Black - Latino Interracial Relationships

We do have posts on interracial relationships between different People of Color in the interracial tag.

For example, see: Interracial Relationships between PoC.

There’s a big Afro-Latino community, and it’s a common pairing in life; at the same time there a lot of colorism and anti-blackness in the community as well.

As my knowledge is limited here, I invite followers with experience to share their commentary. And if you prefer anonymity, you can submit it as a POC Profile.

~Mod Colette

This is something you need to ultimately research instead of being given a list. First, research the broad picture: incorporate the word “Afro-Latino” into your searches for books and other resource material.

Next, pick a type of Latino.  Depending on what type of Latino we’re talking, how their personal circles react to an interracial relationship might be anywhere on the sliding scale: accepting, mildly disapproving, very  against, or even to the point of disowning someone.  Of course, it is very likely that the general attitude is not positive, or neutral at best, but, it helps to pick a specific type of Latino to see what, on the sliding scale, you’re needing to portray, and what factors complicate the situation.

Once you pick a specific culture and start looking for examples of interracial relationships, you might run into people who have opinions on interracial relationships that seem COMPLETELY inconsistent and this may be confusing as hell.  So, when you see that happening, it helps to know that what one given Latino culture considers to be actually interracial can be different from another Latino culture.   Hell, someone who is against interracial relationships might even be IN AN INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIP by your standards – but not to theirs.

So, find out what “Black” can mean to the culture you pick.  For some cultures, it is pragmatic and simple: some given amount of African ancestry will constitute you as Black, or at least partially Black, just like how it is in the United States.  For others, it is not so simple: it is far more likely for a Dominican, for example, to identify a Haitian as Black than it is for a Dominican to identify a Dominican as Black, even if the two people they are identifying have the EXACT same ancestry.  It’s a social thing learned from a tumultuous history that started with the Spanish casta system, and in the more recent age, Trujillo’s reign really left a number on the concept of race.

Look for examples of anti-Blackness among Latinos.  It is an unfortunate truth that Afro-Latino relationships have a stigma; Latino parents (in my experience) who are in their fifties or older are the most likely to disapprove of their child being in a relationship with a Black person.  Of note, interracial marriage was ILLEGAL in the United States until 1967. The reality of anti-Blackness in the context of Afro-Latino relationships sometimes shows up in Latino humor.  For example, George Lopez’s “Who is Sylvania?” joke (a Mexican son gets burnt due to mis-using a super strong light bulb and ‘SYLVANIA’, the company that produces the bulb, gets burnt onto his skin.  His mother assumes it’s a tattoo of a Black woman’s name and criticizes him for fooling around with Black people. Shortly thereafter, she hypocritically reminisces about having been in a sexual relationship with a Black man).

Next, explore the internalized racism which can manifest among Latinos against Latinos to various degrees (whether that expresses itself in quietly denying one’s heritage to fit in, being outright racist against your own raza, also applying fellow Latinos to a hierarchy depending on not just how dark they are, but also where they’re from). This will help you in considering how Latinos would react to the Latino in the relationship.  This internalized racism will cause people to attribute actions to their very race, saying somebody would do something “Because she’s Chicano,” or “because you know how those damn Puerto Ricans are” or whatever else ignorant nonsense they can come up with.

- Rodríguez