Until recently, it was uncommon to consider descendants of Africans when thinking about Latinos, or vice-versa, to consider Latinos when thinking about Black people. Yet about 15 times more enslaved Africans were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies than to the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. Michele Reid-Vazquez, associate professor of Africana Studies and director of the Afrolatinidad Studies Initiative and the Center for Ethnic Studies Research at the University of Pittsburgh, discusses the emergence of the identity term "Afro-Latino" and the historical conditions that created Afro-Latinos, yet obscured their existence.