It is not only the color of the skin but also the accent in his voice what it exhibits to the persons of African and Latin origin to a double discrimination.

The Month of the Black History it has been observed in the United States from 1926, and this year has taken a new meaning when the country celebrates the historical election of the first African American president. Till now the celebrations of the Month of the Black History have focused in persons and facts that have had a significant impact in the history of our country.

But a sub-group exists inside the black population that is not sure if the commemoration includes them also. Black or African - Latin Latin Americans, a double minority. It is not exactly an identity crisis but he says very much about how the persons perceive themselves and of the factors that they bear in mind for his identity.

Carmen, a black, born Dominican hairdresser in Santo Domingo and raised in New York and Miami, says that she is considered to be Hispanic. “Hate when I have to choose between black or Hispanic”, he says. “My race is the human race”, he adds. He is sorry that one day his daughters returned crying of the school because Hispanic children called them black women.

During the census of the year 2000 there were counted almost a million blacks of Latin origin. Of the Latin Americans in the United States that identify themselves as black, 28 per cent live in New York. They come in most cases from Caribbean countries, including to Puerto Rico, the Associate Free State of the United States, where the African roots are deep and date of the XVth century.

According to the historians, European invaders in the Caribbean Sea annihilated virtually the indigenous groups who lived in some of the islands and replaced them with African slaves to fulfill his needs for work. That's why Caribbean many have a natives' miscellany, African, European and sometimes Asian influence. It becomes clear in his feeding, religion and music, but also in the color of the skin.

In accordance with a report on the race of the year 2003 of the Inter-American Dialogue, the country with the biggest percentage of persons with African ancestry is a Dominican Republic, with 84 per cent. It is continued by Cuba, with 62 per cent; Brazil, with 45 per cent; Colombia, with 26 per cent; Panama, with 14 per cent, and in Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru, less than 10 per cent of the population have African roots.

For being a multiethnic, multiracial and multicultural society, it is common that in the United States the information splits into sub-groups. So when the option happens is identified himself as black or like Hispanic, many black Latin Americans prefer to say that they are Hispanic. But that does not make it easier.

It is not only the color of the skin but also the accent in his voice what it exhibits to these persons to a double discrimination. Since African - Latin they are subject to resentment on the part of some blacks, who claim to them that they deny his African origin. And while the black Hispanics are in an advantage on the white Hispanics as for education opportunities, his economic levels are worse and the unemployment is at higher levels.

But if there is something that joins the Latin Americans – the margin of the color of his skin - and is the language. Angie, he married a born black man in the United States but of Dominican ancestry, which does not speak Spanish. She says that to the beginning it was not identified by the family of his husband because of the barrier of the language.

For Carmen it was a mitigation seeing that in the school of his daughters there was a distinction between ethnic origin and race to identify the children, what was allowing them to be Negras and Hispanic. Fortunately, now they can celebrate both the Month of the Black History and the Month of the Hispanic Heredity.

(c) 2008 by Maria Helen Salinas.