From literature to hip-hop and salsa to civil rights movements, Afro-Latinos have contributed immensely to the overall social fabric and cultural production in New York City, and now a new guide to the city will share this history and traditions to travelers.
On Friday, I Got Your Black, a Pan-African guide to global Black culture and Black businesses around the world, is releasing its Afro-Latinx Guide to NYC. The free agenda aims at helping people explore Black Latino culture consciously by offering them tips on Afro-Latino-owned restaurants to dine at, shops to visit, sites to explore and history to learn about.
“I want people to explore in a way that’s mindful, shares history and is also fun,” Diva Green, creator of I Got Your Black, tells Remezcla.
To create the guide, Green worked with local Afro-Latino leaders like Janel Martinez, founder of Ain’t I Latina; Nydia Simone, creator of Blactina Media; photographer Jazmin Samora and traveler Nicky Luna, who all contributed guide entries.
The helpful booklet includes more than 15 culturally centered spaces and Black Latino businesses in New York, including Dominican-owned plant-based food service cooperative Woke Foods, Crown Heights’ feminist book shop Cafe con Libros, the historic Nuyorican Poets Cafe and a GarifunaRobics class, among so much more.
“My goal, in general, is to use travel as a medium to connect the diaspora, that’s my ultimate goal, and also show there’s a way that we can be conscious about how we spend money. Finding ways to connect the two can be very powerful,”Green says.
Earlier this year, I Got Your Black also released an Afro-Cuban guide to Havana, a 52-page guide with Black-owned businesses and tours, travel tips and information on race, history and privilege.
The free Afro-Latinx Guide to NYC drops Friday at 1 p.m. local time.