Calling all Afro-LatinX poets! A new anthology
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To shed light on the Afro Latino poetry community, the Afro-Latino team at Hola Cultura talked to Maritza Rivera, coeditor of “Diaspora Café: DC AfroLatinX Poetry Anthology.” This upcoming poetry collection will “explore the intersection of Black and LatinX cultures as it pertains to lived experiences in the District of Columbia,” according to the Diaspora Café and Day Eight, the two D.C. arts and humanities organizations collaborating on the project. Day Eight, which works to “empower individuals and communities to participate in the arts through the production, publication, and promotion of creative projects,” is accepting submissions to the anthology until next Monday, April 4.
Read on to find out more about Rivera’s vibrant story and the anthology as a whole.
Today we have a very special guest, Maritza Rivera, a well-known Puerto Rican poet of Afro LatinX heritage who has lived in the DMV area since 1994. She’s here today to share with us her latest project and to discuss other topics related to the Afro-LatinX community. So, without further ado, welcome, Maritza!
Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be here with you.
Absolutely. Thank you for being here. I would like to start off by asking you to tell us about yourself.
I am a Puerto Rican poet. I’m also an Army veteran. I’ve been active in the literary community in the D.C. area since the mid-90s. It’s been a while, and I’ve seen things change over the years. But I am so thankful and grateful for the community of poets that I’ve been able to be part of.
I ran a poetry series in College Park, back in the late ’90s, early 2000s. I’ve been running a poetry retreat since 2011. I’m not counting 2020 and 2021, but in 2022, we’ll be having a retreat in Puerto Rico. I’m really excited about that particular project, because it’s where I’ve been able to build the community that started back in the ’90s with the poetry series. The community we’ve built has continued to stay alive, which is really important for poets in an area like D.C. where so many things change overnight. We’re kind of at the forefront. You hear about a lot of other poetry communities, but D.C. has a very vibrant one.
I’d like to start this conversation by asking you about the anthology and where it started.
The AfroLatinX anthology is the brainchild of Jeffrey Banks. He applied for a grant from the [D.C.] Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs. His grant was funded. We’ve known each other for a few years — from the retreat, actually. Because submissions are allowed in Spanish, I offered to translate them into English, if needed. A lot of the poetry that I write, I write both in English and I write in Spanish. I’m actually doing some literary translations currently for a well-known poet in the area. So, Jeffrey invited me to be one of the editors for the anthology. Jeffrey was kind enough to include me.
The idea for the anthology comes from the Diaspora Café, which represents the African diaspora. You know, café could be coffee or a café, a place to drink coffee. It’s kind of an intersection. The AfroLatinX anthology is an intersection of the relationship and heritage of the Black community with the Latin, LatinX or Hispanic community in the U.S. There’s a parallel in the history of African Americans in this country and Afro Latinos in this country. We share a lot. I’m hoping that this anthology brings out that intersection of experiences. Because poetry is experiential, you write about what you know and what you’ve experienced. Like Lucille Clifton, [a previous poet laureate of Maryland], once said, “Only you can tell your own story.” I’m hoping that this anthology shows the parallels or the commonalities of experiences between the African American population and the Latino population. There’s a lot of shared history.
I’d also like to hear what kind of impact you want the anthology to make on not only the D.C. community but the greater Afro LatinX community?
Well, the Afro-LatinX community has been one that hasn’t always been recognized within the culture and outside of the culture. My hope is that this anthology brings to light a lot of the struggles that the Afro LatinX community goes through and to bring recognition to some of the poets who are amazing. It’s kind of exciting to see what we are going to get in terms of submissions, who’s going to submit — that sort of thing. We have some phenomenal Afro-Latino poets — regardless of skin color — phenomenal Afro Latino poets in the D.C. area. Three people who I’m familiar with are Sami Miranda, Tatiana Ramirez and Naomi Ayala. I’m really excited to see what comes out of it. Hopefully, I’ll get the opportunity to do some literary translations if we get anything in Spanish. All of those things are exciting for me. I don’t know if it sounds geeky, but those are things I look forward to. Day Eight is another sponsor of the anthology. There are a lot of other organizations, fraternities [and] sororities that are part of it.
Who is eligible to apply and submit their poems to this anthology?
