Transcript - "Afro-Latinx Feminisms in the URL & IRL Spheres"
February 18, 2021 -- Radical Kinship Series
Listen to "Afro-Latinx Feminisms in the URL & IRL Spheres".
LETI VOLPP: Good afternoon and welcome to Good afternoon and welcome to today's event at the Center for Race and Gender, “Afro-Latinx Feminisms in the URL & IRL Spheres”.
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Let me begin with the land acknowledgment.
We take a moment to recognize that Berkeley sits on the territory of the xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the historic and sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. This land was and continues to be of great importance to the Muwekma Ohlone tribe and other familial descendants of the Verona Band. We recognize that every member of the Berkeley community has and continues to benefit from the use and occupation of this land since the institution's founding in 1868. Consistent with our values of community and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and make visible the university's relationship to native peoples. By offering this land acknowledgment, we affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the University of California, Berkeley, more accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples.
My name is Leti Volpp and I'm the director of the Center for Race and Gender here at UC Berkeley. We're thrilled that you can be with us for today's exciting event. Before I introduce the moderator and curator of today's event, and thank our co sponsors for today. Let me encourage you all to take a look at our spring event calendar full of amazing conversations you won't want to miss on a indigenity and migration, on the teeter totter installation on the border wall and much more. You can find it on our website crg.berkeley.edu.
A big thank you to our generous co-sponsors for today's event, the Multicultural Community Center, the Center for Latin American Studies, Berkeley's center for New Media, and the UC Berkeley Graduate Assemblies; Women of Color initiative, Graduate Women's Project, Graduate Minority Student Project, and Sexual Orientation and Gender Advocacy Project.
Let me now introduce the fabulous organizer of the Radical Kinship Series and the moderator of today's event, Alan Pelaez Lopez. Alan is an Afro-Zapotec artist and scholar from Oaxaca, Mexico. They are the author of Intergalactic Travels, Poems from a Fugitive Alien, published by The Operating System in 2020, which was a finalist for the 2020 International Latino Book Award, as well as "To Love and Mourn in the Age of Displacement", published by Nomadic Press 2020. Thank you, and I will now turn it over to Alan.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Thank you so much, Leti.
Welcome everybody to the last segment of the Radical Kinship Series of this semester. So excited to be both introducing Zahira Kelly and Janel (inaudible). Two incredible feminist thinkers that I’ve had the privilege to first meet on the internet And then share space. Not as often as I like I think maybe only twice in real life.
So I wrote an introduction to their work that I want to share with you all. If at any moment. I am fast (inaudible) or I am fast, or my audio breaks up feel free to type in the chat. So give me one second.
Okay, so. (inaudible) Okay so, today's event, “Afro-Latinx Feminisms in the URL & IRL Spheres”. centers of work of Domin-ican socio cultural critic Zahira Kelly and Garifuna writer Janel Martinez.
Zahira Kelly may be known to some of you as Bad_Dominicana on social media or as the creator of the 2016 hashtag maybe he doesn’t hit you. Which provoke over 50,000 tweets within the first month and is now theorized and written about about in conjunction to the MeToo movement by new media scholars. Or you might recognize her visual work, where she centers the narratives of black woman in Latin American spaces, most cited in the academy is (inaudible) colonial, where she outlines a specific ways and we sell their colonial tactics of assimilation and a cultural acculturation continue to limit the acculturation continue to limit the livelihoods of black woman in the caribbean and Latin America.
Joining her is Janel Martinez abroad Bronx-raised Garifuna write, whose work demonstrate a commitment, not only to black people in Latina America, and the Caribbean, but an ethical approach to writing about a community that is often assume to have a singular story. Here writing echoes the poetic sensibilities of (inaudible) Columbian writer (inaudible) Romero, Afro-Puerto Rican writer and (inaudible) Afro Peruvian cultural worker Victoria Santa Cruz would like Martinez renounces renounce hyphenated identities that do not first and foremost that do not first and foremost enter the black woman. I would say that Janel Martinez is a community archivist, and the digital librarian who's work expands from black woman health, Afro Indigenous politics in Central America, Black joy and like today's topic for a feminist politics.
It is my pleasure to present to you and introduce to you Janel Marinez (inaudible). If you can, a little bit about how you have used social media about how you have used social about how you have used social a or the internet to develop a black feminist critique, or a black feminist community.
JANEL MARTINEZ: And this question is for me?
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: For both of you. Yeah.
JANEL MARTINEZ: Okay. Um, Um, yeah.
ZAHIRA KELLY: Can you repeat the question, please?
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Yes, if you can both talk to the way Yes, if you can both talk to the Yes, if you can both talk to the ways in which you have used social media to develop a black feminist community. Yeah.
