By Rubiahna Vaughn

When I left Ecuador two years ago, I promised myself I would never return. Volunteering at a shelter for street children in Quito, Ecuador the summer after my freshman year, I had dealt with things I did not want to have to reencounter. For months after my return, the thought of Ecuador, the sound of Spanish, and the pictures from my trip evoked painful memories I could not forget.

The children at the shelter where I worked and the people on the street couldn’t tell from my clothes and mannerisms that I was not Ecuadorian, because they couldn’t get that far; all they saw was my skin color. To them I was just a black girl, that’s all. Amidst the vendors and shoppers I passed on my way to work each day, the only other black women I saw were prostitutes. They were tall, powerful women, stuffed into miniskirts and tiny tank tops who shared the same crowded sidewalks with men and women who looked down upon them because of their color more so than their profession, or so it seemed. They were the only black women I saw my entire time in Quito.

Consequently, the men I encountered in that neighborhood assumed that I too was a prostitute and treated me as such. I was catcalled, spat at, chased, pinned against walls and yelled at by men of all sizes, shapes and colors while walking to work each day. Some days, of course, were worse than others, and it was on those difficult days, when my personal safety and integrity were demeaned, that I swore that Ecuador was a place I would never set foot in again. I realized that as a black woman, I was the target of both racism and sexism.

Each day the black women and I would stare at each another on the street, equally interested but muted by too many questions and even more confusion. I longed to speak with someone who would sympathize: a black woman, someone who could understand what was happening to me. I wish now that I had stopped to talk to one of them, but I was too afraid. My entire time was spent wondering what women like me, black women in Ecuador, were doing, where they were living, and how they were experiencing the world around them.

My fear, confusion and frustration at living in Ecuador were dulled and buried in my everyday efforts to do as much as I could for the black boys whom I befriended in the shelter. I spent all of my time with the black boys at the shelter because they were the only ones who treated me with respect. The majority of the indigenous and mestizo street kids at the shelter refused to speak to me or play with me because of my color; they preferred the blond-haired, blue-eyed volunteers.

Needless to say, I learned a lot about race and racism in Ecuador after those two months, a lesson I had no earthly idea I would learn in Ecuador, and so brutally at that.

Only now am I starting to realize that I crossed boundaries that I never even knew existed as an educated, black woman walking down the street with the other Stanford volunteers, who were white. No one told me about the yelling, the grabbing and the epithets I would have to ignore. No one could have warned me about the atrocious and overt racism that I would have to endure as a young black woman in one of the most racially stratified countries in Latin America. But, no one told me, because no one knew.

My whole trip I spent panting, gasping for a breath, a breath of fresh air that I could not find, until now. It is only now, two years removed from the most difficult and dangerous experiences of my life, that I realize the true beauty and power of my experience and that to not share it would be a shame.

Ecuador is an incredibly beautiful and rich country, and like all other places on Earth it is equally hideous and horrific. Most travelers see only one side of a new destination, but I got to experience a bit of both. After two years of dealing with the trauma of my summer in Ecuador, I decided to return. In preparation I spent hours and hours reading all that I could on Afro-Latinos and Afro-Ecuadorians, of which there was not much material available. I wanted to know about Afro-Ecuadorian communities and women in particular and how racism is affecting them. Since the answers to my questions weren‘t in the literature, I went to Ecuador to ask them myself.

Although I had cried five times on the plane before landing in Quito for the second time, I was prepared to return because I was armed academically and supported emotionally by my friends, family and contacts in Ecuador. And what I discovered upon my second trip was an entirely new Ecuador. It was safe, welcoming, and refreshingly, Afro-centric. The strength of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities was awe-inspiring, and the energy and momentum of their civil rights movement, which I have detailed here, was just as inspirational.