Response to Silvio Torres-Saillant
‘TOO BLACK TO BE LATINO/A:’
BLACKNESS AND BLACKS
AS FOREIGNERS IN LATINO
STUDIES
Tanya Katerı´ Herna´ndez
Rutgers University School of Law, NJ
In his article ‘Inventing the Race: Latinos and the Ethnoracial
Pentagon,’ Silvio Torres-Saillant, unpacks the ‘conceptual panacea
of mestizaje’ to reveal the extent to which the pride Latino/as take
in being enlightened about race relations as a mixed people1 is
accompanied by the resilience of White supremacist ideals. TorresSaillant persuasively argues that many Latino Studies scholars have
thus far been content to focus on the mestizaje pride2 without
thoroughly interrogating the subtext of White supremacy. Indeed, one
area that is often overlooked in Latino Studies is the treatment of
Afro-Latino/as within the Latino/a community, and a complete
examination of Latino/a relations with Anglo-Blacks.3 Yet, if the
mestizaje race relations mindset were indeed such an enlightened
space one would expect relations with Afro-Latino/as and AngloBlacks in the United States to embody the fantasy of racial democracy
so often touted in Latin American countries. (Yet even in Latin
America, the racial democracy premise is challenged as pure myth in
ways that are made particularly relevant in the few racial discrimination cases that are brought by Afro-Latino/a plaintiffs. Herna´ndez
(2002).)
Instead, an examination of the Afro-Latino/a context reveals a
racialized treatment of Afro-Latino/a identity as foreign. (Neil
Gotanda is the scholar who has usefully articulated the ways in
which persistent perceptions of being foreign are an aspect of
the racialization process. He describes the racialization of Asian
Americans and ‘the persistence of the view that even American-born
Latino Studies 2003, 1, (152–159) c 2003 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1476-3435/03 $25.00
www.palgrave-journals.com/lst
1 Rodrı´guez
(2000: 16) traces
the extent to
which the general cultural pride
Latinos/as have
regarding their
multiple racial
ancestries translates into some
Latinos/as adopting a mixed-race
racial identity.
She notes in
recent census tests,
more Hispanics
chose the
‘multiracial’
category (6.7%)
than did nonHispanics (less
than 1%), and
about one-third
of all those in
the multiracial
category were
Hispanic.).
non-Whites were somehow ‘foreign.’’ (Gotanda, 1995: 1188).) To be
more specific, Afro-Latino/a identity is a contested terrain in which selfidentified Afro-Latino/as are visually viewed as Anglo-Blacks and hence
not ‘authentic’ Latinos. Self-identified Afro-Latino/as are inassimilable
foreigners who challenge the notion that mestizaje has molded together a
racially unique people separate from Anglo-Whites, but more importantly separate from Anglo-Blacks. In other words, Afro-Latino/as are
often positioned as equally foreign as Anglo-Blacks to the portrait of
authentic Latino/a identity. The frequent dynamic of Afro-Latino/as being
mistaken for Anglo-Blacks in their own Latino communities is emblematic of the foreignness of Blackness to Latinos. (For example, Drayton
(1995: 8) describes how Afro-Cuban Pedro Velez, Jr. is often addressed in
English when shopping in Latino owned stores in Florida and then being
told when he announces his Cuban heritage ‘But you don’t look Cuban.’
Comas-Diaz (1996: 168) also notes that the internalized racism of Latino/as
causes their perception that Afro-Latino/as are foreign to Latino/a identity.)
In short, relations with Afro-Latino/as and Anglo-Blacks are neither ideal
nor free from racism. A number of examples bear out this premise.
In 1993 when Latino/a activists in Houston, Texas, mounted a
campaign to increase the representation of Latino/as in positions of
public leadership they demanded a ‘Hispanic’ person replace the
incumbent director of Casa de Amigos, a municipal health clinic which
serves a predominantly Latino/a population (Gurwitt, 1993). The target
of all the protests, the candlelit vigil in front of the clinic, and the
impassioned statements to the press, was incumbent director Eladio Reid
– a Spanish-speaking son of a Panamanian woman. Eladio’s African
ancestry eviscerated his status as Latino in a city in which Latino/as
have long struggled to distinguish themselves from a large Anglo-Black
population. Eladio was simply not Hispanic enough for those policing
the imagined borders of Latinidad in Houston.
Torres-Saillant (2002) draws out a similar racial border patrol example
on the physical US border. Ms. Goico, an INS agent and US citizen of
Dominican ancestry in JFK International Airport in New York took it
upon herself to detain and meticulously question a fellow compatriot
from the Dominican Republic whom she suspected of falsely presenting
herself as a Dominican with forged documents simply because the woman
was of African ancestry and bore a French surname (a presumed sign
of Haitian ethnicity). Thus in her role as INS agent, Ms. Goico was
simultaneously able to police the U.S. border, and police the White purity
of Dominican identity. The former enabled Goico to assert her own
Americaness and the latter enabled Goico to assert her own authenticity
as a raceless Latina, all by virtue of excluding the foreigness of Blackness
from the United States and from the Latino/a imaginary.