ZAHIRA KELLY: You wanna answer the question?
JANEL MARTINEZ: Um yeah i'll i'll dive in. So. I think in the beginning, honestly social media was more of like.A community, for you know looking for community essentially right I'm not necessarily in. Keeping in mind, like you know building out something it was more of like Okay, then I'm thinking back to my my undergrad years where like I was you know somewhat looking for outside of my own family and friendship space. You know terminology experiences that really kind of hit home for myself. So I'm grateful to have, and I have to always you know note this like seeing on Tumblr Zahira your work and seeing many of the works that were happening like pre I think a lot of what we're seeing today.
And so it was really just those beginnings of looking and searching for spaces that felt like home on in the digital realm. But then kind of coupling with the fact that um you know, being in media and being a storyteller and kind of being sick of seeing the same old narrative that was very exclusive and you know, a erasure of you know, black folk of Latin American descent. Indigenous folks as well, and so, for me. Wanting to kind of create a space for you know Black women of Latin American descent. Many of the focus oftentimes, um, just I was just not seeing a particularly in media, like some of these traditional media outlets and so it was really like kind of like that homegrown like okay I'm just gonna create a website and see what happens.
And it was really from there, like sharing experiences my own sharing other people's experiences and then also segue into to those sort of media spaces and saying like hey like this is ridiculous that you would not you know sensor our narratives.
But it was really started off in like we need basis for our stories and I would like to be able to like path you know pass the mic and be able to like focus on that. So I think that's really you know where it really started and it's kind of wild to see where things have ended or not ended, but where things are now.
ZAHIRA KELLY: Thank you, Janel. I also remember when you popped up on the screen, I was just so relived. You know, like oh my God Thank you so much for giving me this. And I think that that is sort of what drove me all of the time.
I did start on Tumblr. Yelling into the void I didn't even expect anybody to care, but I just knew that I needed a space where I can sort of, um, like pull the threads of part of what it was to be like or what it is to me, not just a woman, femme, or Latin American, Dominican, Black. All of these other things, just like I thought that there was no space pretty much anywhere. While black people have always been my community. Um, it's like there's always there was always a sense of like alienation at the same time for being Latin American, And it’s like wiith Latin American spaces, its just. With Latin American spaces it's just an absence of black people in general black women are just not seeing.
So for me, being able to find that community on Tumblr was like really major. I found black feminist from around the diaspora, not just Latin America. And I found a bunch of black women from Latin America as well that was like. But it was like basically a matter of I just really needed to get things off my chest and tell my own stories as well. It's like storytelling but like tell me is that not incredibly ancestral for us to be so focused on storytelling you know, to this day. That is how we pass on knowledge. That is how we’ve been passing on history and the things that are important to us, our values. The things that we go through you know so it's like the fact that we use the Internet for that is just like you know I would compare it to electronic drum patterns in production. The way that we're just being African as fuck, but like with technical equipment for example. Were being African as fuck by focusing on storytelling to build community and get our points across and do our form of protest, um, on the Internet.
So that's like where my sense of black community as began has begun like it started honestly on haircare boards, because I have like type four hair and.that's like such a very specific, you know way to care for your hair and it's very specific struggle. It comes with like a lot of violence to have type four hair, you know. And when I found this these communities of black women on the Internet that we're all talking about the same things we were from all over the world and we're all talking about the same exact woes.
It was just kind of like. That shit like really hit me where it's just like yo like black girls around the world, I really all going through the same shit and like the differences, the geographical location. And we are always for me like these strong as working bonds and communities just out of nothing and out of nowhere like that's like part of how we've survived but it's also very ancestral as well you know.
For us to be like so tight knit about the things that unite us, regardless of where we come from. So I guess for me like Black Latina feminism still feels kind of lonely in some ways, like I know so many amazing people but we're not enough. It's still not enough. It still feels like you know we're talking about exceptions or something so who you even have the access to know about basically.
So I don't know, for me, I was just like also accessibility, like the Internet I could access it, no matter what was going on in my life and, of course, that takes money what it's like you know. It's also like when I was disabled so when I was going through, just like very like rough situations or whatever, the Internet is like how I sort of level those things, though, and like sort of chat them make sense of things and I find my made community because the things that I was going through with other people are also going through you know what I'm saying.
