“Who are you?” was the question I was asked most often growing up. Decades ago, most people in California only thought of Mexican when they thought of Latinos, and my curly hair, olive skin, dark eyes, and African-American features didn’t fit that description. Was I just a light-skinned black girl? Maybe. Basically, no one knew what Puerto Ricans were back then, and to be honest, neither did I.
As a child, I was an avid reader, devouring books by Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, and Roald Dahl. Though I loved these authors and their stories, I just couldn’t identify with characters like Deanie, Ramona, and James (though I do love peaches). Then, twenty-odd years later, after returning to my Nuyorican roots and later becoming a mother, I realized that the literary world hadn’t changed much. Most of the children’s books I sought out for my kids were predominantly white, with the exception of the occasional adorable animal, like Olivia the pig.
As a writer, I wanted to change that.
When I think of a story, I usually start with a “what if” question. So after my son became fascinated with the world of Hogwarts, I asked myself, “What if Harry Potter was Latino?” That was the catalyst for my middle grade novel, “Salsa Magic.” The main character, Maya Beatriz Calderon Montenegro, is Afro-Latina and Mexican, the two cultures I experienced as a child in San Diego and as an adult in New York. She is everything I wanted to be as a child: spunky, sweet, confident, precocious, and sassy. She comes from a loud, loving Latino family that runs a bustling cafe, and many of her characters are inspired by my countless cousins, cousins, and great-cousins in New York.
I wanted to create characters that young Latinos could identify with and look up to, and for non-Latinos to learn about a rich and diverse culture that is different from their own, but that also contains things they can relate to, like the universal connection to family and the beautiful mess that comes with it.
Afro-Latinos are a category all their own, making up 12% of the Latino population. In fact, the Office of Management and Budget recently made changes to how all federal agencies collect race and ethnicity data, aiming to make it easier for groups like Afro-Latinos to report their race and Hispanic/Latino ethnicity. Our identity is unique because of our roots. After “discovering” the Caribbean islands (which had been inhabited for 4,000 years before that), Spanish colonists destroyed the native Taino people and brought slaves from Africa to work the land and bring the wealth back to Spain. This was known as the triangular trade system. So Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are a mix of Spanish, Taino, and African blood (to varying degrees). This mix has a not-so-silent caste system, where lighter skinned people are respected and darker skinned people are considered disadvantaged. Salsa Magic purposefully depicts a variety of skin tones, from café con leche to trigueño (wheat), showcasing the diversity of Afro-Latinx, even within families. It also depicts a range of body types, from bien mujer (feminine) to bien gordita (curvy) to flaca (skinny). It also touches upon a variety of hair textures, including loose curls, tight curls, afros, braids, and blowouts. These are all part of the diaspora, showing that Latinxs are never monolithic.
When talking about racial and cultural representation in children’s books, publishers and educators need to know that to be effective and meaningful in learning to read, reading must have authentic experiences that children can relate to. It’s a powerful statement and emotion for a child to say, “That’s just how my grandma was!” or “I love platanos, too!” And I’ve seen this effect firsthand. During one school visit, the only Latina girl in a black girls’ elementary school lit up as I read aloud to her, as if I was speaking only to her. And the black girls were so excited when it came time to salsa dance to a tune based on an African beat called El Clave. I learned as much from the girls as they learned from me, because representation isn’t just about how you look, it’s also about how you act.
