Through the stories they told us as children, the elders introduced us to the Bubi worldview, a specific way of understanding the world, the community, and the relationship with the sacred. It was about learning to inhabit a shared memory that we were, in turn, called upon to pass on in the future. The silences taught as much as the words, and the community rituals reinforced our sense of belonging and responsibility towards others.

3. How has your understanding of African identity changed throughout your life in Europe?

When you live in Africa—in my case, on the island of Bioko—Spain is present from childhood in language, history, and everyday culture. I had many conversations with my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and other great-uncles about their memories of Spanish colonization and our traumatic transition to independence. Some voices considered that process to have been necessary; others, that it was unnecessary or hasty, given that acculturation had already taken place, in the sense that we were already Spanish speakers, many of our traditions had been forgotten, and we were part of Spain as a province... 

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My African identity on the island was therefore built on a complex coexistence between Spanish culture and the Bubi traditions that were still preserved in the village and on the island. We lived—as has been said of Africa—in a paradox: between a past that we did not always fully remember and a modernity that was not always fully understood.

It was when I arrived in Europe, and especially when I lived in cities such as Valencia, that I became fully aware of the political and cultural value of language and the profound impact of learning a language at school: not only as a means of communication, but also as a form of belonging, of access to the world, and of recognition. That experience transformed my understanding of Africanity, an Africanity that is a legacy, but also something we must take responsibility for, that is, understanding it as a critical position from which to think about history, identity, and culture.

4. In what everyday moments of your life in Spain do you feel that your body, your history, or your gaze are read as “other”?

In Spain, this otherness manifests itself in everyday gestures: questioning looks when you get on the subway or go out for a drink, questions that simplify reality in a Manichean way, and other people's expectations projected onto my body and what is supposed to be my history. You learn that, before you even speak, you have already been read, judged, and sentenced, and that creates a constant awareness of yourself and the place you occupy in public space.

5. What silences or misunderstandings do you perceive in Spanish society when talking about Africa or people of African descent?

One of the silences and misunderstandings that most bothers me is the uncritical use of certain expressions in the media, especially when talking about people who come from what is called “sub-Saharan Africa.” It is an expression that I continue to hear on the radio and on television and that I consider deeply problematic.

A few years ago, I wrote an article entitled “Sub-Saharan Africa: an abuse of language,” in which I reflected precisely on this issue. This expression seems to suggest that Africa is the only continent without cardinal points, which is far from reality. It is widely used to refer to countries south of the Sahara, but the term “sub-Saharan,” applied to the people who inhabit those territories, is not only inaccurate but also offensive. 

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Furthermore, I perceive a profound ignorance of African diversity. Africa is often reduced to a narrative of deprivation or conflict, with no room for its thinking, its cultures, or its everyday life. This impoverishment of discourse directly affects people of African descent.
 

6. How do you build a sense of belonging when you live between territories, memories, and narratives that do not always dialogue with each other?

Living between Bioko and Spain is living between two worlds that have taught me that belonging is not always unambiguous. It is built on the tension between memories, stories, and affections that can dialogue with each other. Learning to inhabit that tension has been a fundamental part of my journey.

7. What lessons has the Afro experience in Europe taught you that you would not have learned had you remained in your place of origin?

As I pointed out in one of the first questions, it was when I arrived in Spain, and especially when I lived in cities like Valencia, that I became fully aware of the political and cultural value of language and the profound impact of learning a language at school: not only as a tool for communication, but also as a form of belonging, of accessing and understanding the world, and of recognition. That perspective transformed my understanding of Afro-ness in my Bubi identity.

8. When did you first become aware of what it meant to be Bubi in a deep and spiritual sense?

I became deeply aware of what it meant to be Bubi through my great-grandfather's stories and the scarifications on his face. As a child, I remember how he explained to us why he and many other Bubis had these marks in the context of enslavement and the trade of people brought to the American continent. It was a way of being able to recognize each other outside of Bioko if they were captured by white people: a way of continuing to be a people in the most terrifying conditions we can imagine.

That experience helped me understand that being Bubi, in its deepest sense, is defined by the community as an act of resistance. Identity does not reside only in the individual, it also resides in the unbreakable bond that persists despite dispersion. That is why actions such as sharing food or celebrating together are the active practice of that pact. It would be a betrayal of that legacy for one person to enjoy while others go without.

9. You say that you conceive of thought as a situated practice. What does it mean to think from Bioko and from the Bubi experience today?

Thinking from Bioko means situating thought in a specific geography, shaped by colonial history and indigenous knowledge. It is a form of situated thinking that does not renounce rigor, but neither does it renounce lived experience.

10. Do you think that African philosophy and, in particular, Bubi worldviews are sufficiently recognized in academic circles?