Kamala Harris: Black and Puerto Rican women have a long antiracism history that needs to be acknowledged, states Dr. Marta Moreno Vega

Dr.Marta Moreno-Vega

The election of Kamala Harris as the United States first female, biracial, and African American Vice president is a history-making event, but there is a long history of black women in the United States in Puerto Rico that is yet to be told. According to the author and activist Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, that fact is often unknown by both the Black and Puerto Rican communities.

“Because of the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Power movement, and the Nuyorican movement, people often don’t recognize the role of Black Women, including Black Puerto Rican women, in the struggle, but we have been fighting to create access and equality for everyone”, said Moreno-Vega during a bilingual conversation with CBP vlog about the impact of the 2020 election in our communities.

“We have Shirley Chisholm, we have Antonia Pantoja, we have Evelina López-Antonetty, we have Rosa Clemente, and we have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortés (AOC). We are all part of a disengaging process making it clear that racism has to end”, she added.

Chisholm was the first African-American woman elected to Congress and the first African-American women and the first woman who ran for President of the US for the Democratic Party. Pantoja was a Puerto Rican civil rights leader and founder of Aspira and Boricua College in New York. Lopez Antonetty was a civil rights activist and educator in New York. Clemente is Puerto Rican from the Bronx who was the vice-presidential running mate of Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2008. Ocasio-Cortés is a Congresswoman from New York of Puerto Rican descent. “We have a lot of heroes within our communities”, added Moreno-Vega.

She said Kamala Harris could well possibly by the “de facto” president, but there is a support system surrounding her and Joe Biden that includes, among others, leaders such as Stacey Abrams and The Squad, the informal group of Congresswomen of color made up by Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashia Tlaib of Michigan an AOC.

Moreno-Vega stressed that consistency is a trait of Black and Puerto Rican women and that has been key in building communities. She also said that Harris in the US and newly-elected senator Ana Irma Rivera Lassen in Puerto Rico have broken the racist barriers, but that more women of color are needed in power. “Not only in the US but in Puerto Rico we need to see more women like us making the decisions”, she added.

Moreno-Vega also said, President Donald Trump has tried to destroy the American democracy by hiring people that were unfit to their positions.

“He was very clear as to what he was doing, and right now he has the legal system controlled. They appointed over 300 judges across the nation, including the Supreme Court, and that is not an accident. We have to work together to fight and create a better society. it's wonderful the people elected the Biden-Harris ticket, but the job is intense, and its only beginning. We have to destroy racism and White supremacy”, said Moreno-Vega.

Dr. Marta Moreno Vega,  a world-renowned activist, researcher, and writer on the African Diaspora in the Latino communities and a college professor.  She has been an advocate for cultural equity and cultural studies thought all her life inspired by a vision to create an international organization to promote and link communities of African descent.  Founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute in 1976, she was the second director of El Museo del Barrio, and one of the founders of the Association of Hispanic Arts, Network of Centers of Color and the Roundtable of Institutions of Color. Moreno Vega is co-founder of the Global Afro Latino and Caribbean Initiative (GALCI), a former program of Hunter College/Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She has been a professor at Hunter College, New York University, Cornell University, Rutgers University, and El Centro de Estudios Avanzados Puertorriquenos de Puerto Rico, among others.