Afro-Hispanics and self-identity: the gods to the rescue?

Abstract

Identity is one of the social constructs that gives a sense of belonging to an individual or a group. While establishing one’s identity does not necessarily pose a challenge in one’s own country of origin because of certain degrees of homogeneity in language, culture, skin colour, etc., it could be otherwise, whenas a descendant of another race a group is the target of a dominant culture. This paper adopts Link & Phelan’s (2001) conceptualization of stigmatoexamine whetherthe return to African traditional religious practices by some Afro-descendants is the ideal coping strategy against the discrimination and identity threat they are subject to.