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Speaker 1: Sometimes when we talk about race and identity, it's so subjective,

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Speaker 1: it's so oh, well, this is how people feel, and

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Speaker 1: you know it may change over time. But when you

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Speaker 1: look at something like the census, you literally have to

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Speaker 1: make a choice in that moment, and what people choose,

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Speaker 1: I think says a lot about the time that they

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Speaker 1: live in and the way that they see themselves.

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Speaker 2: From futuro media, It's Latin Usa. I'm Maria Ino Rosa.

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Speaker 2: In the US, counting for the Census has officially begun.

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Speaker 2: It includes everyone living in the US and its five territories,

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Speaker 2: including Puerto Rico, to be counted. Residents fill out a

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Speaker 2: form online, by telephone, or by mail, and the form

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Speaker 2: itself has straightforward questions like a person's name, age.

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Speaker 3: Sex, and race.

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Speaker 2: And while the answers may seem simple, for some feeling

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Speaker 2: out the form can get a little murky. Let's take

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Speaker 2: the race question. For example, Some people don't have a

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Speaker 2: problem checking the box white, black, Chinese, but for others,

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Speaker 2: like many who identify as Latino, on the senses, the

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Speaker 2: answer isn't so black and white. See here is where

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Speaker 2: it gets tricky, because, aside from the race question, the

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Speaker 2: senses also asks about Hispanic or Latino origin, and if

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Speaker 2: the answer is yes, then sometimes that cultural connection is

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Speaker 2: stronger than how someone identifies racially. Today we're taking a

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Speaker 2: look at Puerto Rico, where all of the island's residents

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Speaker 2: can select Puerto Rican on the senses to describe their

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Speaker 2: Hispanic origin, but when it comes to race, it's a

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Speaker 2: different story. If you've ever been to the island, the

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Speaker 2: legacy of African people is very much alive throughout all

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Speaker 2: of Puerto Rican society and culture. It's in its language,

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Speaker 2: its food, religion, and music. But in the twenty ten census,

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Speaker 2: over seventy five percent of Puerto Ricans identified as white.

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Speaker 2: Of course, there are many factors that have led to this,

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Speaker 2: like anti blackness and colorism in Latin America, like, for example,

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Speaker 2: the notion of mejorad la rasa, which means to better

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Speaker 2: the race, which means to be more white. But having

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Speaker 2: an inaccurate count of racial demographics can hurt communities, and

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Speaker 2: even then, you can't force a population to change how

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Speaker 2: they identify. That choice is very personal. In order to

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Speaker 2: understand the nuances of this issue, we reached out to

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Speaker 2: journalist Natasha s Alfred, who's done a lot of reporting

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Speaker 2: on the Afro Puerto Rican community. She's done stories that

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Speaker 2: range from beauty to police racially profiling black residents on

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Speaker 2: the island, and most recently, Natasha wrote about Afro Puerto

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Speaker 2: Ricans being counted in the census for the New York Times.

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Speaker 2: Before we get to our story about Puerto Rico and

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Speaker 2: the census, I wanted to share something that Natasha told

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Speaker 2: me about that regards this feeling of invisibility. It's a

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Speaker 2: major theme that you're going to hear about today, and

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Speaker 2: this personal story came out as we began our conversation.

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Speaker 2: In early March, Natasha attended a conference in New York

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Speaker 2: City produced by the National Association of Black Journalists. She's

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Speaker 2: an active member of the organization and attended the conference

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Speaker 2: as a panelist. Here's Natasha.

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Speaker 1: So I go to this conference, I speak about wellness

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Speaker 1: and mental health, and you know, there are lots of

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Speaker 1: thank yous and hugs, and then I leave after I

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Speaker 1: would say about an hour and a half. I left

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Speaker 1: with a feeling of that was time well spent, but

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Speaker 1: definitely ready to rest because I had been on the

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Speaker 1: road for two weeks and there was starting to be

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Speaker 1: a lot more news about coronavirus. Then I got a

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Speaker 1: notification saying that someone at that conference tested positive for coronavirus.

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Speaker 1: They asked everyone to take care of themselves, which for

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Speaker 1: me means something very different. Because I also live with lupus.

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Speaker 1: That means that my immune system is already compromised to

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Speaker 1: take medication every day for it. I then was just

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Speaker 1: cast into this sea of confusion and anxiety because I

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Speaker 1: didn't know if I had been exposed to the virus.

