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Latin City

📚🌎stories from the diasporas that shaped Latin America
🍴hosts of Sazon Latin Food Festival, Pilon Afro-Latino Food Festival and Chevere Brunches!

Check out our Language and Culture guides at www.OurLatinCity.com

08/09/2026

Before Beyoncé became one of the biggest stars in the world, she says she crossed paths with Selena Quintanilla at The Galleria in Houston.

Beyoncé first told the story publicly years ago, saying she briefly saw Selena, said hello and kept moving because she “wasn’t a celebrity” yet.

Netflix later recreated the encounter in Selena: The Series. 👑

But not everyone believes the story. 👀

Some fans have questioned whether the encounter really happened, saying the story almost sounds too perfect now that Beyoncé and Selena are two of the most iconic artists to ever come out of Texas.

There is an important detail, though: Beyoncé was publicly telling this story as far back as 2007, long before Netflix dramatized it.

What we don’t have is independent confirmation of exactly how the encounter unfolded, and the Netflix scene includes details that were created for the series.

Beyoncé has also consistently spoken about Selena’s influence on her growing up in Houston, calling her a legend and saying listening to Selena helped her Spanish pronunciation.

So, according to Beyoncé, the meeting happened.

What do you think?👇🏾

🎥 Selena: The Series / Netflix

08/09/2026

🇨🇺🐝 More than two decades later, one of Celia Cruz’s most iconic lines just found its way into a Beyoncé song.

On her new collaboration with Maluma, “Cuerpo (Tumbao),” Beyoncé pays tribute to the Queen of Salsa in several different ways.

The song samples Celia’s classic “La Negra Tiene Tumbao,” incorporates her legendary “¡Azúcar!” and ends with a playful reference longtime Celia fans will immediately recognize.

Back at the 2002 Latin Grammys, Celia famously joked:

🗣️ “My English is not very good-looking.”

Beyoncé flips it:

🗣️ “My Spanish is not very good looking.”

But the tribute goes deeper than one line.

Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment says Celia was chosen because of the pride she showed in her African heritage and the way she refused to bend to racism, colorism and narrow definitions of beauty.

Celia Cruz passed away in 2003.

More than two decades later, one of the biggest artists in the world is still sampling her music, repeating her expressions and introducing another generation to her legacy.

That’s influence 🇨🇺👑

¡AZÚCAR!

What do you think of Beyoncé’s tribute to Celia Cruz?👇🏾

08/09/2026

🌊 Nearly 200 years before Columbus, a ruler of Mali reportedly sailed west into the Atlantic with an enormous fleet.

In 1324, Mansa Musa told Egyptian officials that his predecessor had first sent 400 vessels to explore the ocean.

Only one returned.

Its captain described encountering something like a powerful “river” in the sea. The other vessels entered it and disappeared.

The ruler then launched a second expedition of 2,000 vessels. One thousand reportedly carried the ruler and his people, while another thousand carried provisions.

The source gives no passenger count. But even 10 people aboard each people-carrying vessel would represent roughly 10,000 travelers. The actual number remains unknown.

The fleet sailed west and never returned. ⛵

Atlantic winds and currents can naturally carry vessels from West Africa to the Americas in 1-2 months.

Then later reports make the mystery even more intriguing. 👀

Columbus’s Third Voyage material records vessels from Guinea reportedly sailing west. Indigenous Hispaniolans described Black visitors carrying guanín spearpoints. In 1513, Peter Martyr recorded a Black population near Quarequa in present-day Panama.

Could these reports be connected?

Could survivors of Mali’s fleet have reached the Americas, built communities and never found their way home?

The historical accounts leave us clues, but no final answer.

What do you think happened to Mali’s missing fleet? 🤔

08/09/2026

🏗️ Most people know who engineered the Panama Canal.

Far fewer know who physically built it.

🌴 More than 31,000 contract laborers recruited during the American construction era came from the West Indies. Nearly 20,000 came from Barbados alone.

⛏️ These workers excavated earth, laid railroad tracks, carried equipment and entered some of the most dangerous sections of the construction zone.

🦟 They faced disease, explosions, landslides and exhausting tropical conditions.

💰 They also worked within a racialized labor system known as the Gold Roll and Silver Roll.

White American employees were generally placed on the better-paid Gold Roll. Most Black Caribbean workers were assigned to the Silver Roll, which meant lower wages, segregated facilities and unequal treatment.

🌊 Their labor helped connect two oceans and transformed global commerce.

But their names and experiences were pushed to the margins of the canal’s official story.

🏘️ These workers did more than construct a canal. They built families, neighborhoods, churches, newspapers, businesses and cultural traditions that permanently transformed Panama.

📚 Comment CENTRAL below and we’ll send you the link to get African Diaspora in Central America: An Illustrated History.

⏳ Use code CENTRAL30 at checkout to save 30% through Friday, September 11.

