x Preface
lighter-skinned blacks as “white”—it was a way to boost the idea that there
was a large white population on the island. But my abuelo, Teodoro, never
accepted that. Although his family was treated better when they identified
as Puerto Rican whites, Teodoro refused that lie about his family. They
knew who they were, knew their heritage. But here in the States, they would
have to reinforce that choice; they had to choose a racial allegiance based
on their ethnic heritage. Teodoro accepted his life as that of a black man in
the United States.
I was raised with a strong sense of pride in being of African American
and Afro–Puerto Rican descent. It was such a shock to me as I grew up to
encounter people who did not feel this same way about their African line-
age. Or to meet Hispanics—Puerto Ricans in particular—who wanted me
to prove my heritage because I did not fit into their image of what a Puerto
Rican should look like. If my hair wasn’t slightly curly, and my skin wasn’t
a cream-based brown, how could I claim Puerto Rican heritage?
When I first started working as a journalist, I tried to balance the U.S.
society–defined difference between Latinos and African Americans. I
would write for black media about African Americans and I would write
for Hispanic media about Latinos. But at some point the stories became so
compelling that there was a need for each group to know these stories—
and it was then that I realized that most blacks and Hispanics did not want
their media to be separated. They lived and worked and often socialized
jointly, so they wanted to have that sense of connectedness even in their
media.
Part of the reason for writing this book is to use it as a platform for pre-
senting a way of life that many people grew up with, but which to this very
day remains unrecognized. The predominant myth about people of African
descent in the United States is that we grew up deprived and ashamed of
being black. There is the idea that black people and Hispanic people intrin-
sically don’t like each other. I—and many people I have interviewed—have
never entertained this view. We are part of a world were being black and
being brown are one in the same—and both are blessings.
