Ready to be seen

​There is nothing more radical than no longer hiding behind a name.
 
I am Amanda Alcántara, and today I changed my Twitter handle from @RadicalLatina to @yosoy_Amanda. Many people understood the decision while others have asked me I made the change.
 
I don’t really need to explain myself, but I will give you some quick insight into this decision with a list:

  1. I want to be called by my name: Truly, This is the main reason, and it is enough. I love my name. As a kid I would dream of seeing my name in print and whenever someone used Radical Latina it actually bothered me. I am Amanda Alcántara.
  2. I am a Radical Latina but it is not all that I am: I believe in being radical, in fighting for our communities and in fighting for our people. I am anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchy, and anti-white supremacy. I am also from Latin American. But Radical Latina is both a name and a description, assigning that to myself meant people meeting me already had preconceived notions of who I am, what I stand for. The fact is, yes I’m Radical, but I don’t stand with everyone who uses that word. I, for example, don’t stand with TERFs (Trans-exclusionary Radical Feminists). I am Latina, but I’m also not the image of Latinidad nor do I wish to be, especially when that word wasn’t even meant for me. I am a black woman, I am a mixed woman, I am a Caribbean woman, I am an immigrant from Latin America. I believe there’s organizing power in the term Latino as it relates to those who immigrate from Latin America, but Latino isn’t and wasn’t meant to be inclusive of black and brown people. For more context: When I created Radical Latina, I was angry and exhausted- it was a spur of the moment thing as my name came to me and I changed my blog from born2Bloud to Radical Latina. I found out about TERFS shortly after creating it and refused to allow their use of Radical to stop me from using it. Today, I still do refuse that. I’m still radical. There's power in the word in other ways. I can be that without calling myself that. 
  3. THIS LITERALLY MEANS NOTHING IN TERMS OF MY WORK: IM STILL GONNA DO EXACTLY WHAT IM DOING. I am even keeping my blog radicallatina.com because of the archive of essays that I have that people read every day. It is still my platform, which I use to share my thoughts. But it is simply not my nickname anymore.
  4. I am not a brand, I am a human being: Asking people to use my name to refer to me is something I’m very excited for. When I created Radical Latina, I did it to hide. I felt that I couldn’t say everything that I wanted to say and keep my day job or have a professional career. Eventually, I showed my face, so being Radical Latina on the internet was no longer as necessary as before. Now those are no longer my concerns. 
 
Change is scary. Whenever I look at the name Radical Latina, I can almost see me, this young girl ready to take on the world. She’s angry, and she’s exhausted from carrying so much weight on her back. But she is fierce, and uses her fierceness and fearlessness for la lucha del pueblo one word at a time, one report at a time, one video at a time.

Yesterday, during the solar eclipse, the moon reminded me that we have to take action to no longer be in the shadow. I’m grateful to her, Radical Latina, and the beautiful thing is I don’t have to let go because she is in me. Now, I’m ready to be seen in a way in which I wasn’t before.  A label will no longer keep me in the shadows. I am Amanda Alcántara. @Yosoy_Amanda