Black In Latin America Video Response

After watching segments from Black in Latin America during class, I realized that a major theme of the film revolved around uncovering the truth behind the culture of Latin America that was born out of colonization and the slave trade. The film shows the perspectives that many Latin American's have about their own heritage and it deals with the complicated issue of race and its relevance in their lives today. The film presents more than one point of view from a large group of people about these issues, and it tries to give an extensive background to lead to an understanding of people's attitudes towards their countries' culture and their own personal family tree.

Before watching this video, I thought of Latin America and its people as Latinos and Hispanics, not as blacks. I am beginning to realize now, how prominent black heritage and culture is in places like Brazil and other countries that had a great intake of Africans during the slave trade. With this integrated ancestry, race becomes a more trivial question. That is probably what struck me the most about this video, the way people categorize themselves and what exactly it means to embrace or disgrace the meaning of your own black heritage in Latin America. Many places around the world, including countries like Brazil, prize themselves on the fact that they are free of any racial issues, but this film challenges that idea. A segment of the film that we just watched today explained how many Brazilian women did not like their hair because it was "too black". I was shocked by this, and was curious about whether or not this was the case in other Latin American countries. I found a website that talks about the very same issue of Dominican's having difficulties with embracing their black culture. It also goes into detail about the history behind this issue and it talks about Brazil's 136 or so, different names that they have to describe themselves and their skin color. In other words, this article deals with the issues of Latin American women and the complicated yet ancient issue of race. It is: http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/afrolatin/part2/index.html

I think that being a part of the history of the slave trade and the blending of cultures would be something that I would be proud of, not something that I would want to hide and lock away in a closet. I hope that as time passes the unease that some of these people feel about being "too black" will begin to disappear and that more and more people will embrace themselves as they are. This is not to say at all that there are not many people in Latin America that celebrate their african heritage with others through dance, food, and the media (e.i. movies), all of which are portrayed and talked about in the film. One thing is clear though, despite all of this, black culture is everywhere in Latin America and you can't fully understand the history or the present day issues of Latin America without addressing the prominence of being "black in Latin America".