Anti-Racism Resources - September 2024
Image description: On blue to green ombré background is an illustration of three raised fists signifying people of color. Above the image is the text “Anti-Racism Resources September 2024” and below is the text “Latinx Heritage Month.”
Each month, we feature educational resources in the NAAFA Newsletter to support our community in working to dismantle systemic racism. These resources are also shared on our social media, blog, and website. Resources vary from month to month, and may include historical information, tools for personal reflection, or information about how to get involved and make change. Many of the resources we suggest will be introductory resources, and this information is never intended to be full coverage on the complex and nuanced topics that are chosen each month. We encourage you to continue learning, and we especially hope you will seek out and support scholars, artists, creators, and activists who represent the communities most impacted by the topic of the month.
This month we invite you to join us in exploring resources about Latinx Heritage Month.
Dear Tias, Please Keep Your Unsolicited Comments on My Body To Yourself - White people are often taught to believe that other cultures are more accepting of a variety of bodies, so it's important to listen to people in the culture about the culture, rather than just sitting with our assumptions. This article is a well reported but also very personal look at how the author experiences body shaming within her family.
Rise in hate crimes includes a ‘significant increase’ against Latinos - Anti-immigrant sentiments in the U.S., focusing specifically on Latinx people, have dramatically grown since 2019. This article touches on the reasons these statistics have risen and how it affects the Latinx population across the country.
More Than One Word, More Than One Heritage - This article does a good job explaining that “Hispanic” is not a monolithic term for their communities.
Si Hay Sol, Hay Panza: How I’m Reclaiming Summer as a Fat Brown Babe - Virgie Tovar explores her own history of being a fat Brown person and the ridicule she received and anticipated each summer. Through this, she offers support to others looking to shift their relationships with summer and bodies, including encouraging greater awareness of cultural and historical conflict surrounding Brown and Black fat bodies. “Accepting — and taking care of — our emotions, trauma, memories, and anxieties are also integral parts of body positivity."
The Long History of Anti-Latino Racism in America - This article is interesting and important for many reasons, but one of the things it really highlights is the way that anti-Latine and anti-Mexican discrimination has been a recurring theme in American history. While some Americans associate these sentiments with the national platforming of Donald Trump, he and his followers didn’t invent this rhetoric. Here, history.com outlines key moments and patterns of anti-Latinx discrimination in the US going back to the 1840s.
It’s Hispanic Heritage Month! Here are a Few Plus Size Latina Influencers to Know - As you know, REPRESENTATION MATTERS! This article by Mayra Mejia for The Curvy Fashionista introduces us to several fat Latina Influencers to learn about and to follow.
Voices from the Margins: A Narrative Exploratory Study of Fat Latinx Women and Their Information Processes/Interpretations of Health Messaging - This lengthy but worthwhile 2022 document is a doctoral dissertation by Paula Rene Maez at the University of Arizona. Dr. Maez’s research explores how specific identities (fatness, Latinx, women) influence the interpretation of health messaging and how these identities can also possibly increase the efficacy of health messaging. Dr. Maez shows how the embodied intersectional experiences of fat Latinas interact with the social and cultural context of how they receive and use health information messaging.
I’m Still Unlearning My Internalized Ableism as a Fat & Disabled Body Positive Activist - Fat and disabled activist and poet Yesika Salgado breaks down how her relationship with her body has changed and how, although she advocates for people to be patient with their bodies and kind toward themselves, she sometimes struggles to follow her own advice. She examines the hard but necessary work of unlearning internalized anti-fatness and ableism and how it isn’t always linear, and offers some questions she has asked herself that others may want to explore too. This piece is beautifully written and incredibly thought-provoking.