"See Our Latinidad, See Our Blackness,” is an installment in the DC History Center’s Context for Today series of online conversations with thoughtful and thought-provoking historians, activists, journalists, and community members.
Many Spanish-speaking communities shape DC/DMV culture. Yet many Washingtonians know little about the racial and cultural vastness of the Spanish-speaking world and even less about what brought communities of Afro-Nicaraguans, Afro-Costa Ricans, Afro-Dominicans, and Afro-Cubans to DC. In "See Our Latinidad, See our Blackness" we learn from artist Carmen Torruella-Quander and educators Ana Ndumu, Angeley Crawford Gibb, and Rosalyn Lake-Montero about Black communities within Latinidad and DC history. Our speakers consider tensions around language, class, and belonging, and the importance of Afro-Latina representation for youth to understand their own identities, communities, and experiences.
The DC History Center works with Manuel Mendez, Chair of the AfroLatino Caucus, to produce this Context for Today to address the history of Latinas in DC, Pan-African migration waves and displacement, and sociocultural erasure and essentialism.
Angeley Crawford Gibb
Angeley Crawford Gibb is an educator, orator and your favorite, FAT, hot gyal Tía/prima. Her work centers on identity development with a specific focus on adolescent ethnic identity development and language. Through acknowledging the complexity of history, language and culture, Crawford Gibb displays the luminosity of her heritage and leverages it as an educational tool. She has created and participated in the viral video series’, “Define: BLACK” and “Naming ourselves in love and liberation: A love letter to Black Latin American Women and Femes” which explored ethnic and racial identity of Black Latin American women based in the U.S. She is currently a high school Resource Support Coordinator in the Maryland area and is committed to holding the babies down in all the ways. You can find her in these Internet streets doling out love, affirmations, truth and virtual hugs.
Ana Ndumu
Dr. Ana Ndumu is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland College Park's College of Information Studies (iSchool). She primarily teaches and reaches on the information experiences of Black diasporic immigrants and empowering racialized groups within the library and information science field. An Afro-Nicaraguan, Dr. Ndumu was raised in Miami, Florida.
Carmen Torruella-Quander
Carmen Torruella-Quander a native Washingtonian, born of Dominican and Puerto Rican parents, is an internationally accredited classic artist. Bilingual and bicultural, she was educated in a local parochial elementary and secondary school. Her extensive and continuous academic training include The Corcoran School of Art, Pratt Institute, The Arts Students League, New York University, and at Catholic University in Washington, DC, as well as numerous workshops and seminars. Carmen was an instructor and curator of fine art for over 30 years and now devotes her time to her painting.
Moderator: Rosalyn Lake-Montero
Rosalyn Lake-Montero is an Afro-Dominican educator at the SEED School of Washington, DC. She teaches Spanish, but also coaches the cross country team and demonstrates exceptional use of technology in the classroom. She is a first-generation college graduate, a contributor to “Las Caras Lindas” podcast, and a fierce advocate to unite and educate the Latinx communities on issues including the lack of diversity in Spanish-speaking communication institutions. She is currently working on her first book Stupid Little Girl, about an Afro-Dominican immigrant girl navigating her way through self-identity, race, teenage issues, parenting her siblings, and her own baby on the way, while embracing her double minority identity in a rural area in the United States. Lake-Montero’s future plans are to earn an M.Ed. and a Ph.D. in education to better serve Black and Brown youth in the DMV area.
Co-Producer: Manuel Mendez, AfroLatino Caucus, Chair
Manuel Mendez is originally from the Dominican Republic and moved to Washington, DC at the age of nine. After graduating from Bell Multicultural High School, Mendez received his bachelor’s degree in African Studies and Communication at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Fortunate to have a host of mentors in his adolescence, Mendez’s passion for supporting positive youth development and the issues that plague the people of the African Diaspora are ever apparent themes in his pursuit for affecting progressive change in his community. As a constant staple in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, Mendez’s dedicated support has allowed him to forge long-term meaningful relationships with members of the community. As the Chair of the DC AfroLatino Caucus, Mendez’s goal is to unite “black and brown” people of the Washington metropolitan area.
On March 23, 2021, the DC History Center hosted an interview on Facebook Live with University of the District of Columbia student—and DC History Center collaborator—Mariana Barros-Titus, and Manuel Mendez, Chair of the DC AfroLatino Caucus. They discussed the work of the DC AfroLatino Caucus, as well as the history and contributions of Afro Latinos in Washington, DC. Barros-Titus also introduced her work on the DC History Center’s new initiative to compile a resource guide of local archival resources on the Latina/o/x communities of DC (published in May 2021).
This Context for Today: Salvadorans in the DMV web page focuses on contextual resources relating to the largest Latino/a/x group in DC, including a video of the March 18, 2021 DC History Center program with Ana Patricia Rodríguez, PhD, José A. Centeno-Meléndez, and Abel Nuñez. The page also features a reading list developed by Rodríguez and Centeno-Meléndez further exploring Salvadoran and other specific DC-area Latino/a/x communities, including Afro-Latino Washingtonians.
Afro-Latino Culture, Hola Cultura
Articles from Hola Cultura featuring stories about the Afro-Latino/a/x in Washington DC.
"Black Behind the Ears"—and Up Front Too? Dominicans in The Black Mosaic by Ginetta E.B. Candelario, The Public Historian, 23-4 (2001). Candelario specifically addresses the Dominincan community in this analysis of the previously referenced Anacostia Community Museum exhibit, as an example of the continued privileging of a U.S.- or Anglo-centric concept of African-American history and identity. This is further addressed in her subsequent book, Black behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops (Duke University Press 2007). Candelario’s work is key to understanding longer legacies of Latin American and Caribbean migrations to the area. One chapter in this book highlights the role Black Dominican women played in creating a notion of a shared Latin American/Latino identity from as far back as the 1940s.
"‘One blessing upon another’ for trailblazing couple who were among first students to integrate Sacred Heart School in 1950," by Mark Zimmerman, July 1, 2022. Article featuring Carmen Torruella Quander, a native Washingtonian with Dominican and Puerto Rican parents, and her husband, Rohulamin Quander, a native Washingtonian with African American and Indian ancestors, who became the first students of color to integrate Sacred Heart School, a Catholic school in Washington, D.C.
"Carlos Manuel Rosario" by Amber N. Wiley, Washington History, 30-1 (2018). In a city where class and cultural differences separated varius Latino immigrant communities, Puerto Rican immigrant Carlos Rosario focused on the commonalities - language, along with social and political needs - to establish a sense of Latinidad - pan-Latin identity.
Chronicles, by Sarah Booth Conroy, Washington Post, 1994.
Review of the 1994-1995 Anacostia Community Museum exhibit, Black Mosaic, featuring details about the life of Juana Amparo Campos.
Early Days: Growing up in DC’s "Latin American village" by Gabrielle Spencer, Hola Cultura, 2013.
An interview with Carmen Torruella Quander.
How Afro-Nicaraguans suffer through the 'taboo' subject of racism by Nadra Nittle, Atlanta Black Star, 2017.
Article explores the denial, erasure and underestimation of Blackness among Afro-Nicaraguans.
Juliet Hooker: "People don't imagine that a Nicaraguan could be Black" by Danae Vilchez, Havana Times, 2017.
“Review: Anacostia Museum Exhibition: Black Mosaic:” Community, Race and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D.C., by Jeffery C. Stewart, Washington History, 7-1 (1995). Review of the 1994-1995 Anacostia Community Museum exhibit, based on extensive interviews with local Costa Rican, Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Panamanian, Cuban, Haitian, and Dominican Republic communities. Key to the exhibit was exploring the tensions over race and ethnic identity that many migrants of color experienced, often for the first time, in the United States.
Recognizing that our current collections do not significantly reflect the Latina/o/x communities of Washington, D.C., the DC History Center recently launched an initiative to compile a resource guide to amplify the holdings of local repositories and identify records in private hands. The goal is to help researchers of all stripes gain a fuller understanding of the state of records created by, for, and about local Latina/o/x communities.
Help us keep the DC History Center's guide up-to-date. Send additional resources and/or edits to library@dchistory.org. We appreciate your efforts and contributions!