2 Some examples of
the mestizaje-pride
element surface in the
work of Victor Valle
and Rodolfo D.
Torres (1995) along
with the more famous
example of Anzaldu´ a
(1987). Anzaldu´ a is
so enamoured of
mestizaje as a concept
that she goes so far as
to refer favorably to
Mexican philosopher
Jose´ Vasconcelos’
(1925) antiquated
‘cosmic race’ theory
without mentioning
the strong White supremacist aspects of
his theory. See
Vasconcelos, 1979
(1925), 30 (articulating the benefits of the
cosmic race mixture
where ‘the lower
types of the species
will be absorbed by
the superior. In this
manner, for example,
the blacks could be
redeemed, and step
by step, by the voluntary extinction,
the uglier stocks will
give way to the more
handsome.’). Anzaldu´ a’s (1987: 77) endorsement characterizes the cosmic
race theory as
‘[o]pposite to the
theory of the pure
Aryan, and to the
policy of racial purity
that white American
practices, his theory is
one of inclusivity.’
Despite the
fundamental racism
of Vasconcelos’ theory, Anzaldu´ a (1987:
80-85) goes on to
Too black to be Latino 153 ———————————————————————————- Tanya Katerı´ Herna´ ndez
Even within the terrain of popular culture, Blackness is vigilantly
protected against by Latino/as. Negro´n-Muntaner (2002), describes the
racially charged brouhaha that ensued when Mattel introduced its
‘Puerto Rican’ Barbie doll in 1997. While Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico
favorably received the doll, Puerto Ricans in the United States objected to
the doll’s White-like appearance as a poor representation of Puerto Rican
racial identity. Yet those who objected were very careful not to demand
that the doll be remade especially dark-skinned or curly haired. In fact,
the ‘consumers were not demanding that the doll have ‘bad’ hair, as if a
Black Puerto Rican Barbie could not be representative of all Puerto
Ricans. Ironically, a Black Puerto Rican Barbie, particularly one who
wears contemporary clothes, could not have looked much different
from Black (African American) Barbie, thus undermining the notion of
essential differences between both groups, and any modest racial capital
that light-skinned Puerto Ricans may wish to claim in the colonial
metropolisy . What US critics were after, then, was the ‘correct’ ethnic
representational formula that could prevent Puerto Ricans from being
confused with either African Americans or Anglos’ (Negro´n-Muntaner,
2002: 45).
What the preceding examples and many others highlight is the manner
in which Blackness is viewed as problematic to Latino identity formation.
(For example, one Afro-Latina observes ‘On the other hand, my Latino
friends see my race as a liability. ‘You’re not black, like the African
Americans in the United States,’ one told me recently. It bothers me that
to accept me, they want to distance me from being black, which carries
negative connotations in the Americas.’ (Pryce 1999: 56).) Just as AfroCuban author Evelio Grillo learned growing up in Tampa, Florida,
Afro-Latino/as are often ‘too black to be Hispanic,’ (Grillo, 2000: xiii).
In turn, the Latino/a problem with Blackness implodes the notion that
Latino/as are genetically a more racially harmonious people as a result
of their mixed-race heritage. Indeed, the Latino/a problem with Blackness
extends beyond the existence of Afro-Latino/as into relations with
Anglo-Blacks.
Current discussions about the demographic explosion of Latinos/as
and their desire to assume greater political clout has focused upon the
presumed obstructionism and discontent of Anglo-Blacks who must
‘relinquish’ their power to accommodate Latino/as.4 However, few
commentators detail the manner in which the Latino/a community’s own
racism interferes with its ability to productively build bridges with the
Anglo-Black community.5 Black–Latino/a political turf wars in Dallas,
Texas, over the selection of a school superintendent in 1997, in Miami,
Florida, over the 1996 mayoral election, and in Chicago, Illinois, over the
allocation of public housing units in 1994, have all been depicted as zero
posit that a ‘mestiza
consciousness’ breaks
down paradigms and
is thus more progressive about race relations and thereby
allows mestiza (read
Chicanas) to act as a
mediator linking different groups of people together. This
fascination with a
benevolent mestizaje
is also echoed by
Victor Valle and
Rodolfo D. Torres
(1995: 148-149)
when they characterize it as an ‘outlaw
discourse’ which is
‘radically inclusive’
and a ‘response to
Western imperialism.’
3 I use the term ‘
Anglo-Blacks’ in this
essay as a method
for distinguishing
non-Latino/a Blacks
from Afro-Latino/as.
While admittedly an
awkward term, ‘Anglo-Blacks’ avoids the
imprecision of referring to presumed linguistic differences
between the two
groups when many
Afro-Latino/as in the
United States speak
little or no Spanish.
‘Anglo-Blacks’ also
refrains from negating the influence of
the geographic space
of the Americas
on Afro-Latino/as,
that the terms
‘Black-American,’
‘Afro-American,’ and
‘African-American’
do by exclusively
latino studies – 1:1 154 ———————————————————————————-
sum struggles to gain Latino/a political power by wrenching it away from
the begrudging hands of Anglo-Blacks (Kasindorf and Puente, 1999:
21A). Anglo-Blacks are portrayed as resentful power brokers who are
disinterested in forming coalitions with Latino/as. Curiously missing
from the narrative is any background information about Latino/a racial
attitudes.
For instance, while great media attention has focused on Latino/a and
Anglo-Black competition in Los Angeles, California, over such issues as
staff hiring at county hospitals, little mention is made over the fact that
for the past 10 years the Los Angeles town of Inglewood has experienced
violence each time Black History Month is celebrated (Kasindorf and
Puente, 1999: 21A). The source of the violence is the resentment of
Latino/a teens at Black culture being celebrated for an entire month. In
February 1999, the principal of Inglewood High School cancelled the
Black History Month celebration in order to avoid the violence. In the
words of a Latino student at a Chicago high school that experienced
similar dissension ‘It’s crazy. But a lot of the Hispanic kids here just don’t
want to be friends with the blacks.’ (Heard, 1992: 1C).
Yet, Latino/a disdain for Anglo-Blacks is not isolated to contemporary
Inglewood, California,6 but was also historically evident prior to the
1960’s Chicano social movement. Ian Haney Lopez describes how prior
to the Chicano movement ‘the Mexican-American generation saw
themselves as a White group. This self-conception both drew upon
and led to prejudice against African-Americans, which in turn hindered
direct relations between those two groups’ (Haney Lopez, 2001: 216).
Mexican-American leaders claimed that Mexicans were Caucasian and
thus biologically White and therefore deserving of the same social status
as Anglo-Whites.7 It was only after wide-scale police brutality and
judicial mistreatment of Mexicans in the wake of the Black Civil Rights
Movement, that a Chicano movement that stressed a non-White Chicano
identity emerged. But even the non-White identity that emerged focused
upon Chicano’s indigenous ancestry and completely submerged the
African ancestry that also exists. Indeed, the existence of self-identified
Afro-Mexicans and Afro-Latinos disrupts the ability to assume a nonWhite racial identity completely separate from any association with
African ancestry.
In fact, the preference for a White racial identity continues to hold
currency with many Latino/as as illustrated by the fact that the
Association of White Hispanics was the largest petitioning group in
1994 to request a change to the 2000 census racial categories that would
add the racial classification ‘White Hispanic’ to the census form (Martin
Alcoff, 2000: 33). Similarly, Torres-Saillant’s article notes that Census
2000 demonstrated that many Latinos were hesitant to distinguish
associating ‘America’
with Anglo-Blacks.
While ‘Anglo’ is traditionally understood
as a term to designate
European-descended
Whites, it actually refers to any person of
English ancestry. The
American Heritage
Dictionary of the
English Language
(Davies, 1976: 27).
Given the extensive
racial mixing that
African slaves were
subjected to upon
their coerced entry
into the English colonies, it is not all farfetched to generalize
Anglo-Blacks as having English ancestors
in addition to African
ancestors.
4 For example, one
legal scholar states:
‘Latinos will soon
become the largest
minority in the
United States.
African-Americans
may therefore be
about to give up
political clout to
Latinos. This prospect has generated
tension between African-Americans and
Latinos,’ (Martinez,
1998: 213). And another Latino Studies
scholar states: ‘The
progressive ‘Latinization’ of the urban
population is seen as
threatening by some
blacks in these
areas.’ (Fox, 1996:
21). What such commentators fail to
Too black to be Latino 155 ———————————————————————————- Tanya Katerı´ Herna´ ndez
themselves racially from Whites. Perhaps the White Hispanic classification petitioned for in 1994 was meant to emulate the ‘Yankee look’ that
Ilan Stavans refers to when he states ‘Many of us Latinos already have
a Yankee look: We either make a conscious effort to look gringo, or
we’re simply absorbed by the culture’s fashion and manners.’ (Stavans,
1995: 8). Of course, the idea that (some) Latino/as can assimilate is
a notion that conservative Anglos actively promote to discourage Latino/
a coalitions with other subordinated racial groups,8 and which Latino/a
conservatives adhere to in promoting the status of Latino/as over AngloBlacks in particular.9 Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres refer to the
seduction of Whiteness as assimilation, as a ‘racial bribe’ that is
particularly salient to lighter-skinned or wealthy Latino/as who are
‘offered a chance to become white, so long as they maintain their social
distance from blackness’ (Guinier and Torres, 2002: 225). It is in this
way that mestizaje upon being transported to the United States by
Latino/as hopefully becomes a pathway to assimilation – ‘Not
coincidentally, the embracing of a mulatto aesthetics comes at a time
when the [Latino/a] elites – more American and ‘modern’ than ever –
wish to distinguish themselves from (other) Americans by establishing
that they are not racists’ (Negro´n-Muntaner, 2002: 52).
What is most disturbing about this multi-layered dynamic of Latino/as
putting forth an image of enlightened racial thinking by virtue of their
racially mixed heritage while simultaneously negating the existence of
Afro-Latino/as in the pursuit of Whiteness, and the racialized elements of
their interactions with Anglo-Blacks, is the way in which the mindset
obstructs any ability to effectively work through the complexity of the
socioeconomic racial hierarchy that purposely discourages racialized
groups from attacking White supremacy as a unified force. For instance,
in the New York Times series entitled ‘How Race is Lived in America,’ the
investigation into the North Carolina pork production employment
sector revealed a rigidly planned hierarchy in job tasks assigned by race
that usually had Whites employed as supervisors over both Anglo-Blacks
and Latino/as. In turn, the racial hierarchy influenced employees’
perceptions of one another by race. Yet, rather than focusing on the
injustice of all-White management ranks, Mexican worker Mrs.
Fernandez is quoted as saying ‘Blacks don’t want work. They are lazy.’
Her husband Mr. Fernandez is later quoted as saying ‘I hate the Blacks.’
(LeDuff, 2000: A1).
Those who have done the hard work of coalition politics assert that
‘the most important lesson was that conflict between communities is
rarely, if ever, only about differences in culture or language. Not that such
differences are inconsequential. However, economics are most often at
the heart of intercommunity tension.’ (Diaz-Veizades and Taehan Chang,
simultaneously note
is the extent to which
many Latinos coalesce with AngloBlacks on a number
of policy issues. For
instance in studies of
mainland Puerto Rican political attitudes, a great deal of
commonality between Anglo-Blacks
and mainland Puerto
Ricans of all races
was documented regarding issues of immigration and
government spending
on Anglo-Black
equality (Falcon,
1995: 203). While all
Latino/as do not
share the same political views, the Puerto
Rican example draws
out the way in which
political perspective is
not the sole explanatory factor in the
poor state of Anglo
Black–Latino
relations.
5 One exception is
scholar Bill Piatt, who
states ‘some Hispanics, themselves
victims of discrimination, look down on
African Americans.
They may believe
they are superior
partly because the
media constantly reminds them that
Hispanics will soon
outnumber Blacks.’
(Piatt, 1997: 25).
6 Jorge (1979: 139)
early on noted how
Latino/as such as
latino studies – 1:1 156 ———————————————————————————-
1995: M5). I do not mean to suggest that Latinos/as never form effective
coalitions with Anglo-Blacks and other racial minorities, when in fact
there have been a number of noteworthy occasions of such cooperation.10
But instead I simply wish to emphasize that the structural inequalities of
racial hierarchy that harm Latino/as and other racial minorities will never
be eviscerated so long as Latino/as and the scholars that discuss their
realities ignore the existence of racial prejudice within the community
and treat the concept of Blackness as foreign to Latino/a identity.11
Acknowledgements
Funding for this research project was provided by the Dean’s Research
Fund of Rutgers School of Law-Newark. I would like to express my
gratitude to Lisa Brown and Heather Ellis for their research assistance on
this essay.
About the author
Tanya Hernandez is a Professor of Law and the Justice Frederick Hall
Scholar at Rutgers University School of Law in Newark, where she
teaches Race and the Law, Property, and Trusts & Estates. She received
her A.B. from Brown University, and her J.D. from Yale Law School.
Her scholarly interest is in the study of comparative race relations and
her work in that area has been published in the Cornell Law Review,
Yale Law & Policy Review, the U.C. Davis Law Review, and other
publications. Professor Hernandez is a Senior Editor for the Oxford
University Press Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States
(forthcoming, 2004).
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82); the Young Lords
alliance with the
Black Panthers and
the formation of the
Rainbow Coalition
(Fox, 1996: 127–134).
11 ‘By offering this
option of whiteness
over time to selected
nonblack nonwhites,
the racial binary of
black and white is
preserved and race in
the United States is
made more manageable for those seeking
to hold onto zero sum
power.’ (Guinier and
Torres, 2002: 227).
Too black to be Latino 159 ———————————————————————————- Tanya Katerı´ Herna´ ndez