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Speaker 2: Do we have any news?

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Speaker 3: We do?

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Speaker 1: I just got the news today that I am negative.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I know right.

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Speaker 1: Wea just a huge like thank you God, you know,

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Speaker 1: texted the family and friends and everything. But still a

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Speaker 1: sense of sadness because there is someone who's still struggling

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Speaker 1: right now. But wow, just this feeling of not being

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Speaker 1: able to breathe just holding my breath for a week.

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Speaker 3: And that's the reason why.

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Speaker 1: We were not in the studio together because I had

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Speaker 1: to be extra cautious and safe during this time.

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Speaker 2: So while you've been in this self isolation quarantine, have

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Speaker 2: you thought about any intersection that you see between your

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Speaker 2: life experience right now and the reporting that you've just

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Speaker 2: done from Puerto Rico and the census and people fighting

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Speaker 2: to be identified as Afro Puerto Rican.

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Speaker 1: There is one hundred percent a sense of being seen

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Speaker 1: in a way that I have never been seen before.

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Speaker 1: I think we call lupus an invisible illness, right, because

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Speaker 1: if you look at someone like me, you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: my thirties, pretty active, people may not believe that it's real.

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Speaker 1: And similarly, this project of telling Afro LATINX stories actually

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Speaker 1: started in college because I was looking for myself. I

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Speaker 1: didn't see a representation of women who look like me.

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Speaker 1: The sense that you had to choose between black quote

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Speaker 1: unquote and Latino as if they were completely separate, always persisted.

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Speaker 1: I remember, you know, going to against Agneta. I was

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Speaker 1: like eleven, and I was one of few, you know,

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Speaker 1: little Morena girls there. My mother is Puerto Rican and

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Speaker 1: she's a olive, you know, she's actually your color, Mariya.

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Speaker 1: And I thought that every image in the magazine made

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Speaker 1: it seem as though that version of Latinidad was so

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Speaker 1: much more beautiful, and there was just nothing I could

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Speaker 1: do to change that. But the older I got, I

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Speaker 1: saw this shift that we were being seen, you know,

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Speaker 1: I was seeing Amara la Negra for example, Sunny Houston

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Speaker 1: on the View. So we've always been there, but the

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Speaker 1: sense that the mainstream media is starting to catch up

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Speaker 1: and understanding the need to include us in conversations about

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Speaker 1: Latinidad really inspired me to further attack this question of

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Speaker 1: why are we invisible to some right and how are

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Speaker 1: people exercising agency to change that.

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Speaker 2: So let's talk about this piece that you published in

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Speaker 2: the New York Times in February. The title of it

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Speaker 2: was why some Black Puerto Ricans choose white on the senses?

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Speaker 1: Well, it actually came from previous headlines. I'd read some

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Speaker 1: headlines in two thousand that stated that eighty percent of

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Speaker 1: Puerto Ricans racially identified as white, but I didn't.

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Speaker 3: See too much follow up on that story.

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Speaker 1: It was just sort of a statement of fact rather

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Speaker 1: than a question an inquisition into why that would be

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Speaker 1: the case. And so when you jump to twenty ten,

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Speaker 1: ten years later, there's a slight drop down to seventy

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Speaker 1: six percent who identify as white. And so the fact

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Speaker 1: that you saw that slight change from eighty to seventy

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Speaker 1: six said something.

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Speaker 3: And so the women who were responsible.

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Speaker 1: For this shift, who played a part, They started a

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Speaker 1: media campaign dedicated to checking black on the census, which

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Speaker 1: again is a US terminology for race or writing in

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Speaker 1: Afro de Sandiente. The name of this group is it

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Speaker 1: is Collectivo Ile, and their story I felt had never

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Speaker 1: really been elevated.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: Of course in local circles there are people who know

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Speaker 1: about this group.

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Speaker 3: They've been around for a while since the nineties.

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Speaker 1: But it felt very important to center them in the

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Speaker 1: conversation and to center their work and to just find

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Speaker 1: out how do you change people's minds about something that

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Speaker 1: is so personal.

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Speaker 2: And we're going to get to the whole conversation about

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Speaker 2: the census in a moment. But you focused your reporting

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Speaker 2: in the town of Loisa. So why did you go

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Speaker 2: to Loisa and set the scene for us there?