Um none of it has ever been theory it's also it's always stuff that I live. Um. So I don't know for me like that's just sort of what it's been. It's been unintentional. It's been it's been honestly very organic and natural for me, because I think that that's our legacy.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Thank you. Um One of the things that really strikes me about both of you is that you started talking about Black Latinidad on Tumblr, right? On the social media applications that people don't necessarily see a scholarly or as a place where everything is being produced. Zahira,I have a question for you, you go as Bad_Dominica on the internet, and one of the things that I have this in academic spaces, is that a lot of people talk about your work in relationship to the collection of essays “Bad Feminist” that came out in 2014 and sometimes people try.(sound lost) (inaudible)
And I wanted to see if you can talk a little bit about oh. Okay, and I will see if you can talk a little bit about the development of Bad_Dominica. How did you come to that area?
ZAHIRA KELLY: For a second yeah. Um. Can use start your question where you left off at bad feminists? (no sound) because you kind of like broke up, so I didn't hear the rest. I'm sorry
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Okay sorry, it is my internet.So people talk about your work and relationship to Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist which was 2014 collection of essays. But Bad Dominicana was can actually was alive on the Internet pre 2013 and I want to see if you can talk about how you started by Bad Dominicana. Why Bad Dominicana as a name? And then Janel if you can talk about “Why ain't I Latina?”, which is the platform they started that kind of skyrocketed.
ZAHIRA KELLY: Oh okay. So first. The internet, for me, has always been a space for me to get shut off of my chest and be angry about the things that I'm righteously angry about. Be cutting about it. And just address the things that maybe in other places, or spaces like I wasn't allowed to say out loud, you know.
So the name Bad Dominica you know when I began my Tumblr it was actually “Soy dulce de Leche”. And that had nothing interesting other than it was just because my skin tone is a little bit like boosted de leche. That's literally it which you can call problematic or whatever, but I wasn't thinking deeply into it. However, as soon as I started addressing anti-Blackness, feminist concepts, basically homophobia, transphobia and the likes.
I started getting hate mail from Dominicans calling me a Bad Dominican, a bad example of Dominicans, an embarrassment for them, because I guess a good Dominican woman would be the opposite of all those things. I would just named. A good Dominica woman is okay with anti-Blackness and doesn't mention. A good Dominican woman does not complain about the machismo, will you just go along with it and be good, right? A good Dominican woman engages and lets people be homophobic as as they want to be no and transphobic as they want to be. A good Dominican woman does not show her body or talk about sexuality, or anything like that, because we're supposed to be very prudish and chase or whatever.
So it's like I just happened to be all of the bad things and I'm okay with that I don't want to be a good Dominicana woman so that's actually where Bad Dominica came from. Some people think that it's because, like, oh, like a bad bitch or something. Is like no, like I mean bad like literally like terrible example of fucking Dominican. For any of the Dominicans out there angry right now I don't represent it don't worry about that I only represent me. You do you honey, okay.
JANEL MARTINEZ: Yeah um so with Ain’t I Latina?, so this is such an interesting question because my thoughts around some of it has have shifted since starting the platform. Gut essentially when I was thinking of a name for a platform I was I wanted it to be intentionally a question right. This question of like um, like in terms of identity, am I not this right, even though that I am a Black person. A Black Indigenous person within this like Why is my narrative not necessarily center. Like it was sort of like an answer to that.
And I must say that I was also partly inspired by like Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I A Women. A lot of I will say some of my, just like my understanding of things came out of experience I've had learning about like they've been ingrained in like Black Studies. A lot of the being African American centered but um, so that's that kind of played into me deciding on that, that name. And so that was like eight years ago, basically, now that I think about it. And it really just centered on the fact that, like let's ask this question. Like. Do you not see me? And this is, I'm projecting as to what I was thinking at the time, like, do you not see me, as you know, Latina because of my skin because of you know how I present.
Now, looking at that, because people ask me sometimes like oh like, how does the that name resonate with you is so I will say hold the same in the sense that the focus has always been Black women right and highlighting Black women of all experiences on the platform. But I'm not fixated on the term Latina, right. That's not a term that I go by personally. That is not a term that I think a lot of us at this stage of the game. And not a game as like you know, but like in this, you know time you know there's a lot that comes with it and so. I think that the mission of it still remains right we're still making sure that we're giving the spotlights who you know Afro Latinx womanhood centering that. But. I do want to note that that term specifically is not one that can be discussed without a lot of the feelings around it and what even the term Afro Latino. But that I won't throw that in there, right now, cuz but yeah that's where that's where I'm that's what my thoughts are around it.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Thank you, that actually brings me to the next question. As I was going to ask. The both of you. Because Janel 2018 you published a piece, the talk about why you no longer identify as Afro Latina, and you were kind of centering your Blackness. And Zahira I've also seen you on the internet tweet about your Blackness and decentering Latinidad. I'm wondering if both of you can talk about the limits of the category AfroLatinx and and why you have both pushed towards other ways of identifying and moving in social media spaces.
ZAHIRA KELLY: For me um I was okay with it at first, because I felt like it was something similar in some Black American, you know, which is just signifying. I come from this like place the history of graphical location, but I'm black person from my geographical location. However, it's been sort of morphed to mean like I'm a white person with some pearls and I was just like I might have some Black ancestry or maybe my great great granddaddy was or something like that.
So I'm AfroLatina, not Black. AfroLatina Friday night and then it's just like it was always supposed to be that you're just a Black person from Latin America. And because that's just gotten so convoluted it I'm not attached to Latinidad anymore anyway. I know that that's a geographical location. There's no volume so recognizing the similarities between us, you know I’m also feel that that's a term that's never served us and and never will. So I'm moving away from that just call me Black, just call me negra, I’m okay with that. I’m cool with y’all. Ambiguous non-Black Latino who would have never been considered Black in any place or space can keep the term AfroLatino if you want. By the way, you could have just said, as you have some Afro descendants you didn't have to do all that, but you chose to do it, so now this where we at. Just call me Black I'm good with that.
JANEL MARTINEZ: Yes, heavy heavy cosign, because, um. It actually it can be a little bit and it gets me angry when I think about it. Because I think about how just as Black people we find things, we create things and it gets coopted, right. And I think that the term was designed for people who are racialized or unambiguously black and um what I find most alarming about it and why I really had to sit with the fact that this ain’t it for me. Is really the commercial realization of it, right. Where we're talking about even in this conversation community building, things that were pre date you know 2015. And even these conversations when we think about like our ancestors, and you know people have been like affirming Blackness across Latin America, across the Caribbean.
But it got to a point, specifically where media, I think they play a huge role in this of interest in this narrative. And then we saw like advertisers like, Oh Okay, you know. And then that's when I started seeing like always cool because you know I wanna possibly you know, sell this or that. And you know my hair a spritz it and it curls a little so now I'm claiming you know, like. If you can, and I know we've all through you know work have said this in one way, shape or form but like if you're not able to swap out AfroLatinx with Black, then what what is the need use this term.
And because I've always been Black you know. Yes, I did find home, and you know the term AfroLatina. But I know that I will always be and find a home in Black because that's who I've always been. So that's just a term that I'm going to continue using and. Also because we're talking about like diasporic Blackness. Like yes, there is once but I, you can find me on any you know, any space or place and if I'm next to a Black person like were just Black. So for me it really was a I've been out was that a angry place when I when I wrote that. And not so much angry, but I do think that it's really unfortunate that we see this with many of the things that we create, we don't get credit or you know there's attempts to to take it over and it's just it's just unfortunate. But they, but they can definitely like if they want to you know use it. Whatever because they ain't gonna say Black sure.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Absolutely, so what I'm hearing from the two of you is that there's a difference between being African descendant and being Black. And you know being African descent into somebody who like somewhere in their lineage has like a Black relative that a lot of people and a lot of US-based Latinxs are taking up and identifying us for like the next. And then this leads me to. The.
(silence)
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Oh, my goodness did I freeze again. Okay sorry my Internet is pretty bad today so I'm getting pieces here and there.
But this leads me to also the ways in which the academy like you said Janel like (inaudible) AfroLatinidad has been advertised, but I think that the academy is also doing something like that, for example, I'm from Mexico, and the term AfroMexican or AfroDescendant isn’t a think that people know back home. In my village if somebody says oh, are you Afro Mexican. Anybody in my family like what is that? Or if you say, are you Afro Descendant they'll be like what is that? Because, where I come from it's just like o es negro o es negra. Right. These terms don't exist in some geographies and I think it'd be academies also insisting on this singular identifier that just don't make sense, based on how we were, how we were one assimilated into whatever nation state we're living in and how we have been discipline. And I think that the academy, and the media don't ever take into consideration discipline. And the two of you that's one of your main things like you both look at how gender is discipline.: And I think Zahira in a lot of your work, you also look at Queerness and I'm wondering if the two of you can speak to how Queerness has influenced and nuanced, how we understand AfroLatinidad.
ZAHIRA KELLY: I have definitely thought about the way that Blackness have laid out, and now it is almost like, and you know a lot of people have spoken about this in Latin America. Also, the same as just like Blackness as Queer, just for being Black pretty much.
I identify as non-binary, also Queer. And it's like I haven't had a choice in navigating basically what femininity is supposed to look like. What masculinity is suppose to be. In the ways that I'm supposedly always masculine because I'm a Black woman. The ways our femininity seems so unattainable and it's also like it means I people literally treat me better if I'm more feminine because I'm still getting closer to this White ideal of what femininity is suppose to be.
