By Zerline Hughes Spruill
On Monday eve, I was overwhelmed by emotion around the feeling of belonging. Belonging not necessarily to the America we have all been conditioned to pledge allegiance to, but belonging to a 6,000-mile diaspora that is rich, oozing with history, beauty, elegance and oh so much pride. And of course, we must add in those extra 1,800 miles it takes to get to the Motherland of Africa to understand the root of this diaspora.
My mother always boasted of this diaspora, and I actually felt it as a Black child in Los Angeles. I grew up in the early 1980s next door to Jamaicans who blared their reggae unapologetically on weekends, and in the ‘hood where the Mexican paleteras pushed their ringing pushcarts down the streets of South Central. I loved it all, and several aspects of these two cultures have impacted my life greatly. And even though my supposed friends in elementary and junior high school made fun of me for “looking African” with my chocolate brown skin, big lips and 4C curls formerly known as naps, I reveled in my African-ness and doubled down on it by wearing Senegalese twists in the 1990s, dancing professionally from age 10 to 21 in an Afro-Cuban dance troupe that performed throughout Southern California, and collecting jewelry and art at L.A. festivals from vendors hailing from the Motherland. That was my small world of perspective, and I was so very lucky to have that.
Then, a few things happened that further opened up my worldview.
I attended Howard University. Not only did I meet people from states nowhere near California or the West, but I was going home on long weekends with people from Orangeburg, South Carolina and the Boogie Down Bronx. I was in study groups with students from Kingston, Jamaica and Lagos, Nigeria. One student even bragged that he was a prince in his African country. We laughed, but we still wonder to this day if he really was telling the truth. He probably was.
After college, I became a journalist at home in Southern California, but settled in a county that was one percent Black. Pretty isolating, but alongside the white-flight and born-and-raised and population in Ventura County, I was surrounded once again by Mexicans and had the opportunity to report about the work they were doing in the fields as farmers, as local shop owners and as city officials.
Twenty years later, I had the amazing opportunity to finally visit Africa – South Africa in 2019 and Ghana in 2022. It was nothing like what the media showed me on TV. Talk about fake news.
Bad Bunny’s 2026 Super Bowl LX performance, aka Benito Bowl!
Since the year 2000, my travels have taken me to visit much of Central America and the Caribbean. Each country feels familiar, welcoming and like home. So much, that I recently moved to Mexico. (And yes, I’ve been to Europe, including the cradle of colonization – Portugal – but there’s just something about the diasporic America that Bad Bunny promoted yesterday that I love. As a newly turned Mexican resident, Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance had me on the edge of my seat when he started naming countries. I wasn’t waiting for him to call out USA, though he did, and that was … gracious. I was waiting for Mexico, and when I heard it and saw the flag earlier in the performance, I erupted in applause in my bed. There’s something about feeling included, accepted, and welcomed that many of us need in order to feel comfortable, confident and appreciated. There’s quite enough competition around us in our work (and in our play), no one needs to hear that one phrase that I think is most divisive and harmful: “We are the greatest country in the world.” Also, might I add, the country that boasts that clearly is not.
Bad Bunny sealed my understanding of the resilience and celebratory nature of Black people – the diaspora of Black people. And just maybe because he had the largest platform to impart his journey and our shared experiences, others will finally start to get us, appreciate us and stop with the foolishness.
But probably not. At least we got us.
Meet me here and on IG @sojournalisms to hear about my travels, my Mexican residency, and how-tos on relocating!