Gabriella Blanco/ Staff Writer
On March 4, Hollywood gathered for the 90th Academy Awards, praising films and their creators for their accomplishments last year. As some of the biggest awards of the night went to films about or by Latin Americans — Pixar’s “Coco” and “The Shape of Water.”
But the highlight for me came when Jordan Peele won Best Original Screenplay. It’s not just because I liked “Get Out.” Peele is the first black person to take home the award in the entire history of the Oscars and just the fourth to ever be nominated.
That brought tears to my eyes — it made me want to cheer and scream the way Peele’s best friend and longtime collaborator, Keegan-Michael Key, did in photos released later that night.
But as the night went on and my friends beamed when they saw “Coco,” “The Shape of Water,” and Guillermo Del Toro take home awards, I found myself content, but not ecstatic.
I first thought it was the high of Peele’s win distracting me, but I now know why I felt this way.
I frowned when my friends and I saw “Black Panther” and the first thing my best friend said to me was, “Okay, but now we need a Latino version of this.”
I didn’t understand why he said this, considering that Afro-Latinxs exist and are able to see themselves in each character of the movie. In fact, the characters in “Black Panther” look more like Afro-Latinxs than what can be found in most mainstream Latinx media. Because of this, I would be more empathetic to his comment if it wasn’t so tone deaf.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a Latinx superhero at the same level as big name ones like T’Challa. But there is something wrong when you say that a black superhero isn’t good enough right in the middle of such a big cultural moment.
People continuously forget that Afro-Latinxs exist, and it hurts when people like me continue to feel like we must always relate to a community that is not just unapologetically anti-black at times, but straight up ignorant.
People who are white say they aren’t white because they’re Colombian or Puerto Rican, but don’t hesitate to assume and point out that I’m purely black.
Latinx isn’t a race, it’s an ethnicity. It’s time to stop treating it like a race unless we are going to accept all forms of it, especially Afro-Latinx.
If people want to rub my blackness in my face then invalidate my Latinidad until I tell them my last name or say a few words in Spanish. I should be allowed to relish in the black excellence the world surrounds me.
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Photo by Julien Andrieux on Unsplash.
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