Being Black and Latinx in Theatre Today

WHILE RESEARCHING my dissertation on Afro-Latinx performance, I interviewed more than ten Afro-Latinx performers who had been cast in the play Platanos y Collard Greens. I asked them how they saw themselves and their race and ethnicity onstage. One discovery left me surprised. While there has been a recent public push for Afro-Latinx acceptance, the actors who I interviewed were more interested in being “ethnically ambiguous” for their public than revealing their racial and ethnic identity. Although seemingly empowering, this choice comes from experiencing years of discrimination based on their ethnic and cultural identities.