As a Black Dominican American woman—someone who is frequently perceived as “racially mixed” or “racially ambiguous”—I have spent a significant portion of my adult life defending my Blackness. Alongside that personal exhaustion, I have also faced persistent criticism for consistently speaking out against anti-Haitian rhetoric and advocating for cross-cultural empathy.
This year alone, I received a wave of unkind comments following an article I wrote about now-Congresswoman Darializa Avilés Chevalier. Critics had accused her of not being “Dominican enough,” taking issue with her public support for solidarity between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Some detractors even pointed to her French last name, attempting to use it as flawed “evidence” that she must secretly be Haitian. That fierce backlash sparked countless vital conversations within my community regarding the persistent confusion around race, ethnicity, and Latinidad, as well as the powerful role that traditional Dominican nationalism continues to play in fueling those misunderstandings.
As I reflected on those conversations and the vitriol surrounding public figures who cross these invisible ideological lines, I realized that one of the most high-profile Dominican celebrities consistently engaging with these complex issues is Belcalis Almánzar, globally known as Cardi B. For years, the superstar has repeatedly used her massive platform to clarify the fundamental differences between race, ethnicity, and Latinidad—distinctions that schools, mainstream media, and even our own communities often fail to articulate. She has consistently explained that Blackness and Latinidad are not mutually exclusive categories, all while bravely challenging deep-seated anti-Haitian rhetoric. As someone who has spent years navigating these exact same conversational minefields, seeing a Dominican woman with Cardi’s extraordinary visibility articulate what I have long felt has been profoundly validating.
The roots of these public lessons trace back several years. In 2019, after online trolls and critics questioned whether she could truly be considered Black, Cardi took to Instagram Live to break down the distinct definitions of nationality, race, and ethnicity.
“A lot of people don’t know the difference between nationality, race, ethnicity, and that’s not nobody’s fault,” she explained to her followers during the broadcast. “That’s actually the school’s fault because schools don’t be teaching this s— to people.”
During the broadcast, she detailed her heritage, explaining that her father is Dominican and her mother is Trinidadian, while emphasizing that being Dominican is a nationality and an ethnicity—not a race. She firmly identified as Black due to her African ancestry and distinct physical features, pushing back directly against the widespread misconception that being Latine somehow excludes a person from being Black. Furthermore, she challenged the dangerous assumption that having a lighter skin tone automatically means someone lacks Black ancestry.
That is a conversation I have found myself having countless times in my own life. Like many Dominicans, my ancestry reflects centuries of complex colonization, indigenous erasure, and racial mixing. My caramel complexion, hazel eyes, looser curl pattern, and mixed-race features have frequently led strangers and acquaintances alike to question my identity. Yet, being multiracial does not negate my Blackness. Blackness is an intrinsic part of my racial identity, not something separate or detached from it.
Echoing this sentiment during her 2019 Instagram Live, Cardi famously stated, “People just don’t be understanding s—. It’s like, ‘Cardi’s Latin, she’s not Black.’ And it’s like, bro, my features don’t come from white people… I have Afro features.”
During that same transmission, she also pushed back against followers insisting she should automatically represent Mexican culture simply because she is Latina. “I’m not Mexican at all. I’m West Indian, and I’m Dominican. I speak Spanish because I’m Dominican.”
Her point was remarkably simple yet critically important: Latines are not a monolith. A year later, following the global protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, Cardi once again found herself educating the public—this time taking on deeply entrenched anti-Haitian prejudice. After posting a photograph of protestors holding Dominican and Haitian flags side by side with the caption, “Unity is what I stand for, and it’s what I’m about,” conservative Dominican nationalists immediately accused her of advocating for the political unification of the two neighboring nations, which share the island of Hispaniola.
Responding to the uproar in a lengthy Instagram Live conducted primarily in Spanish, she pushed back against the misinterpretations.
“Yo puse esa foto porque es un símbolo de paz [I posted that photo because it’s a symbol of peace],” she wrote, reinforcing the message verbally. She followed up by declaring, “Yo me sé mi historia [I know my history],” making it abundantly clear that acknowledging the historically complicated and often traumatic relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic should never be used as an excuse to justify the dehumanization of Haitians today.
Cardi went on to assert, “Hay que tratar a los haitianos bien, como gente también [Haitians need to be treated well, like people too].” She also drew a sociological parallel, pointing out that in the United States, Dominicans and Haitians are frequently racialized in remarkably similar ways. Whether due to accented English, immigrant status, or outright anti-Blackness, both communities routinely experience systemic discrimination. Her core argument was never that the two countries share identical identities or histories; rather, it was that shared experiences of racism and marginalization should foster empathy rather than artificial division.
In 2021, she once again defended her identity when critics questioned whether she could genuinely be called Afro-Latina. She responded decisively by posting archival and contemporary photographs of her Dominican father, Trinidadian mother, grandparents, and extended family members, noting that she had always been entirely transparent about her multi-ethnic roots.
More recently, in a 2025 interview with CBS News, Cardi described herself as Afro-Latina while discussing the rich Dominican musical influences woven throughout her artistic projects. Even years after those initial internet debates and political firestorms, she has remained remarkably consistent in how she defines herself, her heritage, and her cultural standpoint.
That unwavering consistency is precisely what resonates with so many across the diaspora. For years, Cardi has essentially been performing the cultural education that our formal educational institutions have failed to provide—reminding the public that race, ethnicity, and nationality are not interchangeable terms, that Blackness and Dominican identity are not contradictory paradoxes, and that standing against anti-Haitian discrimination is not an act of treason against Dominican culture. If anything, it is an affirmation of our shared humanity. I share her deeply held belief that our common African ancestry and immigrant struggles should serve as an opportunity to build robust solidarity—not only with Haitians, but across the entire African diaspora.
Ultimately, this is why conversations like the one sparked by Darializa Avilés Chevalier matter so profoundly. They force us to confront the rigid racial myths many of us inherited about identity, Blackness, and Latinidad. For far too long, our societies have treated these vital discussions as inherently divisive when they are, in reality, a necessary pathway toward collective growth and historical reckoning.
Figures like Cardi B have spent years reminding us that being proudly Latine and proudly Black are not competing identities. They demonstrate that as Dominicans, standing against xenophobic and anti-Haitian rhetoric is never a rejection of our rich culture, but rather an affirmation of our shared humanity. It is my sincere hope that the next generation of Dominicans and other Afro-Latines will not have to expend the same exhausting energy defending their Blackness or explaining that race, ethnicity, and nationality are entirely different constructs. Instead, they will grow up with the language, the historical context, and the cultural representation they need to know they have belonged all along.
