Happy Black History Month! During the month of February, IQLatino will highlight Afro-Latino leaders and their contributions to society. To start off our celebration of Black History Month, we honor the life of one of the pioneers of the Afro-Latino studies movement, Miriam Esther Jiménez Román.
Jiménez Román was born in 1951 in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Just a year later, her family migrated to East Harlem, where Jiménez Román grew up as the oldest of four sisters. She would go on to become a crucial figure in the study of the African diaspora in the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States through her many roles as professor, editor, archivist, author, curator, and activist.
Jiménez Román attended the University of Vermont, and later transferred to Binghamton University where she completed her bachelor’s degree in sociology with a certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Area Studies and would later complete her doctoral coursework. In the late 1970s, Jiménez Román moved to Puerto Rico to cofound the feminist collective Encuentro de Mujeres. Between 1981 and 1983, she served as Assistant Director of External Resources at the InterAmerican University. During this time, she authored dozens of works in the field of Afro-Latino studies and promoting racial democracy. She became widely known for her book, The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States, which documented and educated the public on the experience of Latinos of African descent in the United States.
Jiménez Román held important positions in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in central Harlem starting in 1987, where she curated and coordinated dozens of exhibitions and conferences on the African diaspora. She would go on to become the Managing Editor of the CENTRO Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at CUNY, and the General Coordinator of CUNY’s Afro-Latin@ Project of the Latin American and Latin@ Studies Program, which she co-founded in 2005 with her husband, Juan Flores, first at CUNY and then at New York University under the name of Afrolatin@ Forum. At the Forum, academics, students and activist engaged in advocacy and organized events devoted to the Afro-Latino identity.
In Jiménez Román’s own words, the Forum’s mission was to offer members “another paradigm [for] … [and] a validation of who you are, as opposed to what you’re supposed to do to be a success … The rules were not set up for you. You have to question those rules …That’s why Juan and I emphasized critical thinking [because] Latinidad does not protect you from the injustices experienced by Black people in the United States.” She served as Executive Director of the Forum until her passing last year. She was also a visiting lecturer at SUNY Binghamton, Columbia University, Brown University, and New York University, where she taught innovative courses on race and the Latino experience.
Through her work, Jiménez Román expanded the visibility and highlighted the rich history of Afro-Latinos across the Americas. On this Black History Month, we honor her lifelong dedication to racial justice and to championing the study of the Afro-Latino identity.
Photo: Association of African American Museums