On this episode, we are joined by Dra. Arielle Akines to discuss Afro-Latinidad in Latin America and the US. We ask the question, “How do we elevate blackness without essentializing it? How do we elevate the African heritage of Hispanics?”

Me Gritaron Negra poem by Victoria Santa Cruz (Serie Mistura de Ritmos: Mistura Afro-Peruana, Vol. 3; 2011 Music MGP)

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About Dra. Arielle Akines

Dra. Arielle Akines first began learning Spanish in the third grade. She has over ten years of experience teaching and tutoring Spanish at the graduate, undergraduate, and elementary school levels. Her background includes working in university language centers, working as an expert linguist researcher for Fortune 500 companies, and as a reading specialist for bilingual elementary students. She has lived in Málaga, Spain and completed her doctoral research on Afro-Latinos in Bogotá, Colombia. She was selected as a 2016 Smithsonian Museum Latino Center Fellow, to research language taxonomies and entity identification.