Prometheus 6   

Being Latin and black
Afro-Latinos grapple with labels in U.S.

By JANITA POE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jacqueline Rosier is a Latina who loves her culture and speaks Spanish as fluently as English.

But Rosier -- a native of Panama who is of African descent -- has struggled to identify herself as part of the Latin American community since coming to the United States 28 years ago.

"I always shock people and get a lot of questions when I say I'm a Latina," said Rosier, 38, a marketing and public relations manager in Duluth. "I've found a lot of white people don't accept me or respect me, on a certain level, because of my color. And I've found a lot of African-Americans want to put me in their box."

For dark-skinned Latinos in the United States, the American dream is often punctuated with dismaying experiences of trying to fit into a classification-oriented society. Black Latinos share a culture and language with white Latinos, but some say the race consciousness of America forces them to adopt an identity -- as black Americans -- that is not really their own. If they eschew the label, Afro-Latinos say they still are treated as African-Americans by most people and resented by some blacks who think they are ashamed of their African heritage.