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Speaker 1: From childhood, Loisa had been spoken about as this almost

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Speaker 1: magical place of you know, the center of African tradition,

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Speaker 1: the place where African heritage had been so well preserved

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Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico. And obviously Africa is a continent with

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Speaker 1: many countries, you know, and that's the reality of the

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Speaker 1: Transatlantic slave trade, is that we cannot always trace exactly

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Speaker 1: where we came from.

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Speaker 3: In Africa.

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Speaker 1: It's believed that Nigerians who were enslaved settled Loisa. And

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Speaker 1: then there was the reality of reading about Loisa as

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Speaker 1: a place that was the hardest hit after Hurricane Maria,

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Speaker 1: one of the hardest hit and one of the slowest

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Speaker 1: to recover, a place where you know, there's incredibly high

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Speaker 1: amounts of unemployment and poverty, and yet it's celebrated culturally

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Speaker 1: as this place that is the center of tradition.

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Speaker 3: But what was.

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Speaker 1: Interesting about low was that when I went there, it

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Speaker 1: was very clear that just because you lived in Loisa

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Speaker 1: did not mean that you identified as black. And I

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Speaker 1: thought that was the perfect place to center this story

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Speaker 1: because I wanted to complicate the narrative. So I went

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Speaker 1: to Golpi, which is a community center in Loisa, and

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Speaker 1: I actually attended a BOMBA class and interviewed one of

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Speaker 1: the drummers, one of the teachers, about identity.

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Speaker 3: He was born and raised in Loisa.

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Speaker 1: He was the first to tell me that he does

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Speaker 1: not call himself Afro, Puerto Rican, Afro, Latino, Afro nothing.

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Speaker 1: He's not black per se, he is Puerto Rican above

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Speaker 1: all else. I found that belief and sense of Puerto

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Speaker 1: Rican national identity trumping everything I found that in more

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Speaker 1: than Loisa, So that's where the story starts.

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Speaker 2: So what was your sense of how the black residence

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Speaker 2: in Loisa and in general on the island. What was

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Speaker 2: your sense about how they talk about race? I mean,

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Speaker 2: this is a huge question that I'm asking you, obviously,

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Speaker 2: but what's the general sense of how Puerto Ricans interact

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Speaker 2: with the issue of race.

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Speaker 1: So race is I'll just say, a taboo subject. Race

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Speaker 1: is an uncomfortable subject. Race is something that lifts the

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Speaker 1: veil of Puerto Rican unity and just shakes it up completely, right,

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Speaker 1: because there's a narrative that Puerto Ricans are a mix

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Speaker 1: of Diino.

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Speaker 2: Right, and for people who don't know that Dainos are

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Speaker 2: the indigenous people of the Caribbean, which includes the island

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Speaker 2: of Puerto Rico.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so Diino, Spaniard and African heritage. We've been told

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Speaker 1: that again since we were born. And so when you

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Speaker 1: even inject race into the conversation, it's almost as if

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Speaker 1: why is that necessary?

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Speaker 3: Right, We're all Puerto Rican.

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Speaker 2: If you know anything about Puerto Rican history, you can

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Speaker 2: understand this real desire for nationalism, you know, Puerto Rican.

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Speaker 2: Before we get into the reasons why people might not

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Speaker 2: identify as black on the senses. What are the reasons

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Speaker 2: why people are so kind of adamant with isque primiero

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Speaker 2: antisque nada des lomas portante. You know what matters is

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Speaker 2: quezoca is quezou Puerto Ricano. I am proud and Puerto Rican.

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Speaker 2: How do you understand that nationalism cultural pride within the

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Speaker 2: context of Puerto Rico's history.

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Speaker 1: Well, you have to understand that, you know, colonialism has

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Speaker 1: given Puerto Rico the short stick, and so it's this

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Speaker 1: sense of being treated as second class citizens, you know,

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Speaker 1: not getting the resources that they need. Even looking at

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Speaker 1: the response to Hurricane Maria all of these years later

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Speaker 1: there when I flew into Saint Juan, there were still

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Speaker 1: blue tarps on houses, right, So I I understand that

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Speaker 1: that need to hold together. And also it's a form

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Speaker 1: of resistance to say that I'm Puerto Rican first, to

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Speaker 1: not necessarily jump at the thought of oh, I'm an

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Speaker 1: American and I'm going to assimilate. Right, There is resistance

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Speaker 1: there and that pride is understandable. So resistance through the

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Speaker 1: struggle and to highlight the injustice. I think all of

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Speaker 1: that reinforces that national pride. But when it comes to race.

