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By: Charlene Muhammad
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES – Juanita Palacios-Sims, founder and president of the International Society of Black Latinos (ISBL), is also co-chair of Stop the Hate in Los Angeles. She works through both to focus on unity and combat negativity.
Invisibility is part of the challenge they face, not being Latino or Black enough in America, according to Palacios-Sims, of Cuban and Colombian descent. “It was like, we’re here in the center, and now it’s like, we’re the bridge between the two,” she stated.
When she started ISBL 14 years ago, even Afro Latinas did not want to identify as such, she recalled. She desired to create ISBL to embrace the diaspora and bring awareness of their particular culture.
Proudly, she says that since inception, her organization has brought awareness of the Afro Latino, through educating and uniting communities about their existence and imprint on society as Latinos.
It hosts discussions at schools and businesses, especially junior high school, high schools and universities, about how Afro Latinos came to be, their arrival through the enslavement of African people, and being dropped off in Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, the U.S. and Mexico, she mentioned.
In addition, ISBL teaches Black and Latino youth, to diffuse hate and so-called gang fights violence on street levels, which once spilled heavily into schools, said Palacios-Sims.
Once, she and another ISBL member, a psychotherapist, teamed several youth into groups and dialogued about what each disliked most about the other. Both cited a litany of derogatory, stereotypical names, and from there were able to grasp an understanding of how the others felt.
Such first steps provide gateways to education about commonalities rather than differences, according to Palacios-Sims. For example, Mexico was one of the only countries historically that allowed enslaved people to marry I Indigenous — Mestizos, to marry Mexicans, she noted.
It was also the first Latin American country that had a Black and Indigenous – Afro Mexican president – Vicente Carrera.
ISBL also teaches youth, both Latino and African American, about the myriad of foods that come from the Motherland, such as grains, tamales and for example, Yucca root (Cassava root), which is a popular in Central and South America, the Caribbean and parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
“We teach the kids about the culture and the foods and the music and the dance. In Mexico, they do a dance called Jalisco Tapatio, which originated in Africa. So there’s a lot of commonalities, and that’s what we teach, and that’s how they learn about everything, a lot of things that we have in common, more than not in common,” stated Palacios-Sims.
ISBL’s Stop Hate efforts have gone great, she said, because it has partnered with the African diaspora. People from different African countries are a part of the organization, which extends to others, to find out and understand their likes and dislikes.
“Get to know people. Say hello to people with an accent, or somebody that you think is from somewhere else, because you don’t have to travel the world to get to know the world. You’re right here. And you can get to learn about a person, whether they’re Asian descent, Latin descent, African descent, Indian, whatever,” suggested Palacios-Simms.
“You’ll get to learn about them by just saying hello and asking, ‘I detect an accent, where are you from?’ And you’ll be surprised how that opens up a conversation and even maybe a friendship,” she added.
