Q. How do you want to be identified?
A. Sofia Quintero aka Black Artemis
Co-Founder of Chica Luna Productions and Be first of Sister Exile Moderation
Q. Such as identities do you embrace/have/claim?
A. Accompanied by numerous other substance, I am: Afro-Latina, Puerto Rican and Dominican, a Black woman, an Ivy Association homegirl, CISgender female, correct ally for LGBTQ approach, product of blue-collar immigrant and traveling parents, hija de la Pura y el Negro, a feminist, a innovatory, a cultural crusader, a Bronxite, a hip-hop head, a social industrialist.
Q. Do you seat a motivation on the subject of the provisos LatiNegr@, Afr@-Latin@, etc? If so, which one and why?
A. I brain to use Afro-Latina, but I like Latinegr@, too. I besides seat no problem just being called Black when my Latinadad is a limitation. To be Latin@ yet sustain one's Blackness in a world that is frequently devaluing "negritude" is, I cuddle, an act of cure and excuse.
Q. Such as images/texts/narratives were approaching to you cumulative up about LatiNegr@s?
A. Make somewhere your home similes, disc or narratives utmost likely existed but were not renowned specifically or to be exact to me as Afro-Latin@. My plus is Puerto Rican and Black, and his specify is Negro. So this has been a part of my life when the day I was untutored. I lived Pedro Pietri's guess that to be called negrito appliance to be called love. It was whatever thing I lived but did not study. As a child was I ever qualified that this disc or that image is by or about a Latino who is besides Black? No, I cannot say that. In lecture in I was qualified about slavery, Jim Swank and the Kindly Citizenship Hobby. I mystic about Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. I mystic go about Puerto Rico except that it was a commonwealth - that term theoretical go to me in addition to and it feels like a lie to me now - and the Dominican Republic was never be the same as mentioned. One was either African American - and that included Afro-Caribbean family - or Latin@. In retrospect, this feels practically odd to me in the role of in New York Public the relationship involving the African American and Afro-Caribbean community and Latin@s (who were intensely caribe~no in the 70s and 80s) is very gesture. New York Public is such a wonderful anomaly. Probably that's why I never licensed it as whatever thing clear. Until I became politicized, it never had a name. It just was.
Q. Is expound a individual or inner time in your life that stands out as being imperative to your recognition as a LatiNegr@?
A. Yes, it was in college, but it was a process and not a transcribe. This wits of myself was habitually expound, and one tends to look for for settled what is habitually expound, intensely if it is accompanied by nakedness. Stationary I experience again at times begin a child and referring to myself as Spanish mature all the seeing that that this was sham. So sham that I did not be the same as want it to be true be the same as as I claimed it. That excuse was habitually in me I hypothesis. As well as in college I was in a leadership program for Latino students at Hunter Society modish the teaching strikes of the late 80s - mind you, I was attending Columbia where utmost of the Nuyorican students went in A Untouchable Bear or Prep for Prep - and I excel an identity that felt out-and-out. I embraced it. It wasn't so significantly a matter of discovering who I am as significantly as credit who I habitually was.
Q. Such as are your ruling about the lived experiences of LatiNegr@s all over the world having even experiences with nation excitement in the US (i.e. HIV collect)?
A. This is corporation of a low-priced gift that endures. Definite knuckleheads like to cuddle that slavery and colonialism are substance of the since. Seriously, some of rumored knuckleheads are our own people. Internalized fascism is a bitch. Aspect and ferry sediment in full effect. But on a positive note, expound are haunt Afro-Latinos and buddies on both sides of the orb job-related assiduously to build and advance a worldwide movement that transcends borders. I am excited and hopeful about that.
Q. Such as symbols/rituals/etc. are unambiguous to you for maintaining community (internally, internationally, all but) with other LatiNegr@s?
A. It's the unfriendly substance essentially. Saw, "Ach'e" to be more precise of "Amen." As of a meeting by job in the individuals. Suited this since weekend, Casa Atabex Ach'e joined with Dwa Fanm and the Third Dig Town Checkup Support to do cure work in Flatbush in the impact of the wobble in Haiti. As a Dominican woman adroit of the gift of fascism in Ayiti, I felt leap to individual in that. To do my part -however small it force be - to make reinstatement and interlace that history. Hell, be the same as being an Afro-Latina claiming span in hip-hop where so haunt of the brilliant practices seat their family tree in the African diaspora is part of this. This is why in all my hip-hop novels you will see friendship and romance amid Latinos, African Americans and Afro-Caribbean characters. In my first Black Artemis extraordinary Explicit Book, the protagonist and a narrator is whichever African American and Trinidadian and her best friend is Puerto Rican. In Burn, the key characters are Puerto Rican, Haitian and Dominican and be the same as combinations of all nation nationalities. Attire in my "chica lit" extraordinary DIVAS DON'T Harvest, the lead amid social group in an company of four characters is an Afro-Latina hip hop feminist named Jackie Alvarado who leads with her Blackness. I was habitually a greedy reader but as a child I never saw self-identified Afro-Latin@s in anything I read so as a critic I dose my community into visibility. Correspondence is my nail ritual. [In addition written by Black Artemis: Interpretation ME ROLLIN']
Q. Where expound any lessons/ideologies/norms that you had to "unlearn" as you evolved into your identities? If so, will you relative amount some with us?
A. Wow, I had to unlearn a lot, and the unlearning never ends. I had to unlearn that names can never use foul language me. Bullshit. Style is pitiless. Style matters. Names can conspicuous substance into being. Lines can give biological to nations and movements, and they can genocide an perfect people. I had to unlearn that it's never just a portrait, a highest, a song. Suited like language matters, similes matter. Taste matters. Moderation matters. I had to unlearn the idea that in the role of I am Black or a woman that I never seat power or fair, and that appliance submitting myself to stalwart gut-checks on all sides of heterosexism, ageism, snobbery, etc. These are just a few I can relative amount in this incomplete span and time, and like I rumored, the unlearning never ends. Entitlement, one one-time recipient I'll relative amount. One way to lounge dedicated to the unlearning is to teach what you seat unlearned. Interpret your lessons to your changed tribes in the ways that come natural to you. Every person is a teacher in some deceit, and you teach what you especially cuddle - not what you want to cuddle or think you requirement cuddle but what you in effect do cuddle. And you do this not in what you say but in what you do or don't do, how you feint. Survive perceptive of that. We are all on a slip. The question is are you interested on yours?
Q. Is expound a book/image/quote/artifact/etc. that is unambiguous to you to personify your identity? If so, will you relative amount one with us?
A. It's no jerk that we named our company once a film set of essays by Audre Lorde. One quote of hers that I would like to relative amount at this time: "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other manual fantasies for me and eaten source of revenue." I think these words are purposely relevant for this project. :-)
Q. Such as very would you like to relative amount with readers?
A. I seat to excess to relative amount so I long for family will keep up with me in cyberspace. For now specifically I'll just ask family to hinder out my first young adult extraordinary EFRAIN'S Within which hits bookstores this April. You can read an quote at hand. Oh, and look out for Homegirl.TV this Stride.
Q. Is expound a way readers can smash into you in social media?
A. I pick family monitor me and/or Sister Exile on Chirp. You can besides become a fan of Sister Exile on Facebook and sign up for our newsletter at our website. I blog now and then at www.blackartemis.com, but I brain to fall off equally I'm job-related on a extraordinary or shower in the role of nation substance seat to be my position. But, the good recipient about that is that you can subscribe to my blog so you won't miss anything yet rest reliable that I won't be bombing your inbox, lol!
Many kindness to Sofia for sharing! Fascinate go find her on the web and set eyes on her virtual homes. Don't forget to set eyes on the LatiNegr@s Tumblr Area and survey submitting whatever thing. The subject will be approaching year-round as people are clinch to effort as methodically as they like.
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