LYNN — The Association of Latino Professionals for America in Boston named eight Afro-Latinx individuals making a difference throughout the year beyond Black History Month. Among them are Carolina Trujillo of Lynn and Rosario Ubiera-Minaya of Salem.
Trujillo is the executive director of Citizens Inn in Peabody and a contributor to La Voz, the Spanish-language newspaper published by Essex Media Group with the objective of empowering minorities through information. Ubiera-Minaya is executive director of Raw Art Works (RAW) in Lynn. Their impact is felt throughout the region.
“We don’t come in one shape and one size, and there is a huge diaspora of people who are Latinos and share some Black roots, and we should celebrate that,” said Trujillo. “There is similarity in our struggle to try to be able to reach opportunities that historically were not allowed fast. So, I think it’s important that we all support each other to combat systemic racism because, at the end of the day, we have the same goals: representation and inclusion and equity.”
At Citizens Inn, Trujillo is focused on providing transformative opportunities to individuals and families experiencing homelessness, and the working community that is struggling with food insecurity across the North Shore.
Trujillo works to deliver services to make everyone feel welcome, and makes sure to be intentional and inclusive when choosing products to distributed for diverse populations.
“We are not only providing trauma-informed services to our participants, but are trying to also be very conscientious of the cultural diversity that we have within the people that stay with us, to address those differences, and make sure we meet their needs,” Trujillo said of her work at Citizens Inn.
Trujillo understands Black History Month’s importance in challenging those who deny the struggles African Americans have endured in the United States, and validating African American contributions to building this nation.
“I think that highlighting the achievements of people with different backgrounds is critical to be able to start working on the equity gap in this country,” Trujillo said. “As a nation, it’s critical to start challenging and changing the biases against minorities, and start identifying opportunities for communities that have been historically affected.”
Trujillo said Latinos and African Americans face similar political and social challenges despite different cultural backgrounds, and that they should however celebrate their differences together.
“We must unite, all minorities, to really put a lid on systemic racism, and work together to make sure we are being included and we’re being counted as viable members of society,” Trujillo said. “We need to start celebrating us instead of feeling repressed for being different.”
As the executive director at RAW, an organization that uses the arts as a powerful medium to deeply engage underprivileged youth of different ages in Lynn, Ubiera-Minaya advocates for systematic change, social justice, and equity on behalf of the Latinx community.
For Ubiera-Minaya, presenting her authentic self in personal and professional settings is vital for creating inclusion. She said she is intentional when choosing who to empower through her work and how to consider the diversity of the community she serves.
Ubiera-Minaya has mixed feelings about celebrating a culture only one month of the year. Ubiera-Minaya understands it’s important to highlight those voices not only for one month of the year, but to normalize them by highlighting them throughout the year.
“Not just highlight it because it’s different, but highlight it because it’s been part of us through all these years and throughout history and continues to evolve as more individuals claim it, and making our Afro self,” Ubiera-Minaya said.
She added that it is important for cultural groups to present different nuances of identity.
“Our messaging behind Black History Month or through Hispanic Heritage Month, we need that intersectionality of what it means to be Afro-Latino, navigating all those cultures and spaces and identity,” Ubiera-Minaya said.
Prior to RAW, Ubiera-Minaya held the role of president and executive director at Amplify Latinx and founded the social enterprise, “Cojuelos’ Productions.”
The website for “Cojuelos’ Productions” said it “celebrates Black and Brown creatives’ artistic expressions by promoting innovative, diverse, and culturally oriented programming and curated experiences through a social justice lens.”
Creating spaces and addressing what it is to have a mix of African and Latin American origin is important for Ubiera-Minaya, she said, because the communities should be empowering each other to be proud of their identity.
“The more we find similarities in our experiences, the more we can come together with the community of color advocating for the same things,” she said. “We tend to divide ourselves by nationality or by language, but I think there’s a lot of different similarities bringing us together and empowering us to be a more powerful group that can advocate for many things that we are now fighting for against each other.”
