Document Type
Research Report
Publication Date
12-2020
Abstract
Afro-Latinx communities are critical stakeholders in Black and Latinx demographic groups, and they also make up a critical fabric of Boston, Massachusetts and the United States politically, economically and culturally. The Afro-Latinx experience sheds light on the critical intersections of race, ethnicity, culture, economics, gender, and class in not only America, but in Afro-Latinx Diasporas across the Americas and the world. Afro-Latinx individuals and institutions often face racism within broader Latinx communities and White America and are often stigmatized by their non-Latino Black counterparts. At the same time, there is a strong tradition of Afro-Latinx political advocacy, cross cultural movements and community organizing that has generated solidarity amongst Black and Brown communities across the United States.
Afro-Latinx communities suffer from invisibility, misrepresentations, marginalization, and racism from the broader society. As such, research driven reports like the current one, Latinos in Massachusetts: Black and Afro-Latinos, produced by the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, allow us to generate fuller pictures of the dynamics of Afro-Latinx life in the Greater Boston area. The report spans critical indicators such as population demographics, nativity, marital status, labor, education, economics, medical insurance, offering key insight into the impact of these dynamics. Readers of the report will be able to make their own analyses, but a number of striking details stand out on their own. Seventy five percent of the 53,784 Afro-Latinos in Massachusetts are Afro-Dominican or Afro Puerto Rican, comprising some five percent of the state’s Latino population. This is a growing population, which has increased some 57% since 2009. As these numbers increase, the significance of Afro-Latinx communities also grows.
Recommended Citation
Mattos, Trevor; Granberry, Phillip; and Swan, Quito, "Latinos in Massachusetts: Afro-Latinos" (2020). Gastón Institute Publications. 262.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/gaston_pubs/262
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Latina/o Studies Commons, Public Policy Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons