Traveling Abroad is a Good Thing for Black American Men! 8/16/2022
I remember leaving the country for the first time in my life at age 24. I participated in a student travel abroad program while a graduate student at Grambling State University in December of 1994. We went to Mexico to live with host families and attended college classes in Saltillo for about three weeks. During the fourth and final week of our visit to Mexico, we spent a couple of days in Mexico City where we toured the city’s landmarks and government offices. It was in Mexico City where I first began to notice darker skin toned Mexicans. I was like, “Wow, in the American media, only the white looking Mexicans are presented as being the only people of Mexico.” At the end of the second day, our group hopped onto a train late that night to travel six hours over night to the city of Acapulco which is in the state of Guerrero. When we arrived in Acapulco, I was like, “Gyattt damn! Look at all of these curly head, froed out, dark skinned people in this city speaking straight Spanish. I was...