From Ebony and Jet to Vibe, Black Latina Visual Media Representation Provides a Blueprint for Latinx Media
Kelis on the cover of the 2006 holiday issue of Vibe Vixen. Photography by Andrew Matusik
Cardi B, Kelis, La La Anthony, Mariah Carey, Simone Biles, and Zoe Saldaña¹ are among the list of well-known Black women of Latin American descent who have graced the cover of Ebony, Essence, Jet, and Vibe over the last two decades.
With a nearly 80-year legacy of including actors, activists, musicians, models, performers and creatives from across the African Diaspora, it comes as no surprise that these Black Latina cover stars are prominently positioned on and within the pages of these African-American-founded print publications. However, what’s telling about their long-standing inclusion in Black print books is that it would serve as an example for U.S.-based, Latinx women’s lifestyle magazines—like Latina, which debuted on newsstands in 1996—of the impact of featuring Afro-Latina stars on their covers.
While the motive may be twofold—a data-informed, advertising decision to target more readership with growing discourse on the erasure of Black Latinxs in both mainstream and niche media—Afro-Latina representation in magazines at the time still meant something for readers who wanted to see themselves reflected in their monthly glossies. Though there is a slight uptick in Afro-Latinx representation today, the deep hunger for visibility remains; but social media and the larger digital space is filling the void at an accelerated rate than existing print media. In fact, a number of magazines have pivoted to solely focus on digital content, even unveiling digital covers like Latina’s first-ever digital issue in Spring 2018 with singer-turned-reality star Amara La Negra and, after its return, in 2021 with Michaela Jaé Rodriguez,² formerly MJ, the first transgender actress to win a Golden Globe. Both pioneering in their own right, these newer visual media representations can’t be acknowledged without a closer look at the framework Black print publications set in the mid-twentieth to the top of the late-twentieth century.
A continuum of the Black press heritage, the Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Company founded Ebony and Jet in 1945 and 1951, respectively, as well as the Reader's Digest-esque Negro Digest,³ JPC’s first publication that ran from 1942 to 1951. Founders John and Eunice Johnson were committed to countering mainstream media’s view of African Americans. Historian Brenna Wynn Greer, Ph.D., author of Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined African American Citizenship, defines John Johnson as a pioneering imagemaker and entrepreneur who leverages “new technologies, cultural trends, national politics and consumer demands to popularize media images of Black America that represented African Americans against stereotypes and in keeping with the prevailing definitions of Americanness.”⁴ Though capitalistic gain was the driving force throughout his publishing tenure, Johnson’s business acumen altered dominant media depictions of African Americans and the larger Black Diaspora.
An article, titled “Billboard Girl,” in the December 1958 issue of Ebony reads “The first Negro girl ever to appear as a regular performer on a national television show is 20-year-old Lourdes Altemía Guerrero.”⁵ “Lulú,” as she is often called, was born in what is now Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and is referred to as “Negro”—a term used at the time to describe African Americans. The word choice might be interpreted as an error, given Guerrero Otis’ nationality; however, it further solidifies the publication’s Pan-African editorial perspective and inclusion of a global Black identity. Prior to this Ebony issue, the model and performer appeared on the cover of the imprint in December 1955, as well as Jet on April 14, 1955 and March 22, 1956.
Lulu Guerrero on the cover of the April 14, 1955 issue of Jet. Photographer unknown. Source: Google Play.
The entertainer’s inclusion doesn’t surprise Timeka N. Tounsel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Black Studies in Communication at University of Washington. “The Black press has always been concerned with a global sense of Blackness, always understood Blackness and Black identity as not being bound to a specific national context,” says Tounsel, author of Branding Black Womanhood: Media Citizenship from Black Power to Black Girl Magic. “The way that these Black publications are defining Black dignity is rooted in Africanness, and that's one of the reasons why I think diaspora is so legible and why it almost can be there, even if you don't draw a lot of attention to it. Because this broader ideology of pan-Africanism, of what it means to be a descendant of Africa, is so popular and so widespread it fits quite easily and naturally into these magazines that are founded in the U.S.”