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Speaker 1: That's when it gets a little bit tricky, because being

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Speaker 1: white in the context of America does have its privileges,

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Speaker 1: and to be seen as a white country carried benefits.

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Speaker 1: And so there's one hundred percent and understandable distancing from

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Speaker 1: blackness that people have, both institutionally and just on a

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Speaker 1: personal level.

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Speaker 2: Coming up on USA, my conversation with journalists Natasha s

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Speaker 2: Alford about Puerto Rico, the census and the race question continues.

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Speaker 3: Stay with us.

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Speaker 2: Yes, hey, we're back, and we're going to jump right

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Speaker 2: back into my conversation with journalists Natasha s Alfred. I

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Speaker 2: didn't know this particular part of the history of Puerto Rico.

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Speaker 2: You said, centuries ago a policy known as gracias alsacar,

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Speaker 2: which means thank you to the taking away, Am I right.

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Speaker 1: It's almost like a favor basically, and so the Spanish

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Speaker 1: Empire gave this favor to a select group of Puerto Ricans.

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Speaker 1: You had to be considered mixed by a certain degree.

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Speaker 1: You could be too mixed, but you could ask the

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Speaker 1: favor of the crown to be reclassified as white. And

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Speaker 1: what it did was it allowed you the privileges of

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Speaker 1: a white person. So you know, and there's certain professions

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Speaker 1: that you could not hold if you were negro, right,

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Speaker 1: but being white allowed you to hold these professions, to

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Speaker 1: move about the island freely. And so they wanted the

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Speaker 1: freedom and the privilege that came with being white, and

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Speaker 1: so they could petition the empire to be reclassified and

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Speaker 1: they would have to pay. So again capitalism and money

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Speaker 1: at work, right, so you could pay to be reclassified

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Speaker 1: as white. It makes a phrase like mehorra la rasa

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Speaker 1: less surprising. That's the descendant of something like gracias al saka.

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Speaker 2: So meh la rasa in Latin America, everybody has heard that.

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Speaker 2: Everybody has heard that, and it means to better the race.

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Speaker 2: How did that erasure of blackness, as you say, the

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Speaker 2: capitalist possibility of buying yourself out of blackness? How did

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Speaker 2: it continue when the United States seized his Puerto Rico

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Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety eight.

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Speaker 1: So what you saw is first with this the census classification,

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Speaker 1: you saw a whitening happen on the census. So there

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Speaker 1: was a census that was taken in the nineteen hundreds

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Speaker 1: in which there was a significant number of the population

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Speaker 1: of residents on the island who identified as colored or mixed, right,

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Speaker 1: it was more than a quarter that identified as of color.

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Speaker 1: And then after the USC's Puerto Rico, you see this

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Speaker 1: huge spike in this jump to be white. And you

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Speaker 1: also see that the upper class, they're striking deals with

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Speaker 1: different industries in the US, they are supporting policies that

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Speaker 1: advance their class, and so then it becomes a conversation

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Speaker 1: that is about socioeconomic status and class, which is why

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Speaker 1: I think race kind of gets lost in the conversation

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Speaker 1: because we think of these things in terms of class.

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Speaker 3: But class is a substitute for race.

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Speaker 1: And so by keeping Afro Latinos Afro Puerto Ricans in

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Speaker 1: these poorer neighborhoods with fewer rights, less access to education

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Speaker 1: and social mobility, you cripple them and you create that

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Speaker 1: reality of struggle, and that struggle is what.

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Speaker 3: So many people tried to distance themselves from.

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Speaker 2: It seems like there was another part of the story

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Speaker 2: that you wanted to document, which is the story of

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Speaker 2: the activists, this group of women activists who are all

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Speaker 2: Afro Latinas, Afro Briquas, Afro Puerto Rican. Why did you

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Speaker 2: want to highlight that part of this story.

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Speaker 1: The name of this group is is Collectivole and they

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Speaker 1: are anti racists, educators, organizers, women from many different backgrounds.

