This Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month, we are highlighting the contributions and cultural backgrounds of some of our Latinx faculty. Today we highlight Dot López, Head of School at the Friends School of Atlanta (FSA). This is Dot’s first year at FSA. Dot comes to FSA from Moorestown Friends School, where she served in several teaching and leadership roles over her 15-year tenure; she taught mathematics and worked as the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, among other roles.
This week, I sat down with Dot for an interview about her Latina background and identity and its impact on her professional work. When
describing her racial and ethnic identities, Dot said, “I consider myself Black. I identify as a Black woman, but I also identify as Latina because my parents are from Panama. They came to this country in their late teenage years.”
Dot elaborated on her connection to Panama saying, “When my parents came to the US I think they really wanted to be American and really wanted to embrace the American culture. So my parents spoke Spanish, but they didn’t teach me Spanish. When I was in high school my grandparents lived in Panama, and I visited them one summer. But that was like in the 1980s, so I’ve never been back to Panama since then. So a lot of my culture, my Panamanian culture, comes from like foods that I eat, music, a lot of extended family, just learning about my identity through those people.” When describing culturally significant foods, she mentioned “plátanos, bacalao, and yuca” among other foods. She mentioned Salsa music and the importance of family.
Dot then described the feeling of being “on the margins” that sometimes resulted from being both Black and Latina in a country that often expects you to be just one or the other. She said, “I think that it was a really confusing time growing up for me, especially like when you had to check boxes. And I think those identifiers have evolved over time. But I remember asking my dad, ‘which box do I check?’ And he would always suggest that I check the Black box. And I think a lot of it had to do with how I was seen by people. So when people see me they see a Black woman, and he felt like that’s how I should represent myself… But yes…with growing up in New York City with other Latinx people I never felt like I was Latina enough because their parents spoke Spanish, they looked Latina per se. But then my Black African American friends would say that I wasn’t Black enough because I didn’t really— a lot of their experience didn’t resonate with me because that wasn’t something that my parents experienced.”
While she described growing up as Black and Latina as “a struggle” at times, she now embraces all aspects of her identity. She described the evolution of her identity over time, saying, “It wasn’t until I got older that I started to understand Black culture more and I felt like I evolved within my Latina identity because I recognized that there were parts of like African American culture that I didn’t necessarily experience because my parents weren’t American. And I recognize that as Black people we’re not a monolith, right? And I think I learned that I can be in a space where I could be Black and Latina….Now I embrace it all. And I’m comfortable as being a Black Latina and I think there are other people that are speaking up about being both Black and Latina which is really helpful.”
Dot’s experiences as a Black Latina woman in the United States impacts the way she approaches her work. Having felt like an outsider herself, she is committed to advocating for others who feel like they are on the margins within a school community. She said, “I felt like because I, in some ways, always lived on the margins, I felt like in my work I always wanted to advocate for students and other people in the community who were on the margins and give them a space to feel empowered and to use their voice to impact change in the community. So that’s always been a part of my identity and my purpose.”
This Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month, Dot encourages others to increase their awareness of the Hispanic and Latinx community and the diversity within it. She said, “I would encourage people to increase their awareness about what it means to be Hispanic or Latinx, to be more curious about the culture and to think beyond food and music and you know really expand their knowledge. Also, I really think it’s important for people to be empathetic about other people’s identities, to just listen, to understand what their experiences are like and to not put Latinx or Hispanic people in a box. Within that culture and identity I think we’re very diverse. So I would encourage people to just learn as much as they can about Hispanic and Latinx culture.”
Written by Kristen Clayton, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.