'Latinos are more than you can imagine': Afro Latinos in Atlanta talk about identity, culture and belonging
Growing up in Columbus, Georgia, Jason Esteves had a lot of confusion over his racial identity.
During his childhood in the 1980s and ’90s, the only racial identities conventionally recognized were Black or white. He says most of his classmates didn’t know what Hispanic meant, and if they did, they assumed he was Mexican.
“And I’m like, ‘Well, no, I’m not Mexican. I’m Puerto Rican.’ And they’re like, ‘Well, I don’t know what a Puerto Rican is, but you look Black to me,’” Esteves says.
At school, he was perceived as Black. And he knew his experiences in the community were like those of his Black friends. But he was raised in a Hispanic home.
“It wasn’t until later on that I started to realize that there was an intersection there that was being missed by a lot of folks,” he says. “And it wasn’t until recent times that that intersection was actually realized.”
Now a state senator in metro Atlanta, Esteves still floats between the Black and Hispanic communities. But what has changed is the term Afro Latino is now used to identify people like Esteves, who are Latino with African ancestry.
While Atlanta’s Afro Latino community is still relatively small, the culture is becoming more visible as acceptance of the identity grows.
“Being able to embrace Blackness in ways that can only be done in Atlanta is something that’s special,” Esteves says.
Understanding Afro Latino identity
The UCLA Latino Politics & Policy Institute defines Afro Latinos as people with visible or self-proclaimed African ancestry from Latin America or the Caribbean. Their African ancestry reflects the history of the transatlantic slave trade and the presence of Afro Indigenous groups, according to research.
The Pew Research Center estimates that 12% of Latino adults in the U.S. identified as Afro Latino in 2020, or about 6 million people. But surveys from other sources vary — UCLA estimated 2.2 million in 2019, and a 2020 Census survey estimated at least 3 million people that could be considered Afro Latino, though the exact term wasn’t used.
According to the UCLA research, 7.6% of Latinos in Georgia identified as Afro Latino in 2019, or about 67,000 people. Metro Atlanta was home to 48,000 Afro Latinos.
“I would say over the last 10 years, there’s been a lot of research that has been done to show that the African diaspora, during the slave trade, there was more people of African descent that went to South America, Brazil or to Central America, Mexico or the islands, compared to the States,” says Louis Negron, executive director of the 100 Black Men of Atlanta.
Negron, who is Puerto Rican, says he always knew he was Afro Latino, even before the term was widely recognized. He grew up in California’s Bay Area, where he says being Afro Latino was accepted during his early years.
“It wasn’t until I got to Georgia … especially in the ’90s when I got here, you either had to be Black or white. And I was grey. That’s the best way I can say it,” Negron says.
During that time, he was attending Morehouse College and was immersed in the Black culture of Atlanta.
In 2021, Negron was hired as the executive director of the 100 Black Men of Atlanta, an organization that primarily serves African American youth in the city.
He says he was met with resistance from some people who questioned if he should be leading the organization, claiming that he’s not Black. He remembers some people being uncomfortable when he’d show his Latin side.
Today, he says there are Afro Latino members in the organization, and the organization is conscious of the identity. So people are more accepting of it now.
Since he’s served as its leader, Negron says the organization has grown to become more conscious of Afro Latino identity.
But outside of the organization, he finds that some people still struggle with the concept.
“I [have] to remind them of their African diaspora roots and say, ‘Look, we all come from the same ship that left Africa, we were dropped off in different places throughout this world. This is who we are,’” he says.
Race, ethnicity and Blackness
“Latinos are more than you can imagine,” says Marina Melendez, who is Honduran and Jamaican.
When she attended Georgia State University, she took a course about Spanish culture and learned how much Latin culture, food and music were influenced by enslaved Africans.
“Salsa music and Celia Cruz and some of the different sounds that she used … why does that feel so reminiscent and similar to music that comes out of Africa? And it’s because that also originated from there too,” she says.
As an Afro Latina, she sees herself in this culture and history. But it’s common for people to question her identity.
“I think people don’t know that I’m an Afro Latina until they see my last name and then they’re like, ‘Melendez, where’s that from?’”
For many Afro Latinos in the U.S., how they look dictates how people perceive their racial or ethnic background. For Melendez, her darker skin leads some people to believe that she’s Black, but not Latina.
“I’d hope that it’s not too foreign of a concept to see somebody like me from a country like that,” she says about Honduras.
The U.S. Census Bureau considers “Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin” to be an ethnicity, which is distinct from race.
The blurred racial lines for many Latinos allude to the long colonial history of Latin America, in which racial mixing occurred between Europeans, indigenous peoples, Asians and enslaved Africans.
Melendez says that some Latinos who have African ancestry have a complicated reaction to being identified as Black in America. Her father experienced this when he immigrated to the U.S. from Honduras as a young adult.
She says that initially, her father pushed back when people called him Black. It’s not something he had ever been called before.
“There’s definitely, I think, some colorism issues where I think for certain people … being associated with Black, I think might just make them feel something internally because it’s like, ‘Okay, I can see how Black Americans are treated in America. It’s not good,’” she says.
Building community for Afro Latinos in Atlanta
UCLA’s research found that the U.S. Afro Latino population is highly concentrated in major cities in the northeast U.S. New York City has the largest population, while the Boston metro area has the highest proportion of Afro-Latinos of its Latino population – 15.3%.
Among other large metro areas in the U.S., Atlanta ranked 15th – 7.6% of Latinos identified as Afro Latino in 2019.
Des Bishop moved to Atlanta about 10 years ago. Originally from Panama, she always identified as Black and grew up immersed in Afro Latin culture.
She was drawn to Atlanta because of its reputation as a Black city. Because of that, she expected to find a large Black Latin community. Unfortunately, she didn’t.
“That’s when I knew that maybe this could be a place where I could help develop that,” Bishop says. “And I saw that there was room for that.”
She started a group called Afro Latinas in Atlanta in 2018. Through it, Bishop plans events that allow her and other Afro Latinas to connect. She says it’s the first Afro Latin group she knew of in Atlanta.
Part of her motivation was creating a safe space for Afro Latinas who find themselves having to convince people of their identity. Her own experiences with this range from microaggressions to arguments with people who refuse to believe she is Panamanian because she is Black.
“I feel like every month I have an encounter. It’s less now, but I feel like it happens so often,” she says.
She later created her brand Afro Latinas Travel, in which she organizes international retreats that focus on the Afro culture of the countries they visit. Their latest trip was to Guatemala.
With her digital presence, she shares those experiences with a wider audience, giving visibility to Afro Latin culture — something that’s not new to her, but new to so many in Atlanta and the U.S.
“I do think that it’s important to amplify our voices because I feel like for so long we have been ignored or we haven’t been recognized,” she says. And I think it’s important that people know that we are also part of the demographic.”
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