For many people, race is an important factor that contributes to their identity. It is the right of an individual to recognize themselves as part of a particular race group. That is not to say that any person should randomly choose their identity based on whim. On the contrary, a person’s racial identification is influenced by aspects such as heritage, culture, and community. In her essay, “Black Behind the Ears” – and Up Front Too? Dominicans in the Black Mosaic, Ginetta E.B. Candelario, uses the Black Mosaic exhibit, located in the Anacostia Museum, to examine both the African American and Latino perspective on racial identification.

This essay addresses the unique fact that the way people connect with a particular race is not universal within a particular group. For example, as Candelario describes a census taken to see how Dominicans identified themselves within their community she states, “Dominicans in New York… identify primarily as ‘other’ in terms of race, with about twenty-eight percent self-identifying as ‘black.’ By contrast nearly half of Washington D.C.’s fifteen hundred Dominican residents identified as black in the 1990 Census” (Candelario, 56). Clearly, association with a particular race is a highly individualistic and personal process. Each person has their own unique set of circumstances that prompts them to connect with one race or another.

One aspect of the essay that especially surprised me was the description of how some people used particular racial identification in order to avoid discrimination. The essay explains how Latin Americans had portrayed themselves as “not black” in order to avoid the Jim Crow segregation policies that had so detrimentally impacted their African American neighbors and co-workers (Candelario, 66). Latin Americans were forced to either embrace their black ancestry and be subjugated to despairing inequality or mask their identities and narrowly avoid the Jim Crow Laws. Prompted with this kind of situation, I would choose, as would most people who prioritize the safety and well-being of their family, to hide my racial connections to African Americans. Nevertheless, this decision has its own consequences, resulting in possible mental strain and anxiety due to the inability of expressing yourself for who you really feel you are.

One issue that I had never really considered prior to this reading was the pressure imposed by the African American community on the racial identification process. Candelario explains that “African Americans, historically and contemporarily, insisted that Dominicans (and African diaspora communities generally) identify as black” (Candelario, 69). Latin American groups are forced to consider how they will fit into the African American community, in addition to their position in society as a whole. I believe that people should not feel pressured by any community whatsoever as they choose which race best matches their identity. Furthermore, there should be no negative ramifications for connecting with a particular race. A person ought to be able to embrace his or her personal racial identity freely.