Heylee Soto

Since the start of the 20th Century, gender roles have been redefined interchangeably depending on the societal dictates at the time. In other words, masculinity and feminism have been among the most contested issues over time. Public institutions, non-governmental organizations, social activists, and others on the social front; they slowly built powerful momentums on gender equality issues. The continuous differentiation between genders based on physical and mental capabilities only fanned a culture of discrimination. Therefore, the power and identity politics strived at striking a balance between the two genders of the human species. In fact, there was a time when gender roles were so distinct that it was indisputable on what a man should do and shouldn’t do; however, the evolving society dictated otherwise.  In “Too Latina to be Black and Too Black to be Latina,” Aleichia Williams discusses how geography has played a huge role in the shaping of her identity as an Afrolatina. She states, “I feel like it is more of a ‘Southern’ phenomenon that our blackness is more prominent than our Latinidad. It’s not that we don’t want to be Latinas; it’s just that people always remind us that we are black first (Williams).” This shows how geography is able to teach us about ourselves and how we see ourselves. The way people react to you or what they say about you can have a huge impact on how you see yourself. Often times, when people from other countries see someone who is half white and half black, they will assume that person is fully white because those were the people that would have been in power over them for so long. However, people from the U.S. are more likely to assume a half-black person is fully black because of the race relations history of this country with regards to slavery and segregation. When Aleichia Williams was five, her family moved to Puerto Rico. This experience shaped her understanding of who she is—both in terms of her physical body and her cultural identity.