Black Hispanic and Latino Americans

In the United States, Black Hispanics[2] or Afro-Hispanics[2] (Spanish: Afrohispano), as officially classified by the United States Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget and other U.S. government agencies,[3] are people who are racially black and are from Latin America and/or speak Spanish as their first language.

For Latin American person of Black African ancestry living in or native to, the Americas, see Afro-Latin Americans
Black Hispanic and Latino Americans
Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos negros
Total population
1,243,471[1]
0.4% of the total U.S. population (2010)[1]
2.5% of all Black People (2010)[1]
2.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans (2010)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Northeast • Midwest • West Coast • Texas • Florida
Languages
American English • American Spanish • Spanish creole • Spanglish • Nuyorican English
Religion
Roman Catholicism, but also Protestantism, Judaism and African diasporic religions
Related ethnic groups
Afro-Latin Americans and other Latin Americans • African Americans • Black people and African ethnic groups • Hispanic and Latino Americans and other ethnic groups of the United States • Afro-Caribbeans

Hispanicity, which is independent of race, is the only ethnic category, as opposed to racial category, which is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau. The distinction made by government agencies for those within the population of any official race category, including "Black", is between those who report Hispanic backgrounds and all others who do not. Non-Hispanic Blacks consists of an ethnically diverse collection of all others who are classified as Black or African American that do not report Hispanic ethnic backgrounds.

Demographic information

States like New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut have some of the highest percentages of Hispanics identifying as Black, where up to 25% of Hispanics identify as black, compared to 2.5% of Hispanics nationwide.[4][4] Overall, the Northeast region has the largest concentration of Black Hispanics, this is partly because of the large Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other mostly or partly African descended Hispanic populations in the region.[4][5]

Black Hispanics account for 2.5% of the entire U.S. Hispanic population.[1] Most Black Hispanics in the United States come from within the Dominican and Puerto Rican populations.[6][7][8] Aside from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, large numbers of Black Hispanics can also be found in populations originating from Cuba, northern South America, and the Caribbean coast of Central America as well, including the Cuban, Panamanian, and Colombian communities, among others.[9]

The main aspects which distinguish Black Hispanics born in the United States of America from African Americans is having Spanish as their mother tongue or most recent ancestors' native language, their culture passed down by their parents, and their Spanish surnames. Of all Hispanic groups, Puerto Ricans have the closest relationship with the African American community, and because of this there is also increasing intermarriages and offspring between non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics of any race, mainly between Puerto Ricans and African Americans, which increases both the Hispanic ethnic and black racial demographics.[10][11][12]

Since the early days of the movie industry in the United States of America, when Black Hispanic actors were given roles, they would usually be cast as African Americans.[13] For those with Spanish-speaking accents that betrayed an otherwise presumed African American, they may seldom have been given roles as Hispanics, and the mixed race Hispanic and Latino actors of African appearance were mostly given Hispanic roles.

Those who claim that Black Hispanics are not sought to play Hispanic roles in the United States allege this unfairly leads the masses of viewers to an ignorance to the existence of darker skinned Hispanics. Further, some Black Hispanics who identify themselves as black but of also mixed race heritage once affirming their Hispanicity may be deprived of their status as Black people among African Americans, and categorized by society as non-Black in the American historical context.

The same thing happens in U.S. Hispanic media; critics accuse U.S. Hispanic media, including Latin American media, of overlooking black Hispanic and Latino Americans and black Latin Americans in the telenovelas, mostly stereotyping them as impoverished people.[14][15]

Health

A review of twenty-one studies found Black Hispanics to have poorer health compared to White Hispanics. The causes are still unknown, but researchers suggested that racial discrimination and segregation may contribute to racial health differences among the Hispanic population in the United States.[16]

Although Black Hispanics are often overlooked or dichotomized as either "black" or "hispanic" in the United States of America, Black Hispanic writers often reflect upon their racialized experience in their works. The most commonly used term in literature to speak of this ambiguity and multilayered hybridity at the heart of Latino/Latina identity and culture is miscegenation.[17]:48 This "mestizaje" depicts the multi-faceted racial and cultural identity that characterize Black Hispanics and highlights that each individual Black Hispanic has a unique experience within a broader racial and ethnic range.[17]:49 The memoirs, poetry, sociological research, and essays written by the following Afro-Latino writers reflect this concept of mestizaje in addition to revealing the confusion and uncertainty about one's self-image of being both "Black" and "Hispanic". The psychological and social factors also prove to be central in determining how one ultimately defines him/herself.

