Seattle Organization MAS Raises Visibility of Afro-Latino Heritage Randy Salgado - The Seattle Globalist
go to original July 22, 2015

Milvia Pacheco doing a poem about her nickname, "La Negra," at the MÁS Amor: Tributo a las madres afrolatinas / Tribute to Afrolatino Mothers event. (Randy Salgado)

Milvia Pacheco was always told she looked too black to be Latino. Growing up in Venezuela, many Latinos maligned her for looking different.

“They would make fun of my nose, lips, and big ass,” said Pacheco with tears filling up in her eyes.

According to Monica Rojas, a Seattle-based sociocultural anthropologist and artist, Pacheco’s story is quite common among Afro-Latinos - a term that describes a Latin American or Spanish Caribbean person of black African ancestry.

Rojas says there is a constant battle for visibility of Afro-Latinos in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela. To battle that invisibility, Rojas founded Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle, known as MÁS, in 2013.

MÁS - Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle (Randy Salgado)

“It is interesting how institutionalized racism has set things in place that erased them from our societies,” said Rojas. “It became a goal of mine to help with that visibility.” There is a perception that Latinos only descend from a mix of European and indigenous people, she said, excluding those in Latin America with a black African background.

In the United States, Pacheco and thousands of others like her are caught between two broader communities.

Read the rest at The Seattle Globalist

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