Mixed Race Studies

A “Mixed-Race” Nation Isn’t the Same as a Post-Race One

ColorLines
2011-02-04

Dom Apollon

The Web is still buzzing with chatter over a New York Times feature last weekend that explored how and why an increasing number of young people identify as “mixed-race.” The Census Bureau will release race-based data from its 2010 decennial count later this month, and everybody from sociologists to marketers are eagerly waiting to see what the next generation of Americans, dubbed the “Millennials,” looks like. If the Times story is correct, a whole lot more of them are people who aren’t invested in a racial identity—or, at least not a singular one.

But the story got me thinking about focus groups I’ve been conducting for the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines.com, over the past few months. We’re talking in Los Angeles with separate groups of 18 to 25 year old African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Whites. Our project is not yet complete, but already the conversations we’ve heard within our four groups, including with a handful of respondents from multiple racial/ethnic backgrounds, suggest a significant gap between the sort of individual identities that the Times explored and the broader reality in which those young, post-identity people live.

It’d be easy for the casual reader to conclude from the Times piece that this growing group of individuals who refuse to be pigeon-holed into distinct racial or ethnic classifications will inevitably transform our society into one without racial prejudice. As the Times’ reporter explained, optimistic observers “say the blending of the races is a step toward transcending race, to a place where America is free of bigotry, prejudice and programs like affirmative action.”

Well, that sounds so nice and inevitable, doesn’t it? The problem is, it’s an optimism born of our society’s collective, subconscious yearning for relief. Relief from what, you ask? Relief from the deep discomfort we continue to feel about race, and the continued racial disparities (in high school and college graduation, unemployment, wages and work standards, homeownership, etc.) that challenge America’s understanding of itself as a place defined by equal opportunity…

…But the fact that some young folks are ticking off multiple boxes on surveys to express their racial and ethnic identities doesn’t mean much if the opportunity gap between whites and people of color throughout society is not changing, too. When we see less disparity in outcomes in education, in health and health care, in housing and more, then we’ll know we’re approaching something close to a “post-racial” society…

Read the entire article here.

‘Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families’ traveling exhibit bridges diverse backgrounds

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2011-05-22

Lenika Cruz

Starting this evening, UCLA will act as a home for 20 families, each with a story to tell about being multiracial Americans.

While these families will not be physically present, their photographs and interviews will be, as part of “Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families,” a traveling exhibit that began circulating the country in the early ’90s.

The exhibit came to UCLA from the organization Family Diversity Projects as part of a collaboration between Multiracial Americans of Southern California and UCLA’s Mixed Student Union. An opening reception with a speech from Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kinnery Shah will take place in the Ackerman second floor lounge, after which the exhibit will move to the Kerckhoff Art Gallery until Friday.

The project is the work of Peggy Gillespie and Gigi Kaeser, co-founders of Family Diversity Projects. They interviewed and photographed more than 40 families living in and around Amherst, Mass., who identified as multiracial. One family consisted of a Puerto Rican mother, an African American father and their children, while another family featured Caucasian parents who had adopted children from Peru and China…

Read the entire article here.

After Whiteness: Unmaking an American Majority

New York University Press
January 2004
336 pages, 8 illustrations
Cloth ISBN: 9780814735428; Paper ISBN: 9780814735435

Mike Hill, Associate Professor of English
State University of New York, Albany

As each new census bears out, the rise of multiracialism in the United States will inevitably result in a white minority. In spite of the recent proliferation of academic studies and popular discourse on whiteness, however, there has been little discussion of the future: what comes after whiteness? On the brink of what many are now imagining as a post-white American future, it remains a matter of both popular and academic uncertainty as to what will emerge in its place.

After Whiteness aims to address just that, exploring the remnants of white identity to ask how an emergent post-white national imaginary figure into public policy issues, into the habits of sexual intimacy, and into changes within public higher education. Through discussions of the 2000 census and debates over multiracial identity, the volatile psychic investments that white heterosexual men have in men of color—as illustrated by the Christian men’s group the Promise Keepers and the neo-fascist organization the National Alliance—and the rise of identity studies and diversity within the contemporary public research university, Mike Hill surveys race among the ruins of white America. At this crucial moment, when white racial change has made its ambivalent cultural debut, Hill demonstrates that the prospect of an end to whiteness haunts progressive scholarship on race as much as it haunts the paranoid visions of racists.

Read the Introduction here.

Table of Contents

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION: AFTER WHITENESS EVE
• I: INCALCULABLE COMMUNITY: MULTIRACIALISM, U.S. CENSUS 2000, AND THE CRISIS OF THE LIBERAL STATE
  • 1.1 LABOR FORMALISM
  • 1.2 DISSENSUS 2000
  • 1.3 THE WILL TO CATEGORY
  • 1.4 REBIRTH OF A NATION?
  • 1.5 AMERICA, NOT COUNTING CLASS
• II: A FASCISM OF BENEVOLENCE: GOD AND FAMILY IN THE FATHER-SHAPED VOID
  • 2.1 OF COMMUNISM AND CASTRATION
  • 2.2 MUSCULAR MULTICULTURALISM
  • 2.3 WHEN COLOR IS THE FATHER
  • 2.4 A CERTAIN GESTURE OF VIRILITY
  • 2.5 THE EROS OF WARFARE
• III: RACE AMONG RUINS: WHITENESS, WORK, AND WRITING IN THE NEW UNIVERSITY
  • 3.1 BETWEEN JOBS AND WORK
  • 3.2 THE MULTIVERSITY’S DIVERSITY
  • 3.3 AFTER WHITENESS STUDIES
  • 3.4 MULTITUDE OR CULTURALISM?
  • 3.5 HOW COLOR SAVED THE CANON
• NOTES
• INDEX
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sonic spaces: Inscribing “coloured” voices in the Karoo, South Africa

University of Pennsylvania
2006
228 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3246175

Marie R. Jorritsma

A Dissertation in Music Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

A common stereotype of those classified as “coloured” in apartheid South Africa was that, because of their mixed racial heritage, they had no authentic racial or cultural identity and history. This dissertation counters that lingering stereotype by examining how musical performance enabled “coloured” community members around the town of Graaff-Reinet to claim a place for themselves collectively under apartheid and in post-apartheid South Africa. Nurtured and sustained by a policy of racial purity, the apartheid regime held a deeply ambivalent position towards those it categorized as “coloured,” the racial group it defined as “not a white person or a native.” Oral and written sources typically convey “coloured” people’s ethnic identity, cultural history, and musical heritage as similarly lacking. Despite this, music has been and continues to be an integral part of the religious practices of this community though its performance has survived practically unnoticed by those outside.

By placing the voices of “coloured” people at the center of this study, I move beyond the myopic apartheid view that saw “coloured” people purely in terms of their ethnic origins and capacity for labor. Instead, I approach “coloured” music and history in terms of the sounds and spaces of their religious performance culture. My research provides a narrative of “coloured” social history in the Graaff-Reinet region that is drawn from regional archives and empirical research in the form of fieldwork, specifically participant observation. I concentrate on religious musical practice, namely, hymns, koortjies (little choruses), choir performance, and the singing at women’s society meetings. Studying song performance creates a complex nexus of music, race, religion, and politics, and constitutes a vital way of retrieving history and oral repertories. This music thereby provides one vehicle for groups and individuals in this community to articulate a more “legitimate” place for themselves in the contemporary landscape of South African history and culture.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Abstract
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Chapter One – Introduction: Sonic Spaces, Inscribing “Coloured” Voices
• Chapter Two – Senzeni na: Music, Religion, and Politics in Three Kroonvale Congregations
• Chapter Three – Singing the “Queen’s English”: Church Choirs in Kroonvale
• Chapter Four V – Mothers of the Church: Women’s Society Music and South African Gender Issues
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Glossary
• Bibliography

List of Illustrations

1. View of Umasizakhe, Graaff-Reinet, and Kroonvale
2. View of Kroonvale, Santaville, Asherville, Koebergville, and Geluksdal
3. Map of Kroonvale
4. Old DRMC Building in Graaff-Reinet
5. Last Church Service Held at the DRMC Building, c. 1964
6. URC Building in Kroonvale
7. Old PSCC Building in Graaff-Reinet
8. PSCC Building in Kroonvale
9. Old Klein Londen Building in Graaff-Reinet
10. ESCC Building in Kroonvale
11. View of URC and PSCC from ESCC Grounds
12. Parsonage Street Congregational Church, 13 February 2005
13. East Street Congregational Church, 17 July 2005
14. Uniting Reformed Church, 15 August 2004
15. Combined Congregational Church Broederband service, 17 February 2005
16. Wat bring jy myn die domme?: Cape Malay Ghomma-liedjie notated by I.D. du Plessis
17. Juig aarde juig sung by Mrs J.S. Beukes, Mr W.S. Adonis and Mr J.W. Beukes, 16 April 1980
18. Hy’s hier om ons te seen (He’s here to bless us), Uniting Reformed Church, 5 December 2004
19. Jesus is so lief virmy (Jesus loves me very much), East Street Congregational Church, 26 June 2005
20. Dit was nie om te oordeel nie (It was not to judge), Parsonage Street Congregational Church, 6 March 2005
21. Worstel mens (Wrestle sinner), Combined Congregational Church Broederband service, 17 February 2005
22. Graaff-Reinet Mayor Daantjie Jaftha
23. Zion, City of God (G. Froflich)
24. Holy Holy Holy (Franz Schubert)
25. Program of Concert Tour and Performance in Kimberley, 3 September 1972
26. Restored Slave Cottages at Stretch’s Court, Drostdy Hotel
27. Wees stil en weet, Women’s World Day of Prayer Service, East Street Congregational Church, 3 March 2005
28. Wees stil en weet, “Official” Hymnbook Version

PREFACE

As a child, the Karoo always symbolised an escape for me. It was a refuge from the routine of school attendance, extra-mural activities, and the restlessly windy, unpredictable weather of the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. The family farm lay only three and a half hours1 drive away from the city, where huge breakfasts of porridge, toast, and tea fortified me for seemingly endless sunny and windless days spent walking in the surrounding veld, participating in (and most likely, hindering) the usual farming activities, and playing in the water furrows. A typical Karoo child displays an endless fascination with the precious commodity of water, and diverting the small rivulets in the furrow to flow smoothly over the muddy gravel guaranteed countless hours of captivation.

My grandmother used to tell me, as a child, to look for San tools such as grinding stones or arrowheads when walking in the Karoo veld. To this day, this collection remains displayed in the farmhouse. It never occurred to me then that the San people, the forebears of many present-day “coloured” people, suffered merciless persecution on the part of my ancestors, the colonial settlers.

When I returned to the Karoo for fieldwork on the music of “coloured” people, this memory of looking for San ”treasure” and proof of their existence in this area contrasted very strangely with the historical accounts I read about the violent treatment of the San people by the settlers. Immersed in my research, I seldom visited the veld, and instead explored my childhood memories in new contexts of colonial history and apartheid. As much as this project was originally driven by a deep appreciation of and interest in this music and then an ongoing desire that it not be ignored, my own background as the granddaughter of a Karoo farmer had to be revisited and recontextualised as the project continued.

