Juliana Pache’s journey began a couple of years ago when she found herself stumped on a crossword puzzle clue that didn’t resonate with her own knowledge base. This moment of pause led her to wonder what a crossword would look like if it included clues and answers that reflected Black history and Black popular culture—subjects she was intimately familiar with. Unable to find such a puzzle, Pache took the initiative to create it herself. In January 2023, she launched blackcrossword.com, a website offering a free mini-crossword puzzle each day. On Tuesday, she celebrated the release of her first book, “Black Crossword: 100 Mini Puzzles Celebrating the African Diaspora.”
Nearly 111 years after the first crossword appeared in a New York newspaper, the landscape is changing to include broader representation. Recent years have seen increasing discussions about who constructs crosswords, the vocabulary used, and the cultural framing of clues. There’s been a concerted effort to redefine “common knowledge” in ways that are more inclusive.
“I had never made a crossword puzzle before,” Pache, 32, recounted with a laugh. “But I was like, I can figure it out.” And figure it out she did. Each puzzle on Pache’s site features a few clues and answers specifically tied to Black culture. The site proudly bears the tagline: “If you know, you know.”
The appeal is evident, with an estimated 2,200 people tackling her daily puzzles. These mini-crosswords consist of five lines with five spaces each, ensuring that at least three clues pertain to aspects of Black cultures from around the world. Born in the Queens borough of New York City with family roots in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, Pache had multiple goals when she embarked on this project. She primarily aimed to create something enjoyable for Black people.
“I’m making it with Black people in mind,” she said. “And then if anyone else enjoys it, they learn things from it, that’s a bonus but it’s not my focus.”
Additionally, she wanted to showcase the diversity within Black communities and cultures. By incorporating various regional references, she encourages people from different parts of the African diaspora to learn about each other.
“I also want to make it challenging,” she explained, “not just for people who might be interested in Black culture, but people within Black culture who might be interested in other regions. Part of my mission with this is to highlight Black people from all over, Black culture from all over. And I think that keeps us learning about each other.”
The deeper layers of knowledge required for crosswords reveal what is considered “general” and “universal” knowledge. Michelle Pera-McGhee, a data journalist at The Pudding, tackled this subject in 2020 by analyzing crossword puzzles from several prominent media outlets. Her project focused on clues and answers featuring real people, broken down by gender and race.
The data showed a significant imbalance, with men and white people being disproportionately represented. “It’s interesting because it’s supposed to be easy,” Pera-McGhee said. “You want… ideally to reference things that people, everybody knows about because everyone learns about them in school or whatever. What are the things that we decide we all should know?”
Efforts are underway to craft more inclusive crosswords. The newly established fellowship for puzzle constructors from underrepresented groups at The New York Times is a prime example. Other puzzle creators have also targeted specific communities, such as LGBTQ+ groups and women, by using a diverse array of cultural references similar to Pache’s approach.
Pache finds it “really cool to see our culture reflected in this medium.” Pera-McGhee also noted that crosswords can be a learning experience. “It’s kind of enriching to have things in the puzzle that you don’t know about,” she said. “It’s not that the experience of not knowing is bad. It’s just that it should maybe be spread out along with the experience of knowing. Both are kind of good in the crossword-solving experience.”
