Hey, {{first_name | Fam}}!

I'm just a girl sending an email to remind everyone that Latino is not a race.

Recently, I was thinking about an Afro-Latina I met last year. Well, I call her Afro-Latina because that's what I saw: a Black Latina. And the way she threw around the N-word, I was like “Ain’t no way she doesn’t identify as Black and is so comfortable with that word in the year of our Lord 2026.” But you know what they say about assuming.

One night we went out, and I brought up a mutual acquaintance who also looked like an obviously Black Latino. I asked her, "Is he Afro-Latino?"

She said, "What's that?"

I internally "oop"-ed the most dramatic oop, summoned from the depths of my negro soul, because how is it that this N-word-slinging, biracial-looking woman doesn't know what an Afro-Latino is? So I gave her the benefit of the doubt: "Like, is he a Black Latino?"

She said: "No, he's not Black. He's Dominican."

I wanted to snatch the N-word right out of her vocabulary, but I ended the conversation there before she told me some nonsense like “In my country, we don’t see race. We are one people.”

Because it’s always “we don’t see race” until it’s time to decide who gets resources, access, and opportunity.

Thoughtfully,

Nicole