Persons of African descent, commonly referred to as "Afro-Latinos," along with women and indigenous populations, are among the poorest and most marginalized groups in Latin America. The term "Afro-Latinos," as used within the international development community and the U.S. government, generally refers to Afro-descendant populations in the Spanish-and Portuguese-speaking nations of Latin America. Following common usage, this paper uses the terms "Afro-descendant," "Afro-Latino," "Afro-Latin," and "black" interchangeably. This paper does not include a discussion of Haiti or English-speaking Caribbean nations that have governments composed largely of Afro-descendants. Within the past decade, Afro-Latinos have begun to employ different strategies to align national movements with international organizations, including multilateral development banks to which the United States contributes, in order to improve their social status. Some countries—most notably Brazil and Colombia—have enacted legal reforms and government programs to address racial discrimination, land rights, and political and social exclusion. Improvement in the status of Afro-Latinos could be difficult and internally contentious, however, depending on the size and circumstances of the Afro-descendant populations in each country. Some U.S. analysts and policymakers argue that the United States has a specific interest in assisting Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America. They assert that assisting vulnerable peoples fits into larger U.S. policy goals for the region: promoting democracy, encouraging economic growth and poverty reduction, and protecting human rights. Those proponents disagree, however, as to whether U.S. foreign aid should be specifically targeted towards Afro-Latinos (as it has been in the case of some indigenous peoples), or whether it should continue to be distributed broadly through programs aimed at helping all marginalized populations. Other analysts question whether increasing assistance to Afro-Latinos is feasible at a time when limited development assistance is being allocated to Latin America. They point out that the country with the largest Afro-descendant population in the region, Brazil, is relatively developed and does not receive large amounts of U.S. foreign aid. They question whether funds directed towards Afro-Latinos will have to be taken from programs currently serving other needy groups. Still others caution that because race is a sensitive issue for many countries in Latin America, the United States should be cautious when pursuing policies that affect the issue. This report reviews and analyzes the situation, concerns, and activities of Afro-descendants in the Spanish-and Portuguese-speaking nations of Latin America. It then discusses current U.S. foreign aid programs, as well as multilateral initiatives, that have directly or indirectly assisted Afro-Latinos. The report concludes with a discussion of potential policy options that have been proposed should the United States elect to provide further support for Afro-Latinos. Race and ethnicity are complex issues in Latin America. Most of Latin America's 540 million residents descend from three major racial/ethnic groups: Indian or indigenous peoples, of whom there are some 400 distinct groups; Europeans, largely of Spanish and Portuguese heritage; and Africans, descendants of slaves brought to the region during the colonial era. Mestizo generally refers to people of mixed European and indigenous lineage, while mulatto refers to people of mixed African and European background. After centuries of racial mixing, there are numerous racial variations in Latin America, and many people of mixed African, European, and indigenous ancestry. Since the colonial period, racial intermingling, also known as mestizaje , has been a source of national pride for many countries in Latin America. Countries with large Afro-descendant populations, especially Brazil, have, until recently, been heavily influenced by the notion of "racial democracy." Racial democracy attributes the different conditions under which blacks and whites or mestizos live to class differences, not racial discrimination. Adherents of this theory, which is also pervasive in Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, argue that being black is a transitory state that can be altered by "whitening" through miscegenation or wealth accumulation. The racial democracy theory has been challenged by recent data revealing a strong and persistent correlation between race and poverty in Latin America. In both Brazil and Colombia, the countries with the largest Afro-Latino populations in South America, Afro-descendants are (and have always been) among the poorest, least educated, lowest paid citizens. Despite the complexities surrounding racial identity in Latin America, and the limited data available on this topic, this section outlines the characteristics, history, and current status of Afro-descendant people in Latin America. Afro-descendants in Latin America have not been historically identified, as they have in the United States, as any individual with traceable African ancestry. People in Latin America have several different ways of classifying themselves. Lighter skinned mulattoes may identify themselves as white, while some blacks may identify themselves as mulattoes or mestizos. These classifications are influenced by class position, geographic location, societal associations of blackness, the existence (or lack) of collective identities among people of color, and state policies. There is a range of state policies towards race in Latin America, from tacitly condoning racism against minority groups to promoting diversity. The Dominican Republic provides a striking example of how racial identity has been formed by official notions of national identity. The Dominican government mobilized a nationalist movement against an external threat (the mostly black republic of Haiti). Although the vast majority of the population has African ancestry, Dominicans, in order to distinguish themselves from their poorer Haitian neighbors, tend to define themselves as mestizos descended from Indians and Europeans, and not as Afro-Dominicans. A 2005 study on racial attitudes in the Dominican Republic finds that 83% of Dominicans believe their society is racist against blacks. For the purposes of this report, blacks and mulattoes are grouped together to yield the estimated number of Afro-descendants in Latin America. Of the 540 million people living in Latin America, some 150 million were of African descent as of 1997, the latest data available. Afro-Latinos tend to reside in coastal areas, although in many countries they have migrated to large cities in search of employment. Afro-Latinos constitute a majority of the population in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, they form a significant minority. In terms of absolute numbers, Brazil has the largest Afro-descendant population outside of Africa. In 2000, 45% of Brazilians identified themselves as black or mulatto, as compared to 13% of U.S. citizens who identified themselves as African-American. The vast majority of Afro-Latinos descend from the millions of slaves brought by European traders from the West African coast who survived the Middle Passage to the Americas. Some historians have stated that the first slaves in the hemisphere arrived in Virginia in 1619, and that the majority of African slaves ended up in the southern United States. However, historians now maintain that the first slaves arrived in Hispaniola, an island now divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in the early 16 th century. Some 12 million or so Africans arrived in the Americas over the 400-year history of the slave trade. Some scholars estimate that more than 50% of those African slaves ended up in Brazil, while only 5% went to the United States. Although many Africans perished due to harsh working conditions and disease, new slaves from West Africa continued to replace them until abolition. Slavery was abolished in most Latin American countries at or soon after their independence from Spain in the1820s, but continued in Brazil until1888. As slavery and lingering racism have left an indelible mark on Afro-Latinos, so too has the long but little-known legacy of black rebellion and self-liberation (marronage). The first slave rebellions occurred in Puerto Rico (1514) and Hispaniola (1522). By the 17 th century, maroons (escaped slaves) in Latin America have been estimated to have numbered between 11,000 and 30,000. Maroons formed communities with sovereign territoriality in remote terrains with low population densities that now constitute the prominent Afro-Latino areas of eastern and northern South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. According to the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, there are at least 1,098 quilombola (escaped slaves) communities in Brazil today. Afro-descendant communities in Honduras and Nicaragua are generally rural communities descended from escaped slaves who immigrated to Central America from the Caribbean in the 17 th and 18 th centuries. Many of those communities, particularly the Garifuna in Honduras, have developed distinct racial, cultural, and political identities based on communal land ties in areas that are geographically isolated from the rest of their country's populations. Although some countries with large Afro-Latino populations, such as Brazil and Colombia, disaggregate socioeconomic data by race, most countries do not, making it extremely difficult to find good quantitative data on Afro-Latinos. Despite these data limitations, household surveys and anecdotal evidence from across the region point to a correlation between African descent and political, economic, and social marginalization. Disparities between Afro-Latinos and the general population in Latin America have persisted despite rising income and growth levels throughout the region. Statistics from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador Honduras, and Nicaragua generally support that finding. Afro-Latinos represent 45% of the population of Brazil but constitute 64% of the poor and 69% of the extremely poor. With respect to education, 18% of Afro-Brazilians have completed secondary school as compared to 38% of those who self-identify as white.