Use of the term afrodescendiente is continuously debated across Latin America, as is the identifier negro. Some argue that afrodescendiente denies blackness and thus prefer to call themselves negros. In contrast, others contend that to identify as negro is to use the language of the colonizer, that is, a label created and rooted in slavery in order to deny humanity to African peoples. To describe themselves, yet others are in favour of the 'Afro-' prefix, as in 'Afro-Uruguayan' and 'Afro-Venezuelan'. I contend that the politics of self-naming will always be a contested terrain and that the relative value of these signifiers depends on how we invest their political and epistemic meanings as categories. Afrodescendiente is here to stay and an increasing number of people identify as such, in tune with the discourses of current movements and cultures and governmental language. At the same time, negro remains the most common term which black folk use to name themselves. It is important to recognize that people positively identify with  
many of these terms and it is therefore imperative to include them all in our critical vocabulary of Africana studies.