HispanicTrending

February 27, 2014
By Rick Sanchez

Here in Miami, we’ve become accustomed to the standard “Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish and 3 for Creole.” But could we be on the verge of getting a fourth choice, “Press 4 for Mayan?”

Talk about confusing. Remember, there’s already this healthy argument among those of us who fill out questionnaires and applications in the United States about what to call ourselves. Many Hispanics/Latinos don’t like being bunched in with the rest and argue that we’re much more different than we are similar, which is to say a Puerto Rican from New York or a Venezuelan from Miami may not have much in common with a Mexican from Los Angeles or a Honduran from Albuquerque. (Heck, we can’t even decide on what we want to be called.) Some prefer Latino, others Hispanic. But what if you’re neither and yet, you still have a more well-rooted geographic claim on who you really are?  

That is a claim that belongs to the newest group of South Floridians who go by the ancient racial and ethnic classification of Mayan.    

Mayans are now the fastest growing minority group in the population of South Florida. Yes, you read that right, Mayan. You see, in the 1980s a great deal of people in the Mayan Highlands in Guatemala were forced to flee due to civil wars, now they are fleeing in record numbers from the threat of violent drug cartels.

"Although exact figures aren’t available, experts estimate Florida’s Maya population could be more than 50,000. That’s perhaps a five-fold increase from a decade ago, when the narcotráfico began turning northern Central America into what the U.S. military calls the most dangerous zone in the world outside of Iraq and Afghanistan," according to a recent article from Miami's PBS radio affiliate WLRN.

So what does that mean? Culturally, it provides to the rich cornucopia that is South Florida. Economically, it remains to be seen. It appears that their work ethic and enthusiasm may be unbridled; their language skills? Bridled.  

At the outset of this writing, I made a joke about “Press 4 for Mayan,” which technically would be the word “Mam” (pronounced mawm). However, that’s assuming that they speak that particular dialect. You see, Mayans aren’t necessarily Latinos, or South Americans, or even Hispanic.  

They are Mayans, they built pyramids, wrote in hieroglyphs, perfected the calendar, and made a prophecy or two. How do we help them? Are we to build schools, are we to erect community centers and signs just to speak to them? What if another portion of these indigenous people emigrate here, but speak a completely different dialect or even a different language? What’s the next step? And let’s not even start on the issue of whether they are here legally or not.  

Turn on the TV or a movie and you will see that the “fish out of water” tale is one of Hollywood’s “go to” story lines. Here’s the rub on that — there’s a great deal of fish in this country, and they all communicate in different ways, from regionalisms to slang and so on. They also all eventually find a way to survive, even if it means swimming against the current until they can find their way.  

The results, much to any screenwriter’s chagrin, are not necessarily cute, or the requisite happy ending. That’s not to say they are worse off here than they would have been in their narcotráfico-torn homeland.

A people with a vast amount of history may just find themselves at the bottom of this American pyramid for a while. And then? To be continued…

Source: Fox News Latino

February 27, 2014
By Patricia Guadalupe and Suzanne Gamboa

Afro Latino Marco Davis laughed when he recalled the lengths he went to keep in touch with black and Latino alumni groups when he graduated from Yale University.

“One year I would put down that I was Hispanic so I could keep in touch with the Latino groups on campus that I was involved with, and another year I would put down black, so I could get their information. I would alternate because I wasn’t able to put down that I belonged to both," said Davis, 43, who has a Jamaican father and a Mexican mother. "The university said they didn’t have it built in to their computers to check off more than one box at a time, and I had to do just one.”

Like Davis, other Afro Latino Americans feel they straddle two communities, each with a distinct heritage and history celebrated in the U.S. eight months apart. Black History Month comes to a close in a few days and Hispanic Heritage Month begins in mid-September.

Black Latinos say there is little understanding of their mixed heritage, and little knowledge of the history of the importation of slaves by Spanish-speaking countries of which many, though not all, are descendants.