Political Contributions in the United States

Afro-Cubans were involved in cultural and political spaces in the 1940s and 1950s, including the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement.[18]

gollark: In the literal sense, yes.
gollark: Every topic is equally political, but some topics are more equal than others.
gollark: You mean the politics discord.
gollark: Now I can take these out of context and ruin your political career!
gollark: Er, wait, no, I'll react with triangularity symbols.

See also


References
  1. Humes, Karen R.; Nicholas A. Jones; Roberto R. Ramirez (March 2011). "Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010" (PDF) (Press release). U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 29, 2011. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  2. "U.S. Census Bureau Guidance on the Presentation and Comparison of Race and Hispanic Origin Data". U.S. Census Bureau. June 12, 2003. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
  3. "Race: 2010 Census of Population, P94-171 Redistricting Data File". U.S. Census Bureau. 2010. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  4. "ACS Demographic and Housing Estimates: 2013 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates". US Census Bureau. 2013. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016.
  5. "Coming Out As Black, When You Were Hispanic". npr.org. June 6, 2013. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
  6. Szot, Hilary S. (February 26, 2014). "Black History Month: New Generation Of Afro-Latinos Tackles Race And Identity". Fox News Latino. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  7. Bailey, Benjamin (2006). "Dominican-American Etbnic/Racial Identities and United States Social Categories". International Migration Review. 35 (3): 677–708. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2001.tb00036.x. JSTOR 2675839.
  8. Garsd, Jasmine (May 25, 2013). "'Las Caras Lindas': To Be Black And Puerto Rican In 2013". npr.org. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  9. Guadalupe, Patricia; Suzanne Gamboa (February 27, 2014). "Afro Latinos' Mixed Identity Can Leave Them Out of the Mix". NBC News. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  10. Cruz, José E. (2000). "Interminority Relations in Urban Settings". In Yvette Marie Alex-Assensoh; Lawrence J. Hanks (eds.). Black and Multiracial Politics in America. NYU Press. pp. 96–97. ISBN 978-0-8147-0663-3. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  11. Torres, Andrés (1995). Between Melting Pot and Mosaic: African Americans and Puerto Ricans in the New York Political Economy. Temple University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-56639-280-8. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  12. "Detailed tables: Hispanic or Latino By Race". U.S. Census Bureau. 2007. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  13. "Myth: Hispanics are portrayed accurately on TV". thehispanicmyth.com. Archived from the original on June 4, 2008. Retrieved May 17, 2008.
  14. Quinonez, Ernesto (June 19, 2003). "Y Tu Black Mama Tambien: Latinos Are Racist, Too. Just Turn On The Tv". newsweek.com. Archived from the original on October 27, 2008. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
  15. Fletcher, Michael A. (August 6, 2000). "Racial Bias Charged On Spanish-language Tv". sun-sentinel.com. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  16. Cuevas, Adolfo G.; Dawson, Beverly Araujo; Williams, David R. (December 2016). "Race and Skin Color in Latino Health: An Analytic Review". American Journal of Public Health. 106 (12): 2131–2136. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2016.303452. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 5104999. PMID 27736206.
  17. Pinn, Anthony B.; Benjamin Valentin (2001). Ties That Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino/a Theologies in Dialogue. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-8264-1326-0.
  18. "Neither enemies nor friends: Latinos, blacks, Afro-Latinos". Choice Reviews Online. 43 (6): 43–3718. February 1, 2006. doi:10.5860/choice.43-3718. ISSN 0009-4978. S2CID 142655873.

Further reading
  • The Afro-Latin@ Project - The Afro Latin@ Project aims to document, promote, coordinate and support the development of Afro-Latin@ studies and grass roots activities in the United States. This primary focus is informed and enriched by the historical and contemporary experience of African-descendant peoples in the Americas.
  • RUSQ Afro-Latino Archives - An extensive list of books, films, memoirs, databases, and articles which provide more insight into the Afro-Latino experience, in and out of the United States.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.