The Silver Woman: Becoming Afro-Latina

Go take a little time, go to Panama. Make a little home there. 

In the summer of 2022, I became Afro-Latina in the land of my fallen father, by the sea. Celia Cruz sang songs of the Orisha’s. Black vultures visited me each morning and we held silent conversations about death. Hot cacao steeped with my prayers and sweetened with my tears healed old wounds. The red-bellied snake unraveled 

visions of transformation. 

Have you ever been to a place where everyone looks like you?

Infinite amalgamations of African, Native, Asian, and the colonizer. 

My Black American, “light skinned girls sob story” expanded and I stood before the water, offerings in hand, and Yemaya gifted me the vision of The Silver Woman. And so, I became her. An homage to the moon, the beauty and the beast of the ocean, the silver roll workers of the Canal Zone who were paid less than their white counterparts: in Panamanian silver coin, and the silver hair that lined the coffin of a bad man, half of me, almost a stranger.

One month later I had found a home, in my bones and grounded firmly to the earth. "