Guerrero Otis is among other Black Latinas, alongside "Queen of Las Vegas" Lola Falana⁶ and the Oscar-winning star of Fame Irene Cara, who appeared on the cover of Ebony and Jet until each ceased print in 2019 and 2014, respectively. While nationality and ethnicity weren’t always addressed, in the February 26, 1981 issue of Jet featuring Cara on the cover, West Coast editor Bob Lucas notes her “Black-Hispanic heritage” and “Puerto Rican-Cuban ancestry” in the article. Lucas even goes as far as asking the actress and singer if she “feels closer to the Black or White world.” She responds:
“We have a tendency in this country that when we say Black it automatically means Black Americans. But that’s a big mistake, and that keeps us divided. There are Blacks all over this entire world—even in Africa (emphasis added). So there are Black Hispanics…but Spanish people are a nationality, not a race. You have White Spanish people, you have Black Spanish people, you have Indian-looking Spanish people. There are Black French people and Black English people, you know. I happen to be a Black Hispanic person who was born in this country.”
While terms like ‘Spanish’ and ‘Hispanic’ would be swapped with Latino/x/e and Indian-looking with Indigenous, Cara’s message is clear and rings true today. Afro-Latinxs continue to educate others on the difference between race, ethnicity and nationality. And, in short, that Black people are not a monolith.
Irene Cara on the cover of the February 26, 1981 issue of Jet. Photographer unknown. Source: Google Play.
Lola Falana on the cover of the April 1, 1976 issue of Jet. Photographer unknown. Source: Google Play.
One can place Cara’s response in conversation with a piece written by author Veronica Chambers almost two decades later. Similar to Ebony and Jet, Essence,⁷ the premier Black women’s lifestyle magazine founded in May 1970, included Black Latinas within its pages. In the July 2000 issue of Essence, Chambers pens “The Secret Latina,” a first-hand account of the complexities of navigating the world as a Black Panamanian woman. “As a Black woman in America, my Latin identity is murkier than my mother's, despite the fact that I, too, was born in Panama, and call that country 'home,'” she writes. Chambers’ words resonate with many Black Latinas whose identity is constantly dissected and put in question. It’s also a reminder that these books not only featured Black Latinas but created space to document and define Afro-Latina existence according to their own terms.
Journalist Mimi Valdés⁸ worked her way up the editorial ladder, becoming editor-in-chief of Vibe in 2003. During her career at the leading hip-hop music and lifestyle publication, she oversaw the launch of the publication’s sister magazine, Vibe Vixen. Celebrities like Ciara, Rihanna, and Tracee Ellis Ross graced the cover of the semi-annual-turned-quarterly women’s magazine before it wrapped print publication in 2007. In the 2006 Holiday issue of Vibe Vixen, singer-songwriter Kelis addressed her “ethnic background.” The cover girl told Kierna Mayo, “My mom is Chinese and Puerto Rican, and my dad is black. We were real close to half of my mom’s family—they’re brown Puerto Ricans.” Though she doesn’t get into greater detail, she would later go on to discuss her background in other interviews. However, having an “it girl” of the time share her Puerto Rican roots while the imprint was run by a fellow Afro-Latina is a vivid example of the power of having culturally conscious media makers involved throughout the creative process.
Afro-Caribbean writer and journalist Marjua Estevez, who grew up reading African American-founded publications such as Essence and Vibe, is a part of the legacy of media makers ensuring that Black diasporic narratives are amplified, visually and beyond. “I would not be the professional writer I am today, or have had the opportunity to shape such a career in this time and country, were it not for Black American publications like these, which is where I most often felt seen or heard as a first-generation Dominican American,” says Estevez, who credits African American cultural institutions and publications for modeling Pan-Africanism. “Women's hair, sense of fashion and style, their bodies and faces in Jet magazine, for instance, often most closely reflected those in my own family.”
Estevez worked as senior editor at Vibe, between 2014 and 2017, and managed the publication’s Latinx vertical, Viva. In that position, she would place rising star Cardi B on her first-ever cover in 2016.
Cardi B on the November 2016 digital cover of Vibe Viva. Photography by Stacy-Ann Ellis.
