When asked to identify her race on applications, Weinberg freshman Zahra Ohldin, always marks “other.”
Ohldin, of Native American, African American and Swedish descent, gathered with about 25 other students Tuesday evening to discuss the issue of racial and ethnic identification in America.
Led by African American and Latino studies Professor John Márquez, the students talked about their personal experiences and perspectives in a intimate setting in the Dittmar Memorial Gallery in Norris University Center.
“This is not just an Afro-Latino crisis,” Márquez said. “This is an American crisis. We don’t have a crisis of black Latinos, we have a crisis of everybody.”
The event, titled “Identity Crisis of Black-Latinos,” was hosted by the Office of Hispanic/Latino Student Affairs and Sigma Lambda Gamma, one of two Latina-specific sororities on campus, as a contribution to Black History Month on behalf the NU Latino community, said Weinberg sophomore Dulce Acosta-Licea, an intern in the Hispanic/Latino Student Affairs office.
To kick off the discussion, students were asked to identify the race of several Latino, African American and multiracial celebrities. When Sen. Barack Obama’s picture appeared on the screen, the room reacted to the commotion surrounding the racial identification of the presidential candidate.
“Hillary Clinton can just say, ‘I am an American,’ and the questioning stops there,” Márquez said. “(For Obama), we have to ask how black he is, what percentage black he is. There are rigid racial categories. You can’t encompass both. If he were to pick white, he’d be neglecting his black heritage.”
Márquez, who is of Afro-Latino descent himself, spoke of the ambiguity and overlapping nature of racial and ethnic identification, much of which is socially constructed, he said.
“We have all kinds of schisms and differences,” he said. “Those differences make a difference for different people in a different way. It’s a sloppy business we have going on. We have black, we have Latino, we have biracial.”
Bradley University junior Fabiola Robles drove for almost three hours from Peoria, Ill. to attend the event. As a member of the Sigma Lambda Gamma chapter at Bradley, Robles said that at her school, very few multicultural groups exist because of a lack of funding and support from the university.
“It’s nice to see the diversity at a university this big,” she said.
Communication freshman Marcus Shepard, president of the African American Freshman Advisory Board attended the event to learn more about perspectives on the topic of racial identity.
Shepard, of both African American and Hispanic descent, said he associates more as an African American.
“I identify more with African Americans because I’ve been more accepted into the African American culture,” he said. “I’ve learned that when we categorize who we are, there is no definitive answer.”
Acosta-Licea, along with the sorority and other members of Hispanic/Latino Student Affairs, began planning the event at the beginning of the school year last quarter. The discussion idea branched off the larger Hispanic/Latino Student Affairs Culture Fest held annually.
During the hour-long discussion, Márquez and students talked about the issue of racial identity on campus and the need for awareness, not just during Black History Month but all year long.
“We have Latino-studies programs, we have an African American studies department,” he said. “But it’s still miniscule compared to the type of learning we have to do.”
