Afro-Latinx: Crossing Cultures, Identities, and Experiences

In this photograph, Dr. Marta Moreno Vega conveys wisdom, confidence, and thoughtfulness. She is a Nuyorican (a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent) and Afro-Puerto Rican activist, artist, educator, historian, and Yoruba priestess. She advocates for “cultural equity, cultural studies, and education.” In 1971, she became director of El Museo del Barrio and, in 1976, she established the Caribbean Cultural Center for the African Diaspora Institute, which advocates for and connects Afro-descendent communities. Through her institutional leadership, she expands visibility and representation for the people of the African Diaspora. Her scholarship explores overlooked histories, religions, and traditions while affirming Afro-Latinx relevance on a global scale.

Afro-Puerto Rican poet and author Miguel Algarín was born in Puerto Rico and grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Algarín’s writing often expressed his multiracial and dual cultural identity. During his lifetime, he received four American Book Awards and in 1973 cofounded the Nuyorican Poets Café, a celebrated creative hub, with poet and playwright Miguel Piñero and writer Pedro Pietri in 1973. The Nuyorican Poet’s Café became a place where writers, visual artists, and performers embraced their roots, cultural identity, and experiences living in Spanish (East) Harlem (El Barrio), the South Bronx, and the Lower East Side (Loisaida).

Sandra María Esteves is a visual artist, cultural activist, playwright, and one of the few significant women poets involved in the Nuyorican and Black Arts movements. Born in the Bronx, Esteves’s Dominican and Puerto Rican roots greatly influenced her work, which often references issues of colorism, social and environmental justice, and acceptance. During her teen years, Esteves experienced both colorism within her family as well as racism, which led her to question her identity. Throughout her career, writing has reasserted her intersectional identity, as exemplified by the poem “Sistas,” which shows a deep connection to the concept of sisterhood and to women singers of African descent.

Piri Thomas grew up in Spanish Harlem during the Great Depression, where he felt that racism and machismo in El Barrio forced his early entry into a gang. During a seven-year incarceration, he experienced an awakening, recognizing his capacity for greatness while overcoming racism and grappling with his hybrid Puerto Rican-Cuban identity. Thereafter, Thomas published the tremendously acclaimed memoir Down These Mean Streets (1967). Thomas’s writings became an influential part of the Nuyorican literary movement. Máximo Colón photographed the writer for a segment that WNET’s Puerto Rican television show Realidades devoted to Thomas’s memoir.

Known unequivocally as Celia, the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz (Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso) was born in Cuba. Shortly after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Cruz left the island and never returned, ultimately defecting to the United States. She became a U.S. citizen in 1961 and eventually settled in New York City. Cruz’s iconic style—flamboyant, form-fitting gowns, statuesque-high heels, and dramatically styled hair—paid homage to her African and Caribbean roots while her trademark expression “¡Azúcar!” (sugar) alluded to plantation history. Her songs spoke to pan-Latino audiences while connecting the thousands of exiles living in the United States and abroad to Cuba.

Carlos Valdés Galán was born in Havana, Cuba in 1926. Coming from a family of musicians, Valdés had a knack for music and rhythm as a child. During his teen years, he began playing with popular Cuban bands and ensembles. In 1954, Valdés immigrated to New York City to pursue his career in Latin jazz. Along with Mongo Santamaria, Valdés is recognized as one of the best congo players that has collaborated and performed with jazz and salsa’s greatest. He also helped invent the tunable congo drums that are now standard in the music industry.

Olympians John Carlos (right) and Tommie Smith (center) staged a protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. While “The Star-Spangled Banner” played, the track champions wore no shoes and raised gloved fists in a Black Power salute to denounce racism and economic inequality in the United States. Carlos later described it as an effort “to make people realize that humanity is far greater than athletics.” Their act of defiance caused controversy and led to their removal from the games and the Olympic village. John Carlos has continued to shed light on injustice as the self-proclaimed “World’s Fastest Humanitarian.”

With speed and pinpoint accuracy, Pedro Martínez became one of the most dominant power pitchers of his era. From 1997 to 2003 he was the best pitcher in baseball, leading in wins, strikeouts, and earned runs. Martínez’s uniform bears the Dominican flag, because, as Martínez stated, “I know who I am and where I came from. And I will never forget.” Fittingly, the title of this painting, El Orgullo y Determinación, translates to “Pride and Determination.” At his Hall of Fame induction, Martínez offered encouragement to his fellow Dominicans, then called Juan Marichal to the podium, and together they unfurled a Dominican flag.