Colorism and Intersectionality: The Afro-Latinx Experience

2021 November 11

Colorism has perpetuated the moments of tribalism and the disunifying of culture within the Latino Community. It becomes more apparent when Latin American families compare them to their ancestry if they have indigenous, black, or white European ancestors. The intersection of patriarchy and white supremacy heavily dictate the effects of colorism and how they will be perceived in society. The lighter a person’s skin color is the more desirable they become in society since whiteness has been associated with power and desirability and blackness with pity and despair. Willie Perdomo and Junot Diaz’s work provide a theoretical framework to demarginalize intersection of race and skin color and encourage intersectional thinking. Perdomo and Diaz explore the effects of how social violence and internalized racism necessitate colorism and the privilege born from it. The Latino Community has suffered from not having their voices heard due to the stigma of disappointing their heritage or culture if they do not follow in line with their ancestors. The answer to combat colorism is to take an intersectional approach to all the problems it can impose. Light skinned Latinos typically earn more money, complete more education, live in more integrated spaces, and have better mental health than those who are dark skinned. Therefore, the Latino Community has the embrace the power of simultaneity to make sure all those issues are squashed at once before it gives rise to new problems.

Perdomo’s poetry in “Where a Nickel costs a dime” illuminates the nonautonomous lifestyle of diasporic Nuyorican’s and exposes the complex character of community dynamics. He brings the issue of social violence and the framework of being bogged down by multifaceted problems plagued by American society. Most of them came to arise from observing the character’s skin color and race and perceiving differences as a hindrance and a threat. Thus, most of the Latino community are separated into boxes and forced to comply with societal expectation to fulfil niche that America aspires them to be. An interview on Perdomo’s poetry sheds light on this issue by stating, “There was a level of violence that had to be reckoned with, violence as a kind of equalizer. And then, even in that kind of terrain, where did we find our spaces to love?” (Brimmer 95). This statement amplifies the transnational effect of social violence where it is considered an equalizer for those who are disenfranchised from their community. These actions can lead to further attacks on an individual’s subconsciousness where they treat their discriminations as fact rather than fallacious propaganda. It directly effects those in the Latino community as it casts doubt of their culture and are encouraged to join the ‘winning team’. Hence, colorism as it plays into the denial of complexity and enforces the stipulation of the Mestizo chart to see who is allowed to be successful in society. Perdomo’s poem, “Nigger-Reecan Blues, encapsulates colorism instilling hostility and prejudice to manifest in societal subconsciousness. According to the text, “Damn! I ain’t even Black and here I am suffering from the young Black man’s plight/ the old white man’s burden/ and I ain’t even Black, man/ a Black man I am not/ Boricua I am/ ain’t never really was/ Black/ like me… (Perdomo 20). This statement illustrates the conception to prejudice where people who are of a dark color cannot be comfortable within their own skin. The connection to intersectionality is that people will assume a different identity because their original one is bogged down by discrimination due to their perceived inhibitor, skin color. The developing psyche of those who choose to embrace colorism drastically affects their perception by confirming their unconscious and unspoken bias favor light skins.

Diaz’s Monstro explores the intersection of skin color and the desired decolonization of racial hierarchy. As explained in an article by Sara Quesada called “A Planetary Warning? The Multilayered Caribbean Zombie in Monstro” the ‘zombie figures’ (dark skinned) serve as signifiers to neoliberal policies and decolonial resistance. This enables the unconscious bias to think that dark skinned people are nothing more than a social commentary of the return to human. She describes the apocalypse as a “literary subversion” that enables the evolution of the zombies and what borders sentience from the insentient. According to the article, “I read how these paradigms, reused in the literary imaginary, culminate in a decolonial reading, which conveys that the zombie may be a mere illusion meant to be morally and futuristically cautionary” (Quesada, 292). Monsters can be an illusion of how others treat them and ultimately reflect their unconsciousness when the question of what makes a person a human arises. The higher class paid no attention to the Haitians unfortunately became the monsters they envisioned them as. The decolonization effect happens around the virus spreads because the Haitians may not be zombies after all, and the audience may be viewing it from those in a dominant perspective. Assumptions can get warped under the guise of neoliberal stigma as everything is viewed as a commodity in that perspective. If a group does not provide anything of value or progression to society, they will instantly be casted out. In Monstro, this notion is outlined when it capitalizes coloniality of power and deconstruction of the masses when they failed to take care of the Haitians. According to the text, “All the viktims seemed to succumb to this ingathering compulsion. Some went because they claimed they felt “safer” in the quarantine zone; others just picked up and left without a word to anyone, trekked halfway across the country as though following a homing beacon” (Diaz, 108). This statement insinuates that there is still a semblance of sentience within the infected and they know when they feel threatened or safe. These characters in Monstro neglected the welfare of Haitians so they take it upon themselves to seek a space where they feel that they matter. It separates them from being less than to other than since they are taking the initiative to decolonize themselves from the historical trauma that dominant culture has inflicted.

Colorism also conflates stereotypes into terms of endearment since it has the potential to warp identity and treat whiteness as a form of survival. Perdomo illuminates this notion in his poem “Prophet Born in Harlem” where it talks about the adoption of personas and how everything is not what it seems from appearance. According to the poem, “Strip the mask off his face until you see blood pour like yours/ Talk about the real problem” (Perdomo, 44). The masks that he is referring to are different adaptions of safety that people use to ensure their survival in foreign and old places. People know that things are subjected to change around them in the future, to better prepare for that they equip a Persona to handle the upcoming hardships. Yet, it does not empathize if those Personas are a part of their identity indefinitely, or just occupying time until the next situation arises. That is why the most logical solution is to rip those masks off to show that the person has what it takes to make it in the world without relying on societal expectation. This falls into line with colorism as the gateway to happiness in the Latino community is putting on a Persona that ensures their survival, in other words, embracing whiteness. Eurocentrism continues to invade these communities as if it is a divine right of passage due to historical trauma being perpetuated in nearly every source of information people have at their disposal. According to a scholarly journal by Kwame Dixon called, “Beyond Race and Gender: Recent works on Afro-Latin America he goes over the invisibleness of black people within Latin America due to the influx of light skinned people. Dixon states, “Analytically, terms like segregation, race mixture, or miscegenation are replaced with horizontal relations; similarly, social exclusion and marginalization are replaced with vertical relations” (Dixon, 250). This statement highlights how social groups construct their space to fit the economic needs for their society. The article also dictates that vertical relations are a direct consequence of horizontal relations to distinguish that one level of discrimination is not equal to the predecessor. This falls in the case of social dualism where colorism and other factors within the realm of discrimination aim to divide Latino culture. The result is an establishment of integrated principles of white supremacy and institute the economic benefits people gain from making this distinction.

Diaz illuminates the invisibleness of self-perception with Monstro by highlighting the disrepair of social cognition. In Monstro, the audience is always looking through the lens of the dominant and privilege to project their personal feelings onto them to see the value of power. Yet, when people are forced into the perspective of Haitians they see them in a deteriorated state, having to fend for themselves, and struggle for choice. An example from Monstro would be when the main cast observing the odd infection symptoms from the Haitians. According to the text, “My tios were, like, Someone needs to drop a bomb on those people, and even though I was the pro-Haitian domos, at the time I was thinking it might have been a mercy” (Diaz, 107). This statement relates back to social violence and the disrepair of social cognition since the privileged are viewing this outbreak as opportunistic. The situation conflates psyche and think the objective way of curing people is to turn a blind eye and being rid of Haitians entirely. Essentially their self-perception is being radicalized by perception an attempt to appeal to the colonized consciousness. This is further brought into question when Alex had some issues in the past, but the narrator admires his position to bring it into the light. The suppression of emotional thought and memory can impair those in a dominant privilege, causing them to relay back to power acquisition of those without it. Monstro also highlights the obsession with conquering their enemies by any means necessary. The underlining message remains differences are not to be embraced, and people should keep to themselves, keep to our own kind because everything results to a means to an end. According to a scholarly article by Emily A. Maguire called “The Heart of a Zombie: Dominicans Literature’s Sentient Undead suggests that zombification allowed the dominant position to show their true intentions. According to the text, “By transforming into cannibals, zombies became the ultimate Caribbean, taking the foundational metaphor to the extreme and erasing any social divisions designed to separate them from the uninfected” (Maguire, 16). This statement exemplifies how monsters are form from historical trauma and how it can have a profound effect on the space around them. Diaz introduces the zombies as conscious beings before the infection to let the audience know that that they are not inherently mindless from the start. Thus, there transformation is proved to be even more shocking when it is in the form of a rebellion since they had no way of fighting back when they were conscious then. This is the ‘violence’ that the narrator speaks of and despite the obscenities that they described it can be an allegory to the deconstruction of the system. This ties back to colorism as dark-skinned people are seen as ‘monstrous’ and are ostracized from their group. Yet, when they decide to combat such discrimination, they are seen as ‘uncurable’ and see that the only solution is to be rid of them completely. Should a conclusion ever reach that point it is important to see life through the other victims’ shoes and ask themselves if they are truly justified or not.

