The Experience of Blackness Amongst Second Generation Puerto Rican and Dominican Youths in New York City
Abstract
Notions of racial difference filtered into my consciousness at an early age. I was raised in a Puerto Rican household in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. Growing up in such a highly populated enclave of Puerto Ricans provided me with constant messages about my identity, which ultimately made it easy for me to acknowledge that I was Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Latino'. My childhood reveals a complex dichotomy of race and ethnicity, largely due to aspects of my physical appearance, namely my dark skin and certain features commonly seen in those of an African origin. Though a fair degree of misinterpretation by outsiders is quite understandable based on such physical features, it was surprisingly those closest to me who viewed me through a singular lens; only seen in the context of my Latino neighborhood, I was never told that I was Black. I was frequently met with multiple confrontations by people who questioned my ethnicity.Refusing to believe I was Latino unless I could offer up some legitimate proof, I would often find myself forced into conversations held in Spanish, despite my linguistic abilities being far from fluent.
Subject Area
Sociology
Recommended Citation
Kennedy, Ruben, "The Experience of Blackness Amongst Second Generation Puerto Rican and Dominican Youths in New York City" (2011). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI13853119.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI13853119
