Filmmaker Magdalena Albizu Explores Afro-Latina Identity In Debut Documentary, ‘NEGRITA’
‘NEGRITA’ poster, courtesy of NubianLatina Productions
On a frigid March evening, Magdalena Albizu’s debut documentary NEGRITA packed out the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. Even at capacity (with an eager audience both seated and standing), a sizable line remained outside with attendees hoping to get inside to view the 50-minute film.
“It was beyond my wildest dreams being able to get there,” says Albizu, owner of NubianLatina Productions, the production house behind this project. “And then just the amount of people that showed up for me. It’s amazing.”
“The documentary places anti-Black racism, colorism, texturism, and gender roles on display in hopes of sparking deeper conversations. ”
The screening, which the performing arts center featured as part of its “Beats, Rhymes & Sights” series, signifies a pivotal moment for her—a reflection of the documentary’s roughly 14-year journey and continuum of the discourse on Afro-Latina identity. Through person-on-the-street and sit-down interviews, as well as candid reflections and conversations with Albizu’s immediate family, NEGRITA uses the racial descriptor as an entry point to discuss the lasting effects of colonialism in Latin America, the Caribbean, and its diasporas. The documentary places anti-Black racism, colorism, texturism, and gender roles on display in hopes of sparking deeper conversations.
NEGRITA opens at the 2013 National Puerto Rican Day Parade, an annual New York City event celebrating Puerto Rican culture, history, and identity on the second Sunday in June. When asked to define the term “negrita,” parade-goers of all ages share a range of responses; some refer to it as a term of endearment when used in personal relationships, primarily romantic and familial, while others hint at it being a derogatory word.
Tamika B. Photo by Donavan Lambert
Magdalena Albnizu. Photo by Eddie Bailey
Albizu asks a young woman, “Does somebody in your family call you negrita?” She responds, directly, “Everybody.” Later, when asked why she gets called negrita, she adds, “I think it’s ‘cause the color. You’re, like, darker than some Puerto Ricans.” A pre-teen girl says something similar, noting that her grandmother calls her negrita because she’s “kind of darker than her.” A toddler—possibly a younger sister, also negrita—is in the frame. A visual reminder of the intergenerational impact of colonization and, more specifically, racism and its cousin, colorism.
At the 2013 Afro-Latino Festival of New York, the writer, director, and producer also surveyed the term among Black Latinxs, including Guesnerth Josué Perea, executive director of the afrolatin@ forum; Melissa M. Valle, an assistant professor in the Sociology and Anthropology and African American and African Studies departments at Rutgers University-Newark; and Black Latina Movement founder Crystal Shaniece Roman. With Flatbush, Brooklyn—a neighborhood nestled within Little Caribbean—in the background, they each highlight the belittling nature of negrita.
Tanya Katerí Hernández, who Albizu credits in the documentary, unpacked Negra and negrita in a 2020 San Diego Union-Tribune column addressing Jennifer Lopez’s use of negrita in the song “Lonely.” “Negrita/negrito is a linguistic move that infantilizes, that aims to make a person small as a way to render them less threatening, less powerful, thereby, allowing the speaker to produce a friendly and child-like individual,” says the author and Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. “Even today, ‘Negro/Negra’ is understood by some as a negative or derogatory term. This is, in part, because ‘Negro’ was, and still is, closely associated with enslavement. In many places throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, it is believed that to be called ‘Negro/Negra’ is to be called a slave.”
With race determining one’s access to education, employment opportunities, housing, and overall quality of life, negrita can be a way to remind a woman or girl of her social status. The reality is codified as evident in the casta’s 18th-century paintings by the Spanish. The 16-tiered system that established societal advancement based on race/racial mixture affects us to this day.
Albizu’s family. Photo by Ingrid Matias.
At the Albizu dining room table, her family discussed the common Latin American phrases “adelantar la raza” or “mejorando la raza”—improving the race. Albizu’s paternal grandmother, Doña Ana Mercedes de Albizu, confirms she did this by marrying a white man (and encouraged her granddaughter to do the same). It’s a moment Albizu felt was important to incorporate no matter the discomfort the scene may cause. NEGRITA producers Ingrid Matias and Eddie Bailey encouraged her to include her family dynamic within the doc.
“I wondered, ‘What are people going to say? What are people going to think?’ But people have been receiving it well,” Albizu says. “They feel like we are brave to put this intimate scene out there.”
The scenes of the documentary filmed in Albizu’s childhood home in Long Island provide a transparent look at her upbringing: a Black Dominican-American girl-turned-teen raised in a predominantly white neighborhood to parents striving to provide the best life for her and her siblings. Given the generational and cultural differences, for example, Albizu growing up with African-American friends and at the rise of hip-hop, her parents did not understand the way she identified (as a Black woman) or her choice to wear her hair natural, particularly loc’d, into her college years at the University of Florida. The audience gets a front-row seat into the tensions as well as moments of growth.
“I think there is still a lot of learning to do and truth to be told.”
These intimate scenes appear alongside the realities and insights of other Afro-Latinas from various backgrounds—Abigail Horace, Milteri Tucker, Sarah Aponte, Tamika Burgess, Odilia Rivera Santos, Melba “Malín” Falú, Dr. Georgina Falú, and Vanessa K. Valdés. During Albizu’s journey creating NEGRITA, she’s been able to glean the insights of scholars such as the late Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores, as well as Marta Moreno Vega. She’s adamant about uplifting the work of Afro-Latinxs who have and continue to educate through independent digital platforms, documentaries, books, and various forms of public scholarship. Albizu and the NEGRITA team plan to showcase the award-winning documentary at several upcoming events, including the Harlem International Film Festival, African Diaspora Film Festival in Chicago, Illinois, and Maysels Documentary Center.
“I hope NEGRITA creates conversations and creates curiosity,” Albizu shares. “I think there is still a lot of learning to do and truth to be told.”
At the close of NEGRITA, we learn that the matriarch of the family—the inspiration for Albizu’s part-autobiographical documentary—has transitioned. Though Doña Ana isn’t physically present to witness a NEGRITA screening, Albizu continues to uplift the narratives of Negras, Black Latinas, in her honor.
Janel Martinez is a writer and the founder of award-winning blog, Ain't I Latina?, an online destination celebrating Afro-Latinx womanhood. The Bronx, NY native is a frequent public speaker discussing media, culture and identity at conferences and events for Bloomberg, NBCU, New York University, SXSW, Harvard University and more. She’s appeared as a featured guest on national shows and outlets, such as MSNBC's The Culture Is: Latina, BuzzFeed, ESSENCE, NPR and Sirius XM, and her work has appeared in Adweek, Univision Communications, Oprah Daily, Refinery29, Remezcla and The New York Times, among others.
The Honduran-American has been nominated for the 20th Annual Rosoff Award in the 20-Something Category and won the Afro-Latino Festival of New York's Digital Empowerment Award and, in 2018, was recognized at City Hall by the New York City Council, the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and the Bronx Delegation to the NYC Council for her contributions as a woman of Garifuna descent.
She penned "Abuela's Greatest Gift" in the YA anthology Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed, published by Flatiron Books.