-Latinos Is Groundbreaking
afrolatin@ forum
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics

Many Latinxs, especially from younger generations, have come out strongly in support of the movement for Black Lives. For many, they’ve approached this activism from a model of Black-Brown solidarity. But where does this model leave Afro-Latinxs? In this episode we interrogate the question: what is wrong with those signs that say Latinxs for Black Lives?

Karma R. Chávez is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at UT.

Paul Joseph López Oro will start a position as an assistant professor at Smith College this fall. He teaches courses on Black Latin American and U.S. Black Latinx social movements, Black diaspora theories and ethnographies, and Black feminisms/queer theory. His research interests include Black politics in Latin America, the Caribbean and U.S. AfroLatinidades, Black Latinx LGBTQ movements and performances, and Black transnationalism. He is working on his first book manuscript, Hemispheric Black Indigeneity: The Queer Politics of Self-Making Garifuna New York, an ethnographic and oral history study on how gender and sexuality shape the ways in which Garifuna New Yorkers of Central American transgenerational descent negotiate, perform and articulate their multiple subjectivities as Black, indigenous and Latinx.

Twitter
Karma: @QueerMigrations
Pablo: @BlackCatrachoBK

Resources
Gentefied’s Julissa Calderon: “It’s Time for Latinxs to Step up for Black Lives Matter”

The Latino Community Is Finally Coming to Grips With Its Own Racism

Latinos must confront ‘ingrained’ anti-black racism amid George Floyd protests, some urge

Afro-Latin@s in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas

Neither Enemies nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos

The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States

Theorizing Race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos