Interview with Kylie Johnson
For this assignment I chose to interview my friend’s cousin who is the president of an Afro-Latinx club at her high school.
For this assignment I chose to interview my friend’s cousin who is the president of an Afro-Latinx club at her high school.
Q: What made you want to get involved in this club?
A:”As someone who is Afro-Latina, I wanted to find a community and get more involved with my culture.”
Q: What is the purpose of your club?
A: “The purpose is really to build a community of people with similar backgrounds and celebrate our culture.”
Q: What do you guys do to celebrate your culture?
A: “We listen to music, learn about art, and my personal favorite is trying new food recipes every week and bringing them for everyone to try.”
Q: What is your favorite recipe you have tried?
A: “I loved Mondongo, it’s basically a tripe stew with vegetables. I loved making it because it’s super popular in Puerto Rico, which is where my mom is from.”
Q: Going on a different note, how has it been for you having two cultural backgrounds?
A: I used to struggle with my identity a little bit, because I felt almost too Latina to be black, but too black to be Latina, that’s really why I got involved with the club in the first place, because I wanted to learn more about my intersecting cultures and meet people with similar backgrounds to me.”
Q: How has being in the club changed your view on your culture?
A: “It has definitely made me a lot more confident about my culture and it’s made me more comfortable with myself! The people I have met through this club and being so involved with it has given me a whole new confidence about who I am and has created a whole new love for who I am.
Q: Do you plan to continue being involved with the Afro-Latinx community when you go to college?
A: “Of course! I’m only going into my junior year now, but wherever I go to college I hope to join or create a Afro-Latinx club.”
Q: As president, what is your job?
A: So I basically am responsible for organizing when we meet and what we do when we meet. Like I was saying before, I usually just try to find some new music, art, and food to try. I also made a playlist for the club that everyone can add to and we listen to it while we try the new recipes. Honestly, our weekly meetings are more of a potluck because we are always eating good.
Q: Have you ever faced any backlash for the club?
A: There’s always gonna be people who have something negative to say, but honestly people are pretty accepting, especially because we love sharing the food we make. Everyone loves food so we’re pretty popular in that aspect.
Q: How has your club been involved in the school’s community?
A: We got to be in the pep rally last year, which was really cool and brought us a lot of new members!
Q: Is your club exclusive to Afro-Latinx?
A: Of course not! It is open to literally anyone who wants to join and while the majority of our members are Afro-Latinx we do have some people who aren’t but are interested in our culture and want to learn about it, which I think is pretty cool.
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