You know versus when I'm presenting us more masculine like.Those are things that I've had to process. I've had to process the ways that like when I'm presenting as masculine. I’m read as sort of like criminal and that's like how I’m Black and a masculine person I’m read more as a threat and people are so much more aggressive with me for no fucking reason you know. It makes me fear presenting in that way, because I noticed that the more high femme I go, the better people to me, you know. And it's like I have no choice but to examine just relations or Whiteness and to White conceptions of gender.
I only think about always how I've been in these rooms on clubhouse which I mean can really go either way it can be terrible it can be great. But it's rooms from my African women and they're all speaking so passionately in ways that in any other spaces will be called aggressive. But because everybody in there is an African woman it understands that that's not aggression now we're passionate people and we mean what we say. And we might be angry about it and that doesn't mean that, like you know where a danger or threat that we need to be policed. And it’s just like the fact that we, we can hold space for people who speak differently in those ways is also about gender to me, you know. It's not just about race and policing us as black women is like policing us according to our White version of gender. And I come from a country that's like so Queer phobic. It's like there's not the concept of out Queer women is just doesn't exist, you might see some boys here, and then the occasional trans person, but it's like. it's still very much so taboo and it's like just.it's seen as some outside of the scope. There's all these theories about how that supposedly in a conspiracy to ruin, you know or lessen our numbers, or something like that. So it's, just like the acceptance of White Queerness you know in so many more spaces, whereas we're always deviance. There's no escaping that for me.
JANEL MARTINEZ: Um I think. When I and I'm still kind of like processing and thinking about the question but for myself, I know that I when I look at like my, like chosen family or friend group, a lot of my you know friends, because I know I have to say that I am you know digested as cis straight, you know also pretty. Like all these different things that can be an alignment with you know, seen as as palatable or whatever the case may be, but I feel like when I think about many of the people who I consider you know in my you know extended, in my community basically they have sort of forced me to rethink and reimagine a lot of the definitions. And um pushing the boundaries of just what is what society tells us, as is the norm, or is acceptable. and I think I have been able to sort of lean into that with you know the work that I am doing and making sure that when I am essentially highlighting identity that I am truly being as inclusive as possible. And I must say that I there's you know more work to be done with that, but for me that's like how I'm trying to to approach it. I hope. Does that answer the question.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Yeah. I mean absolutely. I think that um when listening to the two of you, I think about how, in one of the previous answers you both talked about the difference between being Afro Descendant and being Black. And I think that when one is Black in Latin America, one doesn't have a closet to come out of. Right because it's like in Latin America, if you're Black you're told that you are Black. And I think that when we think about Queer folk who are Black from Latin America. It's like, what is the point of sometimes coming out when that closet was never afforded to us. I think that Latin Americans who are not Black might have a closet that they can hide in. Not hide in but a closet that might temporarily protect them. Even if so for like a couple of minutes right, but I think that when one is Black in Latin America and is already assumed the other or the foreigner, then that closet can never exist.
And I think a lot about the ways in which a lot of light-skinned Black Latin Americans are recently like coming out and showing photographs of like the parents. Are like, oh look I'm Black and how little it's thinking through one colorism but also the ways in which Queer communities have found ways in Latin America to exist and resist without ever needing to come out. I think that in the US there's this narrative of like coming out as powerful and you have to do it to be liberated. But in Latin America, there are so many people that are not out in the traditional ways that they are out in the US, but are still like thriving in their own way and creating ecosystems of care. And I see that, for example, Zahira in your documentary. It said Valerie and I'm forgetting the name of the other person, Mangu? You're muted. (laughs)
ZAHIRA KELLY: Macu.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Macu. Like in your documentary of Valerie and Macuin in Columbia right how they're just talking about their Blackness. And it's like yes, we all know that they're like trans, non-binary people by like good doesn't come up as often because for them there's no need for them to talk about about it. Because their Blackness has already made them Queer in Colombia.
Or Janel when when I think about your work as a person who is Garifuna, who is Afro Indigenous. It's like Afro Indigeneity at is not meant to exist. In a lot of spaces in the US, and I think that also brings this Queer understanding to Latinidad that that people don't know how to talk about. And I'm wondering for the two of you still thinking about queerness, still thinking about Blackness as opposed to AfroLatinx. What is it that you need in order for you to have a better future, a safer future? What do black Latin American people in your community need from Latin American people who are not black?
ZAHIRA KELLY: Um for me and I'm definitely said this before, but the prospect and concept of having my own home after being landless and this place for so many years is like on the forefront of my mind to where I wonder who I would be and what my days would look like and what my aspirations would look like. What my daily activities would look like, if I wasn't so focused on that. Were very lacking in terms of equal access to secure housing. That's like the on the most basic levels like we're just sort of left hanging. And like we live in a society where that means money. So I'm going to say money you know. You can’t have housing, food, health care, all of this stuff without money.
Unfortunately, that's what it takes right now, and if it doesn't take that then you'd at least have to come up with ways that are non-money to make up for that. And it's just like. aree y'all making sure that Black Latin Americans have the same access to making money so those resources, so getting those houses, to getting their food to being safe and secure and stable. Are y'all actually am allying in a way that it's like you care about our safety and our security and our stability as humans. Because that's like what community is supposed to do.. And there's like the power dynamic where it's like y'all are the gatekeepers for all of these things. So it's like who are you gatekeeping. So yeah that's kind of how I think of it. It's like I would love to think about it on some like deeper esoteric level, but like yo the basics, are still not there, you know.
JANEL MARTINEZ: Yeah and I think that's that's very real. Like I'm as I was hearing you Zahira and also Alan. The question um it made me think about and I must note that, like I'm here in the US, and you know I do think that there is some, some privilege that comes with that, but I do think about like my family, you know in Honduras, specifically Garifuna communities. Where safety is not even. And I think being a person, a Black person and Indigenous person, Black Indigenous person like your safety there's a constant like concern about that whether that's your day to day, whether that's like you know, housing, security. But I think about in Garifuna communities where that is our ancestral lands that there is literally a fight to not lose the land. Because of you know, the grabs that are happening, I mean people disappearing and like all of this sort of thing. So the very basic of safety, and I think that when like White Latinxs how are you contributing to not for Black folks not feeling safe. Whether that's in your respective countries, whether that's here, wherever your position, like how are you not allowing for people to feel safe. Because there's macro level violence, and then there is like you know micro. And I think that's everything from you know I'm not checking privilege and speaking over people we see this often happening to not having or not sitting with your discomfort for a second. Like it's going to be the end of the world for you like, not having certain conversations not willing to like physically, financially or what have you put yourself in a predicament, where you could allow a Black person to have an opportunity. So I think that there's like a lot of different ways, but the biggest thing that I think about is safety. Because doesn't really matter where you're at that's something that I feel like it's a big concern for us across the board.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Oh, my goodness, thank you for that, like me, it makes me think a lot of Ariana Brown is a poet, Black Mexican American poet. And she has a poem that ends with the word, with a question, will you fight for those who do not love? And she's talking to like. Like other I think part of the question is like she's talking to other Latin Americans. Like will you fight for Black people? Because Latin Americans who are non-Black have shown to be to not love Black people, particularly because the largest population of Black folk outside of the continent of Africa is in Latin America and the Caribbean. Right.
So it's like if we have the highest population of Black folk, why is it that, like you just named Janel, why is it that Black folk are not safe in Latin America and the Caribbean. And Zahira like you just said why is it that they don't have their basic resources. Why should at home be such a big vision for a Black Latin American.
And it makes me think about the fact that the now there's this narrative I think in social media and then the academy that Black Latin Americans have been silenced. Um. And that narrative kind of upsets me because it's like Black Latin Americans have never not said that there's power dynamic going on with the rest of the continent. right. Like Black Latin Americans have never been silent about their oppression.It is those who are non-Black in Latin America, who are refusing to listen, those who are excluding Black Latin Americans I think about places like Costa Rica, where the Black Costaricans. who had like a Caribbean parent, they were not allowed to have Costa Rican citizenship, because one of their parents was from the Caribbean.
Like that kind of anti-Blackness that like literally says you're not going to be part of like the nation, even though you're born here. All those narratives of like there's eraser I think are super lazy. And I'm thinking for for both of you who are the Black folk in Latin America, who are one giving you hope, or who really, who you're trying to just learn from and learn with as we continue to fight against this idea that like we have been silence when, in fact, like we've never been silent.
ZAHIRA KELLY: For me, right now, one of the most important people from my context is Joanne Michel. She is a self described Paristy, the poet theorists, just all around like groundbreaking brilliant person when it comes to Dominican everything and just like talking about what it is to be Black and be like you know, not cis-hetero and doing all of these things that are supposedly bad. You know, like me, like also a bad feminists. Just like what it is to live life on your own terms, no matter what that looks like in the face of people who absolutely hate you. I think that's so so crucial. I also love Afro Si Wapa, or Soy Si Wapa, was also a Black Dominican who is out here basically challenging all of these structures in an accessible way for people and it's like work that really needs to be done. Still there's never enough of us. I'm just not thinking that it can only be one like this is not. A competition, like the more the merrier and like they're very needed. But yeah those are the ones that really come to mind.