“It's a moment and story I hold near and dear to my heart,” she says to The Latinx Project. “When I came across Cardi on social media for the first time, I knew exactly who she was. Marred with imperfection and so-called bad speech. But I understood right away her ethos, her attitude, her energy and recognized she was going to be larger than life somehow. It was absolutely egotistical, I wanted to put her—another Black Dominican woman from Uptown, the Bronx—on a cover. The gift of doing it as early as we did with Vibe is that my time with Cardi was really intimate. We interviewed her and shot her at her grandmother's apartment in Washington Heights, where she had cousins and family just flown in from DR hanging around. She was half naked, no makeup, no wig. She was incredibly shy and noticeably suspicious of me at first because this was her first time doing something like this. But it turned out to be a really great time and moment not for popular culture, as much as it was for us. I would argue that until it was Black American legacy brands, like Vibe, bringing Cardi to the fore, the Dominican community itself, so-called Latinos, weren't rooting for her. On the contrary, she was called ugly, ghetto and unrefined by them in her comments. It took the American co-sign, the proverbial culture, to get the Latin American music landscape to even look at Cardi.”
Looking at the current media landscape, Estevez’s words are raw but inarguably true. These legacy publications have modeled Black diasporic storytelling for more than a half-century and have created space for Afro-Latinx writers, editors, cover stars, photographers and independent content creators. In turn, it sparked Latinx pubs and platforms to follow suit. While the future of storytelling is still being written, one thing is for sure (as history shows): Black Latinx media representations and stories will always have a place in the archive of print books and the ever-evolving digital space.
—
Notes
¹ Zoe Saldaña is often included in discourse around Afro-Latino/a/x/e identity. Though she has identified as Black, as evidenced in an Allure interview that is no longer online, but referenced in the Essence article titled “Zoe Saldana Talks Dealing With Racism Amid Nina Simone Biopic Backlash,” she has also distanced herself from these terms or identifying as Black.
² The Latina cover story “Michaela Jaé: Storyteller & Protector” was written by Jasmin Hernandez, Black Latinx founder and editor in chief of Gallery Gurls.
³ Negro Digest returned as Black World, which was published until 1976.
⁴ Brenna Greer, “Magazine Portrayals of African Americans,” C-SPAN video, 10:28, February 10, 2020, https://www.c-span.org/video/?469053-1/magazine-portrayals-african-americans
⁵ In an article published on La Galería Magazine titled, “The Story of Lourdes Guerrero, One of the First Black Women with a Recurring Role on National TV,” it features an image of the December 1958 Ebony article, “Billboard Girl.” It notes, “The information in this article was inaccurate, it was in fact Amanda Randolph who was the first African-American to appear as a regular on a national television show.” https://lagaleriamag.com/lourdesguerrerootis/
⁶ Lola Falana was one of the most famous showgirls in the United States in the 1970s. Falana, who is of Cuban descent, appeared on the cover of Ebony at least twice and Jet roughly seven times.
⁷ Essence is under Essence Communications Inc. (ECI), which was founded in 1968 by Edward Lewis, Clarence O. Smith, Cecil Hollingsworth and Jonathan Blount.
⁸ Prior to editor-in-chief of Vibe, Mimi Valdés’ was editorial assistant, 1993-94; assistant editor, 1994-95; style editor, 1997-98; executive editor, 1999-2002; editor-at-large, 2002-03. After Vibe, Valdés became editor-in-chief of Latina from 2007 to 2010.
Janel Martinez is a writer and the founder of award-winning blog, Ain't I Latina?, an online destination celebrating Afro-Latinx womanhood. The Bronx, NY native is a frequent public speaker discussing media, culture and identity at conferences and events for Bloomberg, NBCU, New York University, SXSW, Harvard University and more. She’s appeared as a featured guest on national shows and outlets, such as MSNBC's The Culture Is: Latina, BuzzFeed, ESSENCE, NPR and Sirius XM, and her work has appeared in Adweek, Univision Communications, Oprah Daily, Refinery29, Remezcla and The New York Times, among others.
The Honduran-American has been nominated for the 20th Annual Rosoff Award in the 20-Something Category and won the Afro-Latino Festival of New York's Digital Empowerment Award and, in 2018, was recognized at City Hall by the New York City Council, the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and the Bronx Delegation to the NYC Council for her contributions as a woman of Garifuna descent.
Her work is featured in the YA anthology, Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed, published by Flatiron Books.