This Must-Follow Instagram Account Is a Visual Archive of Old Latinx New York

"How is it that there's nothing like this that focuses on us?" asks Djalí Brown-Cepeda, founder of Nuevayorkinos, a digital archive that functions more like a shared family photo album than an Instagram page. Born in a dark living room in Santo Domingo in February 2019, Nuevayorkinos now boasts a healthy following of 15,500-plus fans, mainly Latinx, all looking to see themselves reflected in images of the past.

Accounts like @map_pointz showcase the Latinx subculture of ’90s Southern California, memorializing predominantly Mexican and Central American culture. And while they shine a much-needed light on those who set the stage for West Coast Latinx culture, Djalí, like many other young Latinx people living on the East Coast of the U.S., found herself disconnected and unable to fully identify with a culture that was similar to but not her own.

There's a common thread that ties together the Latinx experience; something that unites us all. Whether it's our love for a good arroz con pollo or a family party where everyone inevitably ends up dancing to Juan Luis Guerra, we share a sense of pride and love for our culture, for our Latinidad. But where there are similarities, there are differences. These differences are often tucked away by society and confined into one neat, oversimplified identity: people who aren't from here.

"[It] stemmed from a place of neocolonialism, where our identities had to be quantifiable by some sort of measure," notes Djalí when talking about feeling "other" in a space filled with fellow Latinx people. "As an East Coast Caribbean Afro-Latina woman, I could relate only so much to the West Coast experience," says Djalí. From the food we eat to the slang we speak, there's a beautiful uniqueness within Latinx culture, something Nuevayorkinos aims to celebrate.

The Nuevayorkinos page is a visual representation of the intersection of culture, identity, and the concept of home. With endless images of vintage East Harlem, known to most of its residents as El Barrio; Brooklyn; and the Bronx, it’s nearly impossible to stop scrolling through the vibrant Nuevayorkinos feed. Opening up the account is like embarking on a visual listening tour, hearing the stories of unknown faces who suddenly feel like family. In our conversation with Djalí, we disassemble preconceived notions of what home means and talk about her objective of providing a voice to those who have been historically silenced. Read on to hear what this Dominican-American trailblazer has to say.

Clever: What motivated you to start the account?

Djalí: I was motivated for a few reasons. One mission was to help fill the gap of the lack of Latinx representation. There is so little out there, and what does exist either perpetuates stereotypes or adds to the air of fear and frenzy that's bolstered by conservative news outlets. Moreover, as the gentrification of communities of color in major cities continues to push out lifelong residents, Nuevayorkinos combats the culture of erasure woven into this branch of neocolonialism by giving light to and holding space for the stories to be heard and the faces to be seen of the disenfranchised and displaced.

Clever: How do you define home?

Djalí: On the surface, home is where you grow up: your building, your apartment, your street, your neighborhood. But it’s deeper than that: Home is what I feel when I hear the accordion riff in a típico song played out of my vecino’s car. It’s the smile on my face I see the woman in rollos picking up her food before going under the dryer. Home is the sweat that forms on your chest when dancing salsa with your loved ones at a house party. Home is rooted in the physical, but it’s all the sentimiento and culture that goes along with it that makes it more than just a location. It’s about belonging.

Clever: Do you think people can create a home on Instagram?

Djalí: To a degree, yes. Being able to have these online spaces at your fingertips brings memories of home closer. And that these spaces are followed by so many people, it makes you feel part of a larger community. That’s something many people have told me about Nuevayorkinos in general: “I thought I was the only one who went through X or Y experience. To see that I’m not the only one makes me feel less alone.” That’s why I refer to Nuevayorkinos as a big family photo album.

Clever: How was Latinidad expressed in your home growing up?

Djalí: Growing up in my home, Latinidad embraced you the moment you opened the door. Linguistically, my upbringing was very Spanglish. There was Taíno and African art all over the place and a hand-painted Cuban flag that hung over the couch for a time. Salsa, Afro-Cuban music and tons of world music constantly played in the house. By the time I was in third grade, I remember passionately singing along to Hector Lavoe’s “Periodico de Ayer” not understanding what I was really saying but knowing it had to be deep because of how he sounded. Culturally, I grew up practicing La Regla de Lukumí, known to most as Yoruba or Santería, an Afro-Cuban syncretic polytheistic religion that dates back to slavery. I was exposed to pan-Africanism and the names of all the great leaders of the Third World at a very young age. I was taught that my brown skin and curly hair were beautiful and that while society will try to place me in a box, that Latinidad, just like blackness, is not monolithic. I’m very privileged to have been taught the truth at an early age: about colonization, genocide, and the beauty in the resiliency of people of color. The Latinidad I grew up in was revolutionary.

Clever: Nuevayorkinos is much more than a nostalgia account. Can you speak about the idea of your account serving as a home for your followers?

Djalí: Sharing the accounts of abuelas who raised 10 children, or dads that tried their hardest to be there for their children but couldn’t because street life took over, makes people see that they are not alone. Once, a woman shared a story of her grandfather who she loved dearly, but whose racism and xenophobia caused a rift between them. For the next few hours after the post published, I received messages from other individuals who had experienced the same thing. From the smallest to the deepest similarity, Nuevayorkinos provides a space, albeit digital, that allows people from all over the boroughs to connect with one another. When you realize you’re more similar to someone than different, you start to see the home in others.

Clever: Do you believe Nuevayorkinos has the ability to speak up for those who can’t?

Djalí: By sharing the stories of the everyday person, Nuevayorkinos already gives a voice to the group less heard: the people. It’s a nondiscriminatory forum that only exists through audience participation. [Nuevyorkinos allows] for people to be heard in their authentic truths. Moreover, although it’s getting better with time, Latinx media has not done the best to showcase the multifacetedness that is Latinidad. And again, while we are making strides, we need to do better. As a celebratory archive dedicated to the people, Nuevayorkinos allows for all stories to be told despite race, ethnicity, class, or other social constructs. It’s an equal playing field.

Nuevayorkinos can only exist if we, the people, exist. When people send me their submissions, I barely change anything. It’s a platform in which people are able to talk for themselves as freely as they’d want. As this is a New York City–centric project, the stories hail from different barrios around the five boroughs, most of which are subject to increasing gentrification. By highlighting stories from these areas, Nuevayorkinos immortalizes the faces, names, and histories of people who would otherwise be overlooked and silenced. When thinking about gentrification and what I could do to lessen the blow (as someone who is not in any financial bracket to enact structural change), I saw that Nuevayorkinos could perhaps provide a therapeutic space in which people could reminisce over their pasts in neighborhoods that once reflected their home islands.

Neighborhoods that are now becoming increasingly whitewashed, where newcomers hold onto their purses tightly when coming into contact with locals or call the police to report gunshots when in reality it’s just the sound of dominoes smacking a table. In this current feat of colonialism, we have the tools to document our neighborhoods and its inhabitants that were not available to our ancestors in the same capacity. Whether by way of photography or journalism, we have a responsibility to preserve our fleeing histories in whatever ways we can.

Clever: What would you like your followers to gain from your account?

Djalí: I’d like people to see that while we are all different and come from varying backgrounds, our personal histories are similar to those that are found in the greater Latinx community, and immigrant communities as a whole. Through the comments section of a photo or via Instagram story, entire discourses about culture, assimilation, linguistic retention, and xenophobia are held. I hope those conversations don’t end after 24 hours. By continuing to talk about the -isms and other things that we sweep under the rug in our community publicly, we help emancipate ourselves from centuries-old chains.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest