Selected Writings

How The Caste System Shaped Racial Inequality in Latin America

Collaboration with R29 Somos, edited by Raquel Reichard What is Latin America's colonial caste system? In colonial Latin America, Spanish...

Opinion: J Balvin is the new face of an old tradition: Black erasure in music

J Balvin has been named the Afro-Latino Artist of the Year. If you are confused by that sentence, you haven’t been paying attention to...

Opinion: ‘In the Heights’ is just more of the same whitewashed Hollywood

Julissa Contreras is a Dominican writer, poet, actor and creator of the “Ladies Who Bronché” podcast. Dash Harris Machado is co-founder...

No, I'm Not a 'Proud Latina'

Dash Harris Machado is the co-founder of AfroLatino Travel, an organization that facilitates trips focused on centering Latin America’s...

The Afro-Peruvian Women Leading the Black Movement in South America

Get to know five women who have become the leading voices of the Afro-Peruvian movement. The image of a smiling Black woman, complete...

African Spirituality Does Not Assimilate

“Folks will come to understand that traditional African spiritual thought has been as central to our radical movements as it is generally...

Activists Across Latin America Are Marching in Solidarity With 'Black Lives Matter' Protests in the

From Panama, Colombia, Brazil, and El Salvador to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico, here's how Afro-Latino activists are uniting in...

A Husband is Not Enough

Immigration is an expensive, humiliating, idle, process of waiting in vain. Dehumanizes you by demanding perfection on the first attempt....

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CASTE: Origins of the Color Complex in Latin America

50 Shades of Black - The Latin American Casta system “Casta” is Spanish for caste and the “casta paintings” existed in colonial Latin...