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Serenasailor
Veteran Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 1744
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 08:30 pm: | 
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When the U.S. Census recently reported that Latinos had replaced African Americans as the largest minority in the United States, I wondered, "How can I replace myself?"
I'm a Black Latina. My mother is a Black Nicaraguan and my father is African American. Where do these demographic shifts leave me, when at times I see myself as Black and at other times I feel more Latina?
I have many relatives who are just like me, Black and Nicaraguan. My cousins and I grew up in a Black neighborhood in East Palo Alto, Calif., playing with Black and Mexican kids. At the same time, we kept our Nicoyan (Nicaraguan) customs in our homes. From the stereo there were always sounds of Soca music -- a fast-paced style similar to reggae -- inter-mixed with old country music artists like Charlie Pride and Patsy Cline. Nicaraguans love old country music.
Even the food was saturated in my mother's culture. We ate rice and beans cooked in coconut milk, and Rundown -- a soup made with fried fish, cassava and green banana. We spoke Creole -- a dialect of English and French, created from a mix of British and Black Caribbean influences. It sounds the same way a Jamaican person would talk, but without the heavy accent.
There were always two cultural roles we had to play. While my family defined me as Latina, my friends kept me Black. When our Black friends came over, my cousins and I would talk slang with them, saying "hey, whass up rouge," or, "Girl, yo man look hurt!" My mom would make fun of us, mimicking the greeting "Whass up blood!" with her Nicoyan accent.
Racism from a fellow immigrant feels even worse than from a white American.
In some ways, looking Black helped my mother. When my mother and aunt first tried to immigrate to this country they were detained by patrol officers in Mexico and questioned. They were released the next day, and the kind officer told them, "If anyone in America asks where you are from, just say that you are from Texas." It worked. Because of her looks, my mother was accepted easily into Black America. At the same time, she was welcomed into Mexican culture here in America because she spoke Spanish and could relate to the immigrant experience.
They took the Greyhound up to East Palo Alto. Though being Latina comes with benefits, it also comes with its ups and downs. When Mexican women gossip about them in Spanish, my mother and aunt join the conversation and shock them. Racism from a fellow immigrant feels even worse than from a white American.
Today's California is different for me than it was for my mother. The Black-Latino culture is growing and has gotten more acceptance. There are Black Nicaraguans in my community, but there are also Black Panamanians, Brazilians and Afro-Brazilians. They are doing just as I do -- blending African-American culture with that of their homelands.
I don't know if the Census will ever have a box for me and my family. I guess I don't care about how, or if, it eventually defines me. I doubt that it can. I am happy to carry both my Black and Latina ways.
Shana White is a writer for DeBug, a publication by young workers, writers, and artists in Silicon Valley and a project of Pacific News Service.
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Nels
Veteran Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 870
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 20, 2007 - 09:21 pm: |
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Issues...? http://onedroprule.org/viewtopic.php?t=3685 |
Muchacho
Newbie Poster
Username: Muchacho
Post Number: 11
Registered: 09-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 01:44 am: |
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There are no "Black Latinos".
Latinos are only white. Argentineans are mostly latinos. Mexicans are mostly non-latinos.
Mexicans are mostly Native-Americans.
The latinos that live in the Spanish speaking countries are usually the ones that own and manage the wealth and the mineral resources of those countries.
The non-latinos are usually the ones living in the shantytowns or in the jails of the Spanish-speaking countries.
Muchacho |
Misty
Veteran Poster
Username: Misty
Post Number: 1057
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 01:46 pm: |
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every latino person i hear has a different story about what "latino" and hispanic is. alot of them say the ones who have the least amount of spanish blood are called "latinos" and the ones who have the most spanish blood are called "hispanic" or "latin" |
Muchacho
Newbie Poster
Username: Muchacho
Post Number: 13
Registered: 09-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 02:43 am: |
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The people that call themselves latinos are usually unaware of what a true latin is.
Latins are Romans and every other Europeans that speak Roman dialect(Spanish, French ,Portuguese etc.}
Muchacho |
Latina_wi
Regular Poster
Username: Latina_wi
Post Number: 478
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 09:59 am: |
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Misty said: every latino person i hear has a different story about what "latino" and hispanic is.
Latina_wi: That is so true...
Everyone has their own little theory and perspective on what the term 'latino' means. Such a complicated, and often confusing, history based in that part of the world and it's colonisation. (sp) |
Yorubaprincess
Regular Poster
Username: Yorubaprincess
Post Number: 101
Registered: 07-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 02:10 pm: |
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@LATINA_Wi: Why do you call yourself a Latina, you stupid black beyotch?! |
Latina_wi
Regular Poster
Username: Latina_wi
Post Number: 481
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 02:34 pm: |
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^^^ Why do you call yourself a princess; you pathetic, purple punnaied PAUPER? |
Yorubaprincess
Regular Poster
Username: Yorubaprincess
Post Number: 103
Registered: 07-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 02:45 pm: |
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I got a purple kunt but who said I was a pauper you dirty mulatto skank? |
Latina_wi
Regular Poster
Username: Latina_wi
Post Number: 485
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 03:12 pm: |
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You are obsessed with your vagina - is it because no one else takes an interest? |
Yorubaprincess
Regular Poster
Username: Yorubaprincess
Post Number: 109
Registered: 07-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 03:35 pm: |
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Latina-Pleb. You know how it goes, if you got a poonani, men are gonna sniff around it. Probably even if a bytch is 99 years old. I never even heard of a woman whose kittykat garners no interest at all. Men will even screw loaves of bread and goats, I've heard. |
Latina_wi
Regular Poster
Username: Latina_wi
Post Number: 488
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 04:59 pm: |
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Or sheeps. Wales has been penned as the twon - 'where the men are men and the sheep are SCARED'.
Obviously I searched for that particular phrase using google; being Kola and all. Split personalites can be so time consuming *sigh* |
Latina_wi
Regular Poster
Username: Latina_wi
Post Number: 489
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 04:59 pm: |
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*sorry, twon should read TOWN.
It should actually read country if I am going to get specific about it. |
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