08/09/2026

🌍 Before Marcus Garvey became one of the most influential Black leaders in modern history, he was a young Jamaican worker living in Costa Rica.

In 1910, Garvey arrived in Puerto Limón, where thousands of Caribbean migrants had traveled to work in the railroad and banana industries.

🚂 He worked as a timekeeper within the banana economy and witnessed the conditions endured by Black laborers whose work generated enormous wealth for foreign companies.

📰 Garvey also became involved in journalism, editing a newspaper called La Nación and using the written word to confront exploitation and racial inequality.

He later traveled to Colón, Panama 🇵🇦 where he encountered another major Caribbean community shaped by migration, labor and discrimination.

These experiences helped sharpen the questions that would define his life:

Why were Black workers building the modern world while remaining excluded from its power?

✊🏾And how could African-descended people organize across borders?

Garvey’s Central American years reveal a much larger story about Jamaican migration, banana plantations, railroads and the Black communities that transformed the region.

📚 Comment CENTRAL below and we’ll send you the link to get African Diaspora in Central America: An Illustrated History.

⏳ Use code CENTRAL30 at checkout to save 30% through Friday, September 11.

08/09/2026

Before the Panama Canal existed, an African leader was already challenging an empire in Panama 🇵🇦

His name was Bayano.

Enslaved and transported into colonial Panama during the 1500s, Bayano escaped and became the leader of a powerful community of cimarrones, Africans who liberated themselves from Spanish captivity.

Spanish accounts described him as a king.

Under Bayano’s leadership, the community defended its freedom, disrupted colonial routes and survived repeated attempts to destroy it. When Spanish forces could not defeat Bayano through direct confrontation, he was ultimately captured through deception.

But his capture did not end Black resistance in Panama.

Maroon communities continued fighting, negotiating and building lives beyond Spanish control. Bayano’s story is one chapter in a much larger history of African survival and resistance across Central America.

📚 Want to uncover the history most of us were never taught?

Comment CENTRAL below and we’ll send you the link to get African Diaspora in Central America: An Illustrated History.

Use code CENTRAL30 at checkout to receive 30% off through Friday, September 11.

07/09/2026

🇩🇴 Dominican-American community leader Misael Ramos is running for Austin City Council.

Ramos is campaigning to represent District 1, which covers much of East Austin, in the November 3 election.

Speaking at a recent fundraiser at Comunidad Specialty Coffee & Cold Pressed Juices Ramos opened up about the Dominican side of his family and how it shaped who he is today.

He spoke about his Dominican mother teaching him Spanish from an early age, growing up connected to Dominican culture, and even shouted out one of his favorite foods: sancocho 🇩🇴🥘

But for Ramos, that background also connects directly to why he is running.

As the son of a Black American father and an Afro-Latina immigrant mother, he says his experiences help him connect with Austin’s diverse working-class communities and people who increasingly feel like the city they call home is becoming unaffordable.

Ramos has spent more than 20 years involved in Austin community issues and currently serves as president of the historic Rogers-Washington-Holy Cross Neighborhood Association. His campaign is focused heavily on housing affordability, protecting East Austin from displacement, public transit, neighborhood safety and preserving local culture.

Austin is changing quickly.

For many natives and longtime residents, the question is whether the people who helped build the culture of the city will still be able to afford to live here and benefit from its growth.

Now Ramos is asking District 1 voters to give him the opportunity to represent them at City Hall.

🇩🇴What do you think about seeing more Dominican and Afro-Latino representation in local politics?👇🏾

06/09/2026

🌍 For more than 450 years, one of the world’s most recognizable maps has given millions of people a distorted idea of how big Africa actually is.

Now the United Nations is pushing to change that.

🇺🇳 164 countries voted in favor.

6 countries abstained.

🇺🇸 The United States was the ONLY country to vote against it.

The African-led “Correct the Map” resolution encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use map projections that more accurately represent the relative sizes of continents.

The problem is the traditional Mercator projection.

Created in 1569 for navigation, Mercator increasingly exaggerates the size of landmasses as you move toward the poles. That makes places like Europe, Canada and Greenland appear much larger relative to Africa than they actually are.

One of the most striking examples?

🌍 Africa is actually about 14 TIMES larger than Greenland, despite the two appearing surprisingly similar in size on many Mercator maps.

The Equal Earth projection promoted by the campaign preserves relative land area much more accurately.

The United States opposed the resolution, arguing that the UN was pursuing a “radical ideological project” instead of focusing on issues of international peace, prosperity and international relations.

The resolution is nonbinding and does NOT ban the Mercator map. It encourages more accurate alternatives when showing the relative size of countries and continents.

But 164 countries just agreed on something much bigger than cartography:

How we draw the world can influence how we SEE the world. 🌍

Did you realize Africa was this much larger than it appears on many traditional world maps?👇🏾

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