It’s pretty open, but who’s eligible? You can submit up to four poems for consideration. It’s on a rolling basis, first-come, first-serve. The deadline was moved back to April — the first week of National Poetry Month — April 4. You can check out their website. Authors of all ages are encouraged to submit, and poems written by D.C. residents are particularly welcomed, because one of the goals of the Diaspora Café is to highlight the LatinX culture in the D.C. area. All poems will be judged on their merits. The author of the poem should be a person of Afro-LatinX heritage, an African American, an African American of Hispanic origin or have affiliations to a National Panhellenic Council organization. So, anyone with relationships to these organizations can submit poetry, as well as anyone affiliated with any of the D.C. universities: Howard University, the University of the District of Columbia, George Washington, Catholic University or Georgetown. Poetry by non-D.C. residents, identifying as LatinX and highlighting intersections with Black culture, can [be submitted] if the material or the subject matter of the poem can address that intersection that I spoke of earlier. It can be submitted in English or in Spanish.
Looking at the big picture, what do you want readers to take away from this anthology collection?
A better understanding. My aunt, who turned 96 in March, tells a story about when she first came to the U.S. [mainland] from Puerto Rico with other Puerto Ricans. Once she arrived in the U.S. and had to take a train to New York, where the majority of Puerto Ricans came back in the ’40s and ’50s, she didn’t have any money. She didn’t have any food with her. The people who opened their arms to her and basically fed her were African Americans. Because of her race — she’s Black or Afro Latina — she was welcomed by Black people. And on that same trip, she was rejected by Latinos who were lighter-skinned. She has such amazing, amazing stories.
So, one of the things that I hope is that there is a better understanding of shared experiences. I also hope that there’s a better understanding of the Latino or the LatinX experience, especially for Afro Latinos. I write a lot about this in my poetry. I honor my ancestors by sharing their stories. I talk about the tattoos that I wear in their honor.
I had a unique experience of being part of a group of writers who went to Brazil and saw all of our ancestry and the place where members of these amazing tribes who were princes and princesses [and] were brought to, a place called Mercado Modelo, in Bahia, Brazil. Standing there and feeling that energy still makes my hair stand up when I think about it. So, finding out that my great-great-grandfather came to Puerto Rico from Brazil, it was like, “Oh my gosh, I have ancestry here.” It crosses a lot of borders and a lot of boundaries. I want to share that understanding of the Latino population, where we come from and all of the different people we represent.
There are about 26 different Spanish-speaking countries and the majority of them have indigenous roots. I’d like to explain why Spanish is different in the different countries because all of the Spanish that is spoken in the different countries has indigenous words in it. I’ve said things that I thought were Spanish, and someone else who speaks Spanish has no clue what I’ve said because it’s an indigenous word. It happens back and forth all the time. Of course, we use the generic Spanish, but we understand that all of these different countries and native people were conquered by the Spanish, a lot of times by force. That makes their history tremendously rich.
The history of Puerto Rico is very, very unique. In one of my poems, I write about our ancestry and our heritage as being a braid, of the indigenous people, of the Europeans, of the Spanish and of the African people. I call it a braid, because if you take any part of that braid apart, you’re no longer Puerto Rican. That’s something I’m very proud of. Even though my kids were born here, [if] you ask them what their heritage is, they will say Puerto Rican. Their pride in their culture and their heritage, language, food, music, all of those things are shared across all different people. You have heritage, you have culture, you have food, you have music and all of those things are prideful. I guess that’s part of what excites me about this anthology, sharing that pride across the different cultures and races of Afro-LatinX people. Hopefully, we’ll read a lot. I want to be blown away by what I read.
I also wanted to mention the language aspect. That’s actually something we had researched a little bit. Indigenous words within the Spanish language are so important and foundational to the language as a whole. I’d love to close out with you giving a message to the writers out there to get them inspired and excited to write.
I’ll go back to the quote from Lucille Clifton, only you can tell your story. That’s what we’re hoping to get from the people who submit to the AfroLatinX anthology: your point of view, your own experiences. I’m expecting to be wowed because it’s time to give voice and space to a wide range of experiences. From an Afro-centric point of view. That’s what I’m hoping for.
Thank you so much for speaking to us.
It was my pleasure.
To submit your poetry for consideration in the anthology, please use the link below. For further questions, feel free to email Jeffrey E. Banks at JeffreyEBanks@gmail.com.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
—By SPEL’s Afro-Latino Experience story team members Ramona Santana, Rosalyn Lake Montero, Lizzett Garcia and Sahara Ukaegbu, based on the interview conducted by Sahara Ukaegbu
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