Yet growing racial pride and a move to a more multiracial society with changing demographics are helping this group stake a claim to being both black and Latino.

Davis, now working in the Obama administration in Washington, D.C., grew up in a predominantly African American neighborhood in New York.

"We weren’t Puerto Rican (the majority Latino population in New York), and people never heard of people like us,” explained Davis. “The black people knew we spoke Spanish but they didn’t make the connection to the Hispanic community, and the Latinos didn’t quite get it, and others just assumed I was black and that’s it.”

But he attended Mass at a Mexican church two towns over, and spent summers visiting relatives in his mother’s hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico. In college, he joined a historically black fraternity while also becoming involved with Latino groups on campus.

“It really opened my eyes. I felt connected to both, but I remember being asked what would my loyalty be if there was ever a problem, and I would think, why do I have to choose? I navigate both worlds. I don’t have a choice. It’s who I am.”

That is the fundamental challenge of being an Afro Latino in the United States, said Davis. “I walk down the street and people assume I am a black man and nothing more. The story of the Afro Latinos is a chapter in our society that hasn’t been well written. It’s a story that still needs to be told. We are of both worlds. It’s not either or, and people don’t get that.”

Some of that history will be discussed Thursday night in Washington, D.C. at a symposium on Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, held by the Smithsonian Latino Center and the Schomburg Center.

A writer, historian and activist, Schomburg is the namesake of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, part of the New York Public Library system. Schomburg’s research collection laid the foundation for the study of black history and culture, according to the library.

But many may not know that in addition to being a black man, Schomburg was Puerto Rican and self-identified as afroborinqueño. Puerto Rico was known as Borinquen before the arrival of the Spanish.

"He pioneered the concept of an African Diaspora — that black people around the world are connected," said Ranald Woodaman, Smithsonian Latino Center director. Schomburg was also involved in fighting for the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Woodman said it is important for Latinos to claim his "Latinidad" as well, and make sure he is part of the Latino Pantheon.

Last week, the Washington, D.C. Mayor's Office on Latino Affairs, with the Afro Latino Alliance, held a two-day forum and gala devoted to recognizing dual Afro Latino identity. Organizers deliberately chose Black History Month for the event and plans are being made for an event in September.

“Afro Latinos have a right to celebrate Black History Month,” said Roland Roebuck, 66, a D.C. government retiree who advises the Afro Latino Alliance in Washington, D.C.

Roebuck said an “invisibility” exists, which often keeps Afro Latinos “out of the mix.”

Born in New York and raised in Puerto Rico, Roebuck said when he first moved to Washington in the early 1970s, after serving in the U.S. Air Force, he was told by African Americans, “you’re not a full-time brother.”

“The African American community may find it strange, but the only difference between us is the language, and the geography. It’s about where the slave ships landed,” Roebuck said.

Howard University history lecturer J. Santiago Mauer, who also uses the pen name Msomi Santiago Moor, said black people don’t just speak English, but he did not know that growing up in Ohio as an African American.

Afro Latinos, he said, “need to be unapologetically black. It’s okay to be black and speak Spanish.”

About 3 percent of the 51 million people who identified as Hispanic or Latino on the 2010 Census also identified as black.

Filmmaker Dash Harris, who is of Panamanian descent, hopes to bring more exposure to the Afro Latino experience though a documentary series, Negro. Harris said the work grew from her own frustrations.

“I was exhausted trying to explain who I am,” Harris said. “I’m not here to convince anyone about their African ancestry because that’s a fact. It’s about educating the next generation.”

Afro Latina Sarita Copeland Singh, a Washington lawyer married to a Trinidadian with Indian roots, said she sees change afoot.

“We definitely need to hear and learn more about Afro Latinos so that it won’t seem so unusual,” said Singh, 30, who is of Panamanian descent. “My young daughter already moves easily between both worlds.”

Source: NBC News