00:00What have been your own experiences with colorism as Afro-Latina women?
00:09Were you ever called names as a child and how did that impact you?
00:13Well, I can say in my family, so my dad's side, my Dominican side is the more Afro side.
00:23The Cuban side is like a situation where it's like your grandma is black and everyone is
00:27like Mestizo or whatever, but I would hear from both sides of my family.
00:34You need to marry a white boy so your kids can come out with better hair, like things
00:41like that.
00:42So for me, it was more so like I didn't really experience being light skinned.
00:47I didn't experience like the same amount of colorism at all from that my peers face, but
00:53I felt it in terms of my hair.
00:56Got it.
00:57And I remember actually one instance that I often talk about is there was a student
01:02that's family was from Spain and he literally argued with me back and forth for like minutes
01:09on end about how I'm not, I was using Spanish, but really meaning Latina.
01:15And I think that, you know, that's just one example of some of the colorism as we were talking
01:21about like Amada people like trying to decipher or dissect your identity to the point where
01:27they can negate it as a whole.
01:29And it's like, you don't have to prove that to anyone, but because of colorism, because
01:34media representation and a lot of our, you know, Spanish language media, I think in particular,
01:40you know, we have to hold them accountable oftentimes because you will never see anything resembling
01:49this on a cover, on their websites.
01:52And, you know, I know for myself in being within media, like because I constantly was looking
01:58for that and I saw that in other areas like Essence, I was just like, you know, I'm done
02:04with waiting.
02:06I'm just going to create that space.
02:08Like that's partly why Amada is so important, you know, Amada is important because I know
02:13for me to see a black woman who is my complexion from Latin America with my hair texture.
02:20If I had seen that as a little girl, that would have changed my life.
02:22I didn't get those images at all.
02:25And the thing about colorism is like the black Latinas that are palpable are the ones who
02:30are in closest proximity to whiteness.
02:32They have looser textured hair, they're lighter skinned, like they have to pass a brown paper
02:36bag test in order to get on this, you know, like still like even our Latino publications,
02:42right?
02:43Who I will not name, they have not put an Amada on the cover.
02:47It's like, we always get, you know, Lala, love Lala, love her, but it's always her.
02:53It's like a little rotation.
02:54No, it's so true.
02:55Cause what happens then it creates this lie that that's the only person who are coming
03:00from those countries.
03:01So then when you do have an Amada show up, it's like, oh, that's not your real skin.
03:03That's not your real her.
03:04You think about people who are like, is she even being her true self?
03:08The fact is, this is just in the same conversation as do you choose to be black?
03:13Yeah.
03:14Yeah.
03:15We don't, this is not a choice here.
03:16This is who we are.
03:18I, we're not denying.
03:20And the fact that, I mean, I've, I try not to, I really do not to argue with the folk
03:24on the internet.
03:25I try, but it's part of my teacher background of, I still want to teach you and have you
03:30learn something here, like Juju is out here.
03:34She's Cubana.
03:35She is gorgeous.
03:36She literally looks like Gabrielle Union's twin and will rattle off Spanish quicker than
03:41anybody I've ever heard.
03:43But she's not black enough.
03:45It's like, what does, what does that mean?
03:47That doesn't mean anything.
03:49You know, Amada, she's taking pills.
03:51No, she's not.
03:52Have you seen the girl's picture?
03:53She had to go and put up pictures to prove to people that she was black, that her father
03:58was black because her mother is a different complexion.
04:02My mom is not the same complexion as I look like my father, complexion wise.
04:05Everything else is my mother.
04:07But here in this space, you can't, you can't define me just because my complexion is darker
04:14and because my native tongue technically is Spanish.
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