Perdomo expands on the notion of internalized racism when the ideology of acceptance intersects with tolerance. The Latino community is perfectly capable of being tolerable towards something out of their control. The problem falls if they will be able to accept that person after a certain amount of time before they deny their existence. An example of that would be asking to have mixed babies, having a significant other with fairer skin, or commit to something drastic that may change their character. Perdomo outlines this notion in one of his poems “Nuyorican School of Poetry” where America society is tolerating a man to contribute his worth since he cannot travel back to Mexico. According to the text, “In order to understand the pain and joy of all this you must listen to Pancho crouched low on the corner refusing to learn English singing the last song he heard before he got on the plane to New York” (Perdomo, 43). This inflates the negative effect of tolerance since if the man believed he would have a better life than he did when he was in Mexico, he would be very fortunate for the opportunity. Yet since American society have the resources and tools there should be no reason why he would refuse this deal. Especially because in Mexico their economy is in direct support to those who are already in power making the lower class work twice as hard to make ends meet. Subsequently, in America, there is the problem of him being randomly dropped in an interstitial setting as an immigrant where whiteness is the gateway to success. It is a lose-lose situation for the person despite being American being the land of opportunity people need to make connections to get ahead in society. The language barrier makes it even more daunting since it will be an uphill battle because the outsider is considered less based on where they originated. Moving onwards, internalized racism increases the rate of self-destructive tendencies and manifests as always being the victim regardless of the situation. To better explain this notion, a scholarly article by Nayeli Y. Chavez called “Skin-Color Prejudice and Within-Group Racial Discrimination: Historical and Current Impact on Latino/a Populations” suggests that white oppressors perpetuated internalized racism as a goal post to forestall an acceptance to humanity. In other words, keeping the light skinned and mixed races in the majority and expelling dark skinned to the minority. According to the text, “Mestiaje was their feeble attempt to deny their racist ideologies and to “erase” the public discourse about their inferiority. To Afro-descendants, this ideology represented a forestalled acceptance of their humanity and a way to reject stratification system established by the Spanish crown during the colonial period” (Nayelli, et al. 8). This notion subscribes to the ideology that race and color needs to be classified in society to retain a sense of humanity in society. Leaving Afro-descendants and indigenous people invisible since they were at the bottom of the hierarchal chart. This ideology intersects with colorism due to granting white features and traits with more social mobility and treat it as a divine right rather than a natural right.

Subsequently, Diaz argues labels and stereotypes dictates how people define race and colorism under a fixed racial ideology. Monstro has a ton of pre-set definitions and assumptions for the Haitians before they became infected, and those definitions radicalized further the moment they turned into zombies. The warped perception of labeling has enabled those that are oppressed to have lingering stereotypes over their head since it is perceived to be indicative of their worth. To explain this notion further the narrator implies that the victims will grow worse over time, even instilling a label on them means that anything that was human-like is gone from them. According to the text, “There were widespread rumors that infected were devils, even reports of relatives attempting to set their infected family members on fire” (Diaz, 109). This statement is fire starter towards social violence as it enables people to connect with negative connotations based on their states as it is. The problem is that most people throw out that they were humans before this and assume that this was bound to happen, since they perceived them as monsters before. Labels intersect with colorism due to the notion that society can predict their outcome in life and how they will turn out. However, it is not their job to determine what course they should take in life since most of societal expectation leans towards life-altering options. Therefore, it can lead towards self-limiting beliefs and make certain groups within the Latin Afro community feel like they do not fit in anywhere. Diaz wanted to represent that through how widespread rumors can become and the disastrous effect it can have on society itself. The social commentary for it speaks for itself when the people who are not suffering are calling them names like “devil”, “Animales”, “viktims’ all escalate the problem of following ideologies. Moreover, Diaz also argues that because the world is in ruins their interests become threatened due to not being prepared of the unknown. This notion causes people to double-down on their beliefs and worries that the unknown can bring the worst due to not being unaccustomed to the situation. According to a scholarly article by Andy Kirby called “Redefining social and environmental relations at the ecovillage at Ithaca: A case study” the social vision and personal factors play a critical role in creating a community. According to the text, “For individuals living according to conventional cultural patterns an increasing sense of dissonance becomes evident between their sense of self and the behaviors that the culture encourages them to adopt” (Kirby, 2). This statement illustrates recognition of various subjects are integral to building a social model. Without having a personal connection to anything that people might come across they have less of a reason to incorporate a potential change to their ecosystem. This could be said for the Latino community as it is already an established culture and has its preset foundations. A hint of “otherness” or dark-skinned individuals coming in to challenge their beliefs would ultimately spill trouble for them. They would have to change their dynamics and be forced to go back from where they made stipulation and correct. The problem is less inclined to do that and it would prove less of a problem if the challenger joined the winning side, so that their point is fully illustrated. This creates the dissonance that colorism is founded on and continues to permeate through since its essentially people who refuse to change.

