February 8, 2018

Whether you knew her before or recently learned who she was from Love & Hip Hop Miami, Amara La Negra is an undeniable gem. 

Born October 4, 1990, Dana Danelys De Los Santos, better known as Amara La Negra, is a South Florida born Dominican singer who proudly identifies as Afro-Latina. Growing up, her hero was Celia Cruz, a Cuban Afro-Latina and dynamic Latin music singer and the only woman Amara says she ever saw as a child that looked was a representation of herself. (There are, of course, many Afro-Latinos that have very successful careers and are very well known and established, many of them are undeniably lighter skinned than Amara.) 

When the cast of LHHM (that’s Love & Hip Hop Miami for all of you who are better than me and don’t watch the trash that is the Love & Hip Hop franchise) was announced, Amara came into the spotlight when many people automatically questioned her blackness. People thought she looked like she was wearing blackface and assumed she was not, in fact, a black woman. But Amara shook off the haters and proudly posted photos of herself as a child to shut up everyone accusing faking her blackness. 

For the first time on LHH, a character arc sheds light on colorism and prejudice within cultural communities. Amara has to deal with people (like that disgusting human called Young Hollywood) constantly questioning her ethnicity and trying to make her choose between identifying as either Latina or Black (LIKE YOU CAN’T BE BOTH), and outright being told that she “can’t be elegant with a fro” (WHICH SHE CAN BECAUSE AMARA IS REGAL AS ALL AND FROS ARE BEAUTIFUL) or “you need to be more Beyonce and less Macy Gray.”

She receives the same kind of talk from Black people (watch her interview with the Breakfast Club if you want to be annoyed today) who tell her that colorism isn’t real, or isn’t as prevalent as it once was, which is an outright lie. Darker skinned black women are constantly treated and viewed differently than that of lighter skinned black women.

Colorism and prejudice in the black and latinx communities (and other POC communities as well) is real and needs to be addressed (which is why it was still surprising to see it on a platform such as LHH). There are a lot of people that don’t claim their blackness because they aren’t proud of their culture or look down upon African-Americans because society has portrayed Black people as ‘lesser than.’

But Amara continues to push forward in her career, recently signing with United Talent Agency after years of completing tours throughout Latin America and appearing on Spanish-language television. She continues on her journey of crossing over into the mainstream music industry and is an advocate of racial equality, consistently speaking out on the dynamics that exist in the Latino community when it comes to colorism, anti-Blackness and Afro-Latinos in entertainment. She also has a clothing line, ALN Clothing Line. SUPPORT AN AFRO LATINA TODAY! And follow her on Instagram - @amaralanegraaln!