How a trip to Honduras shaped one young US Afro Latino voter's identity

May 12, 2020 · 4:15 PM EDT

By Naomi Prioleau



Brayan Guevara, a 19-year-old college sophomore, at home in North Carolina.

Credit:
Naomi Prioleau/The World

This story is part of "Every 30 Seconds," a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond.


Freshman year of college was hard for Brayan Guevara. He almost failed his classes at Guilford Technical Community College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Then his mother, a Spanish language professor at another nearby college, got an idea.

“She’s like, ‘Brayan, what’s going on?’ She knew something was wrong,” he said. “She was like, ‘Okay, I got something for you. This summer, you’re going away to Honduras.’”

Guevara, a 19-year-old with roots in Honduras, had never visited the country where so many of his relatives live. His mother, Nodia Mena, a Honduran immigrant, wanted Guevara to get away from the distractions of college life.

Guevara spent a month and a half last summer with his cousins in Trujillo, a city along Honduras’ northern Caribbean coast. What Guevara didn’t expect was how much the trip would shape his identity as an Afro Latino in the US. And that identity is shaping the issues most important to him as he considers how to cast his vote in the US presidential election this November. It will be his first time voting in a US election.

More:
https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-05-12/how-trip-honduras-shaped-one-young-us-afro-latino-voters-identity

This link is embedded in the story, but I'm posting it separately. So cool! I never heard of this, but it's amazing. The "punta" dance. Very, very likable instructor. She makes it look so easy.