Freecano • (free-kan-o) • noun
Definition: Cultural identifier for African Diaspora people in the Americas.
Origin: English "free" and Spanish and Portuguese "-cano" from Africano
As an African American or black person in America, I never truly believed that the names for my American identity adequately described my culture and people.
With African American, “African” preceded “American,” and I always felt that this identifier was more aspirational than accurate. My people in America may yearn for a stronger connection to Africa than America, but America has obviously shaped my life and culture more than Africa. Even the sustained desire to return to Africa is a result of the inhospitable ethnocidal culture that dominates and shapes the lives of all Americans. Also, “African American” mirrors the identities of American immigrants who identify as Italian American, Irish American, etc. We do not have an immigration story, so it always bothered me that our name made it sound like we did.
Black has also been problematic because America does not consider “black” to be a proper noun such as Japanese, Jewish, French, Ghanian, etc. Black in America is merely a color, but not a culture of people. Linguistically, America has defined my people as simply a mass of “black” people absent of culture. For years, I have capitalized the word Black and made it a proper noun, but linguistically infusing my people with culture is still considered grammatically incorrect.
Despite my frustration with African American and black, I know these identifiers are far better than what my people have been called since we were forcefully brought to America. “Nigger,” “negro,” “coon,” and “colored” were their predecessors, and no one would prefer those names over African American or black. Yet, progressing from the dehumanizing names that white Americans forced upon us means that Black Americans have a cultural obligation to cultivate more accurate identifiers that distance and liberate ourselves from the horrors of ethnocidal culture and society. We are a people who have been denied the ability to self-identify for hundreds of years, so now we must do the arduous work of accurately identifying ourselves.
Freecano is a solution of mine, and one of SCL’s major attempts at this cultural imperative.

Freecano starts with the word “African” because once we were African people living on the continent. Yet the transatlantic slave trade removed us from the continent and commenced the severing of our African cultural bonds. To symbolize the removal from Africa, I have removed the “A” from “African,” and now “Frican” remains.
From there I must acknowledge that our African bodies have now become consumed within an ethnocidal society that seeks to destroy African culture in order to create a chattel slavery system in the Americas. Africans were prevented from speaking their languages and practicing their religions. Families and communal bonds were shattered. Their African identifiers -- Malian, Igbo, Yoruba, etc. -- were broken only to be replaced by the dehumanizing names that colonizers forced upon us.
Due to this persistent, systematic cultural erasure, African people could no longer form bonds based solely upon their unique and distinct African cultures. Now they needed to find a new cultural unifier in the Americas, and the thread that bonded them together was their collective desire to free themselves from ethnocidal oppression. Freedom became the foundational bond of our culture in the Americas. To symbolize the creation of this culture, I have changed the “Fri” in “Frican” to “Free” making “Freecan.”
The last piece of the puzzle consists of ensuring that the word can include the African people who suffered ethnocide from the Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Adding the “o” to the end helps include Spanish and Portuguese speakers because “African” is africano in those languages. In French, the word “African” is africain so the French version would be “Freecain.” Spanish and Portuguese speakers can also use “Freecana”, “Freecanx”, and “Freecane” to address their gendered words, and the French can use “Freecaine.”
We believe that Freecano speaks to the cultural heartbeat of African diaspora people that has yearned and fought for freedom. Freedom has always been our cultural bond. By redefining freedom, we distance ourselves from the normalized ethnocide of America and empower ourselves to cultivate Eǔtopian spaces.
Our name should express our culture, and not the dehumanizing narrative that another culture has forced upon us. We believe that Freecano gets us closer to this goal.
For this week, please take some time to think about and incorporate Freecano into your language, and share your thoughts with us via email, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter using #Freecano and #TheWord to join the conversation.
Reminder: on Thursday, April 16th, from 7 to 9 pm, we are celebrating Freecano through a Philosophy & Art Virtual Exhibition featuring 10 impactful local artists whose work represents the experiences of being Freecano. You can register for the event here.