Viajes Personales

Ayana Vellissia Jackson

Marco Villalobos

Considering U.S. based Afro-Latino contributions to the American cultural mosaic, Viajes Personales looks beyond music, dance, gastronomy, and sports, presenting community activism as a major cultural contribution of Afro-Latinos to U.S. American culture.

Based on interviews with Afrodescendants of Mexican, Colombian, Cuban, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Panamanian, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan heritage, Viajes Personales reflects the complexities of a shared past while offering a view into how Afro-Latinos within the U.S. are meeting challenges through participation in systems of work and communal support. By presenting a broadening view of this sector of the Afro-Latino population we hope to reveal practical and positive options in overcoming adversity while recognizing the interlocked nature of communities that transcend nations and hemispheres.

Emphasizing the establishment of Afro-Latinos within the U.S. American cultural mosaic highlights organic relationships that contribute to the formation of absorbent, tolerant multiethnic nations. Such recognition provides access to useful intersections between Afro-Descendants in the United States and Latin America. 

By tracing the formation of western hemispheric Afro-Latino roots and celebrating the contributions these communities have made to U.S. American society in particular, photographer Ayana Vellissia Jackson and writer Marco Villalobos help us recognize a more contemporary image of our ever-changing global community.