Conclusively, social violence in the Latino community is increased from isolationism and the desire to characterize their self-actualization. Social isolation can lead to dissociation with self and that impede the individual’s self-worth making it a pitfall situation. Most people that are dark skinned are heavily associated with social isolation due to rooted in traditions and the attempts to change it. Perdomo and Diaz emphasized this with the running theme of alienation and the attempts of settling back into normalization. This is realized in Perdomo’s poem “Save the Youth” in which kids are trying to grow up in diasporic spaces are already speeding ahead in life. In their heads, acquiring luxury and fancy lifestyles is a way of becoming ‘normal’ in society since white culture connotates luxury with success. According to the text, “I can speak about the youth growing on the corners of my block like weeds in an abandoned lot” (Perdomo, 47). This exemplifies the feeling of alienation where groups will grow desperate to make it in a predominantly white culture. By doing this individual will have less of a reason to think about the intrinsic value of subjects they come across since materialism buys their freedom. Diaz expands on the notion of materialism in Monstro by showcasing the luxuries that the privileged people had when the Haitians were being infected. According to the text, “He was also the one who wanted to go to Haiti, to take pictures of all infected people. Mysty was, like, You can go catch a plague all by your fool self, but he waved her off and recited his motto: To represent, to surprise, to cause, to provoke” (Diaz, 111). This statement illustrates how the public has downplayed the severity of the infection and would rather reap the fame from it rather than help cure it. From an intersectional lens the dominant party has a net gain of reaping the benefits from those that are oppressed since it proves that society has a bias towards certain concerns. Colorism comes into play because skin color preference can link to many negative connotations like submissiveness, egregious double standards, and the illusion of acceptance.

In summary, Diaz and Perdomo bring social violence and internalized racism to the light to explain the damning effects of colorism. These issues can instigate tribalism and fit foreign ideologies into their culture to justify a point that tradition is beneficial, and adaption is not. People will bend the truth to curve the narrative in their favor to showcase how power is created and how it can be cemented. Through a demented view, it would include alienation of differentness, embracing the stratification of self-perception, and treating patriarchal expectations as a divine right. The Latino community should recognize that skin color does not determine another person’s worth or destiny in life. It is just a distinguishable feature that everyone has and the more people that comes around to acknowledge that basic fact the better people can grow to have an understanding. With the media forecasting light skins in the limelight and the dark skin behind the curtains leads to more dividedness in the future. The best thing a community can do is embrace the differences that people bring to the table and work on the action of simultaneity. Crushing every problem at once, instead of waiting around for the topic to grow and mutate into another entity of its own.

Works Cited

Brimmer, Ana Portnoy. "Let Me Write it First, and I'll Tell You What it is Later: An Interview with Willie Perdomo." CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, spring 2019, pp. 87+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A589698001/AONE?u=csudh&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=ee9a134b. Accessed 2 Dec. 2021.

Chavez-Dueñas, Nayeli Y., et al. “Skin-Color Prejudice and Within-Group Racial Discrimination.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, vol. 36, no. 1, 15 Dec. 2013, pp. 3–26, 10.1177/0739986313511306. Accessed 5 December 2021.

Dixon, Kwame. “BEYOND RACE AND GENDER” Latin American Research Review, vol. 41, no. 3, 2006, pp. 247-257; 266. Accessed 5 December 2021.

Hanna, Monica, et al. Junot Díaz and the Decolonial Imagination. Durham, Duke University Press, 2016. Accessed 5 December 2021.

Kirby, Andy. “Redefining Social and Environmental Relations at the Ecovillage at Ithaca: A Case Study.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 23, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 323–332, 10.1016/s0272-4944(03)00025-2. Accessed 5 December 2021.

Maguire, Emily. “The Heart of a Zombie: Dominican Literature’s Sentient Undead.” Alambique Revista Acadèmica de Ciencia Ficciòn Y Fantasia ∕ Jornal Acadêmico de Ficção Científica E Fantasía, vol. 6, no. 1, Dec. 2018, 10.5038/2167-6577.6.1.4. Accessed 5 December. 2021.

Perdomo, Willie. Where a Nickel Costs a Dime. New York, W.W. Norton, 1996. Accessed 5 December 2021.