Learning to Coexist. Black Latina/o: A Critical Race Theory Approach to Education

• In Event: 18.025 - (Un)Educating Diversity: Afro-Latinidad in the U.S. Educational Context

Abstract

The hyphenated nature of Latino identities and the complexities of race leave African-descended Latino individuals out of the conversation on blackness, as they relate to student experiences within American classrooms. Afro-descended Latino students’ educational experiences are further complicated by widespread Latino prejudice against an African identity. Dominicans, having largely resettled to New York City, are crafting a new narrative, but not without continuing the dichotomized black-white pelo-malo pelo-bueno dialogue that persists on the island and in the United States. Attending largely segregated schools, these individuals continue to redefine education and its purpose for Black Latinos in American urban centers.

Dominicans account for 12.4% of foreign-born residents of New York City, and in the 1960s, heavily populated the immigrant-heavy neighborhood of Corona, Queens (Lopez, 2002; Ricourt & Danta, 2003). Per the CIA World Fact Book, the Dominican Republic is 73% mixed, 11% black and 16% white. Although the US requires that these individuals identify as either Hispanic or non-Hispanic, as well as select a race, it does not explicitly discuss the experience of Afrodominicans identified as black (Logan, 2003). In spite of Brown v. Board of Education, Dominican-Americans attend some of the most segregated schools in NYC (New York Times, 2011). Because Dominicans also have the highest rate of African ancestry of any Latino group within the United States, this cannot be looked at as separate from the black-white narrative, but as part of it. Recent political and social changes on the island of Hispaniola require that American academics understand the internalized system of racism that is complicit within Dominican antihatianismo, in order to form an appropriate educational intervention for Dominican students (Sagas, 1994; Huffington Post, 2015; New York Times, 2015). What begins as private discourse between members of immediate family has become widespread xenophobic behavior across country boundaries.

In this paper I seek to dispel the myth of Latinidad being separate from blackness with an analytical review of data on Dominican identity development since the beginning of U.S. immigration. By reviewing available statistical data on Dominican Americans within school settings through the lens of Critical Race Theory, I illuminate the ways in which Dominican racial identity is constructed in the US context. Through my findings, I suggest ways in which education can be used to combat anti-blackness with culturally and racially competent pedagogy.

Author

• Maria Roberta Diaz