Secciónes en español

The eighth 1923 post for our annual celebration of Black History Month.

One hundred years today … Both The Negro World  and The New York Age, Black weekly NYC newspapers, included a "Sección en español," as an acknowledgment of the city's Spanish-speaking Black community.

The World had been running its feature, edited by M.A. Figueroa, for two years. At the top it announced the name of the Universal Negro Improvement Association translated into Spanish: La Associación Universal para el Adelanto de la Raza Negra. Shana L. Richmond writes that the section "reported the happenings of branches all over the Spanish speaking Caribbean as well as Central and South America," with Cuba being most prominent (51).

The New York Age had commenced its Spanish section in November of 1922. It was edited by Bernardo Ruiz Suarez, who in 1922 had published The Color Question In the Two Americas, which you can read here. 

Suarez often used the section as an opportunity to connect culture and the arts to national culture. One hundred years ago today, Suarez's column discussed a vaudeville performance he had attended in Washington, DC.

References/Further Reading:

Redmond, Shana L.. Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora. NYU Press, 2014.

– Jonathan Goldman, February 24, 2023

TAGS: Black history, Latinx Latino/Latina journalism, African American media, publishing, ethnicity, race, immigration, language