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Speaker 1: But listen, they're just simply doing the work they were

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Speaker 1: on the forefront of this. They're in the communities, holding

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Speaker 1: educational sessions where they talk about African pride and re

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Speaker 1: writing narratives that paint Africa as a poor place, as

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Speaker 1: an uneducated place, as a place where nothing good came

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Speaker 1: from it. But they've joined forces with other groups as well.

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking specifically of Defend pr that's like a multi

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Speaker 1: media project that is more focused on documenting and celebrating

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Speaker 1: what's happening on the island. And so you know, I

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Speaker 1: worked with producers from that project who were my local

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Speaker 1: connects and translators. That was very intentional about working with

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Speaker 1: people on the island when I went to work on

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Speaker 1: this story. And then you have Data Salud, which is

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Speaker 1: a community based, grassroots feminist organization that's based in Puerto

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Speaker 1: Rico and they focus on young women and girls. So

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Speaker 1: all of these organizations have joined forces to support the

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Speaker 1: women of Collectivo. And yeah, they deserve to be heard.

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Speaker 1: They're often erased in other ways, and so you know,

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Speaker 1: that is why it was important to center them.

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Speaker 2: So how have they been able to create a sense

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Speaker 2: of movement with their activism?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think first and foremost just by focusing

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Speaker 1: on this, the movement comes from the controversy, honestly. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's some people who are so pissed that they're doing

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Speaker 1: this campaign and they're getting a lot of pushback. So one,

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Speaker 1: they're just bold and audacious for taking it on, but

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Speaker 1: really they're focused on media. There is a poster which

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Speaker 1: you see in the New York Times story that I publish,

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Speaker 1: and it shows a hand writing in Afro the Cendiente

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Speaker 1: on the census. So they're quite literally telling people to

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Speaker 1: if you're not going to check black, to basically take

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Speaker 1: your identity into your own hands and show the census

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Speaker 1: that they're leaving out this terminology which needs to be included.

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Speaker 1: So they have the posters, they have an entire social

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Speaker 1: media campaign, and they're going around the island and first

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Speaker 1: just educating people about what the census is and why

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Speaker 1: they should care, and then again talking about Afro Latin

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Speaker 1: X achievements. So there's this whole curriculum that celebrates famous

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Speaker 1: Afro Puerto Ricans, talks about the things that they've contributed

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Speaker 1: to society, and then they talk about Africa, the continent

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Speaker 1: and the.

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Speaker 3: History at large.

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Speaker 1: So it's really education, education and media is the way

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Speaker 1: that they are getting the word out. They said that

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Speaker 1: they did something similar after the two thousand census where

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Speaker 1: there were eighty percent that identified as white, and they

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Speaker 1: feel that it made a difference in the twenty ten census.

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Speaker 1: So now with the twenty twenty census, we'll see if

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Speaker 1: that number goes down even further.

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Speaker 2: So what happens if people are not identifying as Afro descendant?

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Speaker 2: What happens if you have what you would consider an

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Speaker 2: inaccurate census count? How does this impact the island? Like

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of empowerment in terms of identity and

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Speaker 2: the history, but what does it actually look like in

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Speaker 2: a kind of concrete way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is quite literally about policy. So the

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Speaker 1: census determines how much money is allotted for certain federal programs.

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Speaker 1: So for example, there may be a housing program based

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Speaker 1: on a certain population. But when it comes to social programs,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the activists are saying that we don't

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Speaker 1: have social programming dedicated to Afro barriquas because we're literally

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Speaker 1: not tracking them. So you can't do anything if you're

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Speaker 1: not even counting the population. One of my stories focused

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Speaker 1: on police brutality, and when I went to look for

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Speaker 1: data about arrests of Afro Puerto Ricans, I couldn't find

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Speaker 1: it because they weren't tracking race. They didn't even bother

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Speaker 1: to answer the question, and so I had to go

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Speaker 1: to a local activist group, Guilo Metro Serro, and they

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Speaker 1: were tracking every Puerto Rican that had been every citizen

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Speaker 1: that had been killed by police, and they were writing

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Speaker 1: down their background, racial identity, things like that. So if

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Speaker 1: the local groups are doing it, we need to push

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Speaker 1: for the count at the federal level because then you

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Speaker 1: can actually shape policy and you can see problems. I