JANEL MARTINEZ: Um. Yeah there's a lot of I think there's like because I think about the collective. Like of voices I constantly am like there's just a number of people that you know come to mind. But I'm one person and thinking of this like in terms of like Garifunas. You know I've been you know I've not had the privilege of meeting Miriam Miranda, but really talking about someone that has put their body, time and time again on the line for our people and has done it so like fearlessly like I'm always amazed, you know at at her work. And and that ability to like constantly do that, and the fact that, like literally, the government has on the hunt constantly for her. She still finds a way to be on the front lines for our people. That's to me is someone that I'm always like wow. I'm also who comes to mind is a scholar that I've also had the privilege of meeting through the digital space is Pablo Lopez Oro, in conversations around again Garifuna identity, and I think.
And I say this because they're really like in terms of like literature and like it was really like when I see things like it Garifuna Twitter now, and I see like the Garifuna Market like it literally brings a tear to my eye. Because, like that was not a thing. (laughs) People were literally like and that's, not to say that we weren't proud of our identity like you could pull up in the South Bronx and at any moment, like you're seeing like proud Garifuna goo. But, to be able to like begin seeing people openly discussing you know the this identity, storytelling and the community is very matriarchal so I think that's also really beautiful to see. You know about Garifunas.
So I would say that, and then to kind of bring it to um, someone that I've also really admired is Dr Martha Morena Vega. And who is now like in Puerto Rico and just doing really dope work out there and I will say like just I've always been very much so, like drawn to to her work. Um. Particularly her and being from el barrio, and you know Uptown. And so I will say that. And then, of course, you know gotta give you both a shout out as well, like in the collective of places like I'm really grateful for for both of you. So I feel like I can go on and on, but I do want to just say you know I really do appreciate the collective because um so many times the collective has saved me on a like an emotional mental level. So really appreciative.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Thank you for saying that. I'll also share some of the people that I really have been leaning on and learning from one of them. Y Que Yo Espina Narvarez, who is a Black trans woman from Venezuela and she has opened up my mind. She's currently living on documented in Spain, and she writes a lot about what it's like to to be asked for papers as a trans woman in Spain and to not have them. Because I grew up and documented in the US. And for her it's it's all. What I've learned is that to be Black and trans is to always having to live in multiple worlds at the same time right. Because it's like in Venezuela, she she writes about how in Venezuela without she had to create a different world. And she she's migrated to the US is she’s migrated to Spain. And each time she migrates it's literally like not a new persona but a new set of tools that she has to develop and how to move. And some of the recent work that she's writing right now it's on the fact that, like she's tired. Like to love that people are into like speculative fiction and imagination, but she's like I don't want to fucking have to imagine another world. I've imagined too many worlds already can xan somebody can can all of you just join me in one of them. And I think that that offering of let's pick one of her worlds as a Black community and let's join that world has been kind of. Something that I don't take lightly, that I want to be like, Yes. I want to follow you there.
And I also really love the work of Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro from the from the island of Puerto Rico. I think that her poetry she's a Black Lesbian poet. The first time that I encountered her was shortly after the shooting at the pulse Orlando nightclub. And she wrote this incredible rendition of the credo. The creed, and it was like centering Back Islanders and how do you greet people who the islands have not known how to grief? It’s not that they didn’t want grieve in this just they're haven’t been opportunities in which to publicly grief them. And I think that, as I continue to move in my Blackness it's like how do I learn from Black feminists that have given me a framework of grief. When there's grief all around me all the time and I'm always like Oh, I can’t grieve right now, because I already grief last week.
Yeah, so I think that we have about six minutes and I'm wondering if anybody in the audience has a question, or if Janel or Zahira if you have a question that you might want to ask.
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Okay, so we have some questions in the Q&A. Can if we can all type the names that we said on the chat is one of the asks.
(typing sound)(silence)
Then, if anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask them.
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So we have a question. You are mazing how do you feel yourself from discrimination? do you ever get tired of living as
ZAHIRA KELLY: The last part do we ever get tired of what exactly? I didn’t hear it. I'm sorry it cut out.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: As as a minority. Do you ever get tired of living as a minority?
ZAHIRA KELLY: I mean, I think we've all been there. Of course, you get tired of course you want to live in a world where it doesn't matter if you're the minority or the majority. Or there's three or 3 million loving you because you're still going to have equitable access and treatment and safety, you know. Yes, I’m absolutely tired. Tired every day. I I was quarantining before quarantine even began because that was the only way. That I could even feel safe. So yeah it's tiring. I think that's like the given.
JANEL MARTINEZ: I'm definitely an agreement, and it would, I think kind of makes it a little mind boggling is like a lot of times we're not even like minority right. Like where the majority, but we live in a society that has like structured things in a way that we you know, are not quote unquote entitled to rest in peace and like just live in our our Black lives. And I think that so ensure absolutely yes and that's why I even more appreciative of spaces, where we can you know just have joy and relax and you know not worry about what typically like is on our minds. Although it's very hard to escape that for sure, like look at what's happening around us, even in this very moment. But it's really I at least tried to keep joy and you know peace at the top of my mind if I can. But I mean that's being realistic, realistically speaking, you know some days are harder than others to kind of center that.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Thank you and we have about two minutes. I'm wondering, are you two able to see the questions? Is there any questions that you might want to ask? I want to ask you if you want to pick one. I mean not asked but answer.
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ZAHIRA KELLY: I can't see the questions, but if you want to throw one in my way I'm good with that too.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: There's a question. So there's a question about the situation between Dominica from Haitians isn't more racial problem or a historical problem that's the one question Another question is, if you have advice for an AfroXicana wants to tackle anti-Blackness. Another question is if I think Black Americans can contribute to Black Latin American erasure so any of those are up for right now.
ZAHIRA KELLY: Can you repeat the first one, because you broke up. I'm sorry to keep making you repeat yourself.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Absolutely, the first one was about the situation between Dominicans and Haitians is that a more racial or historical problem?
ZAHIRA KELLY: It’s absolutely rational and you can see it in the fact that, there's like public figures that are light skin Haitian people and people love them. If you're a white Haitian who is going to the most expensive Dominican schools, people are totally fine with you. If you're living in the very expensive (inaudible) or La Romana like people are okay with that. Suddenly those horrible Anti-Black ass fucking feelings don't come up as much. So it's absolutely race. It's racial, It's it's class. It's not just historical, it is not just a historical be because people were throwing that shit out the window if they happen to be the right color. So you’re not getting away with that one.
JANEL MARTINEZ: I saw a question or the question that you threw out about Black Americans and Black Latinx erasure. Though I've always felt like I found camaraderie and like growing up like a lot of my friends were of the Black diaspora, Black American. I will say that I'm starting to see. I don't know there seems to be a little bit of confusion. Sometimes as to like who is Black when it comes to the context of like Latin American identity like. And I, I say that because in the last couple of months, especially when diversity inclusion conversations have been at an all time high out after you know the uprisings of this past summer.
It seems like the solution has been at times to get a you know quote unquote Latinx person, but not necessarily Black, right, So it's like y'all understand what Black looks like right. Like we understand what Black is, but why is this sometime tha there seems to be a level of confusion or it seems like Oh well, we can check that box, because we did like you know we have someone that's Latinx that may be like mixed race and that does it but will not have an actual Black Latin American person, you know. To have a conversation or to you know think about, like okay like what is your experience. Like so I find sometimes, and this is obviously not everybody, but I have seen situations where it's been more harmful than you know when they could have just literally just speaks to a Black Latin American person, you know, like, I found that that's that's been the case. Or even like saying Oh well, um well is this person really Black? Os like like again, why is there confusion. Like you, if this person literally is the same shade darker and there's still confusion about their Blackness. Is it because of the context of Latin America? So I think that there needs to be.: Some more self education around that for those that are not Black of Latin American descent, and particularly Black Americans.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Thank you, I know that we are at time I wanted to to close out today by thanking both of you Janel and Zahira. My hope for today was for us to not have that introductory conversation of like oh do Black people exist in Latin America. Because, like all of us are over that right like thank you that you're currently based in the Dominican Republic and Janel you're based in the Bronx, I'm based in California and like I'm for me I grew up in Mexico. And I really wanted to sit with you, too, and talk to like the nuances of our experiences, One of the things that I continue to learn from the both of you is that doesn't matter where we're having this conversation. This conversation I think is for us.I know that, like this was a panel and there's attendees here, but the only way that we can actually imagine a different way of moving and being is by talking with one another, so thank you for taking the time to be in community amongst the three of us. If there's any like final words that you want to say either to each other or to the audience. Like you started like your last two minutes to do so.
JANEL MARTINEZ: I just want to say thank you for curating this space. Um. This is a conversation I've been looking forward to for a number of weeks. And I think, especially given all that going on, like it's just feels good to be. Though it is like digitally we are in community here, so thank you for this your thoughtfulness and you know, creating this space and, of course, you know Zahira always a pleasure to be in space and sharing space with you. So just thank you both.
ZAHIRA KELLY: Yeah I think that is also where I'm just very grateful for the space, Alan. For you Janel and I hope that you all know that I love you. And these spaces are it's like the only kind of places where you really feel seen sometimes. Um it's like we're the only ones who know how to see each other at this point. So it's just like very necessary and fulfilling thinking.
ALAN PELAEZ LOPEZ: Thank you, everybody, I hope you have a good rest of your evening.