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Speaker 1: want to talk about one more thing when it comes

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Speaker 1: to tracking. So racial disparities and health are huge, and

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Speaker 1: there was one group from the University of Puerto Rico

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Speaker 1: that did a study that asked people about how their

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Speaker 1: health was, but instead of using the census categories of

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Speaker 1: white and black, they asked them to list their skin color,

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Speaker 1: so they rated, you know, shades, and they basically said

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Speaker 1: pick if you're light, you know, if your medium, if

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Speaker 1: you're dark, and through asking that they were actually able

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Speaker 1: to unearth health disparities, and they found out that lighter

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Speaker 1: skin Puerto Ricans had better health outcomes than darker skin

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Speaker 1: Puerto Ricans. But it was simply asking people to list

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Speaker 1: their color instead of asking them to use census categories

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Speaker 1: of race.

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Speaker 3: That helped them to find that right. And so this

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Speaker 3: is what we mean by.

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Speaker 1: Public policy and social policy that benefits people's lives. It's

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Speaker 1: not just about being proud to be black. It's literally

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Speaker 1: about the political implications of not being counted as black

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Speaker 1: when your reality is being impacted by your race.

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Speaker 2: So you know, you're seeing your article published in the

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Speaker 2: New York Times. Potentially millions of people have read this piece.

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Speaker 1: I think the response has been overwhelmingly positive. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people reaching out saying thank you for highlighting this

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Speaker 1: in a nuanced way, you know, because it's also important

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Speaker 1: not to I didn't come at this with any judgment

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Speaker 1: per se, you know. I just wanted people stories to

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Speaker 1: be told, and I wanted the nuance to be in there.

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Speaker 1: There was someone who messaged me and she said that

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Speaker 1: while she appreciated the story, I should be careful about

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Speaker 1: portraying Puerto Rico as a black country. Then she proceeded

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Speaker 1: to tell me again the you know, kind of well

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Speaker 1: worn narrative about there were Tainos and they were Spaniards

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Speaker 1: and they were Africans, and she even gave me a

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Speaker 1: bunch of like ancestry DNA numbers. And I just thought

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Speaker 1: it was fascinating that this one person, while probably well intentioned,

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Speaker 1: insisted that I not portray Puerto Rico as a black country,

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Speaker 1: not realizing that it was never about that. It was

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Speaker 1: about black Puerto Ricans and elevating why they would or

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Speaker 1: would not pick a certain identity. And it almost proved

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Speaker 1: my point, or the point of the activists, really that

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Speaker 1: people are afraid of being seen as black in Puerto Rico,

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Speaker 1: to the point where you would go and you'd find

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Speaker 1: me on the internet let me know that Puerto Rico

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Speaker 1: is not a black country. It actually kind of proves

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Speaker 1: the point that there's some fear there and it's worth

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Speaker 1: interrogating why.

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Speaker 3: That was.

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Speaker 2: Journalist Natasha s Alfred her reporting on Afro Puerto Ricans

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Speaker 2: and the census was featured in the New York Times,

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Speaker 2: and you can find the rest of her reporting on

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Speaker 2: being black in Puerto Rico at the Pulitzer Center. She

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Speaker 2: also has a documentary about her research that's out this month.

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Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Janie Yamoca and edited by

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Speaker 2: Luis Trees. The Latino USA team includes Hiel Macias, Sophia

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Speaker 2: Palissa car Antonees Rihido, Alisa Scarce and Alejandra Salasad, with

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Speaker 2: help from Joanne Luna and Raul Beres. Our engineers are

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Speaker 2: Stephanie Lebou and Julia Caruso. Additional engineering this week by

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Speaker 2: Lia Shaw. Our director of Programming and Operations Natalia Fiedelhotz.

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Speaker 2: Our digital editor is Amandel Cantra. Our intern is Julia Rocha.

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Speaker 2: Our theme music was composed by Zeena Rubinos. If you

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Speaker 2: like the music you heard on this episode, stop by

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Speaker 2: Latinousa dot org and check out our weekly Spotify playlist.

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Speaker 2: I'm your host and executive producer Marie Josa. Join us

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Speaker 2: again next time, and in the meantime, look for us

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Speaker 2: on all of your social media. Astell Approxima Jao.

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Speaker 4: understanding and the Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the

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Speaker 4: front lines of social change worldwide.

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