I remember sitting in June Bosch’s home one day when for once my childhood memories did not clash with the historical and contemporary stories of “coloured” people’s oppression and marginalization. June Bosch and her cousin, Loretta Fortune, told me a story from their childhood days in Caroline Street, Graaff-Reinet. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, water from the Van Ryneveld’s Pass Dam outside the town would be led into the cement furrows lining the streets for the townspeople to use. As the neighborhood children spotted the water, they would shout up the street to announce its presence and run for any and every available container. June was under strict instructions from her grandmother to water the garden roses first, and then to spray the unpaved street in order to settle the dust. After fulfilling these duties, the children would play in the furrows until the water flow ceased. Recognizing the similarity in our childhood games and activities with their focus on water made it poignantly apparent to me that we were all once children of the Karoo.

This research project thus stems from my own connection to Graaff-Reinet and its surrounding area. Combined with a strong scholarly fascination with this music, my reasons for undertaking the project also included the opportunity to revisit and perhaps, in some small way, to recapture the past. No longer a childhood escape, it is the spaces and sounds of this Karoo community that have offered me a new perspective on my relationship to this place and its people…

Purchase the dissertation here.

Integration of a mixed race indigenous mind: A personal deconstruction of colonization

California Institute of Integral Studies
208
204 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3306675
ISBN: 9780549538394

Pamela E. Dos Ramos

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Integral Studies with a Concentration in Recovery of Indigenous Mind

This dissertation, in narrative form, documents a process of decolonization and self-integration through a transformative process, called Recovery of Indigenous Mind (RIM). At the California Institute of Integral Studies, this process was created to assist non-native people to reconnect with their own indigenous ancestral knowledge, rituals, and ways of being. The author was enrolled as a graduate student in the RIM Doctoral Program, which shook her to the core and initiated her journey towards wholeness. Through the uncovering of indigenous roots and ancestral histories, the process served as a healing mechanism to integrate all parts of the author’s being, some of which had previously been blocked out and denied unconsciously.

The question implicit in this work is: what makes mixed race women stumble and become immobilized in their quest to find their wholeness of being and solid identity? Written in the first person, this dissertation focuses on the author’s journey by focusing on her identity as a female of mixed race ancestry. In relation to her ancestral heritage, it provides a map, a process of integration that may be followed by other women of mixed race ancestry. However, it may be of particular relevance and importance to those women of ancestral heritages similar to the author’s, who are open to non-Western ways of connecting with, listening to, and learning from the guidance of their ancestors.

Table of Contents

• ABSTRACT
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Importance of This Journey
  • Rationale
  • Personal Background
    • Diverse Origins
    • The Face of Exclusion
    • Discovering History
    • Counselor Heal Thyself
• Chapter 2: Integration of History and process
  • Introduction
  • Uncovering Ancestors’ Stories
    • Colonization: First Peoples, Amerindian Ancestors
    • Colonization: Slavery—African Ancestors
    • Colonization: Indentured Labor—East Indian Ancestors
    • Colonization Legacies of Minds, Hearts and Spirits
  • A World Away: Historical Exclusion in Canada
  • Loss of Ancestral Identity
  • Indigenous Science, Indigenous Mind Worldviews
    • Indigenous Science, Indigenous Mind
    • Worldviews
  • Racial/Cultural Identity Development
  • Mixed Race Identity
• Chapter 3: Indigenous Science, Indigenous Mind
  • Intuitive Inquiry
  • Indigenous Science Inquiry
• Chapter 4: Walking the Path of Recovery
  • Decolonization of Heart and Mind
  • Ancestral Connections: Honoring Grandmothers
    • The Task: Radical Trust in Ancestral Guidance
    • Older Woman Power: The Crone
    • The Crone Today
    • Qualities and Responsibilities of the Crone
    • The Croning Ritual: Planning and Organizing
    • The Croning Ritual: Ceremony
    • Ancestors in Action
  • Further Invoking of My Indigenous Mind
  • Toward Wholeness
    • Going Home
    • Dakar, Senegal: A Foreign Past
    • Full Circle
• Chapter 5: The Home in my Heart
  • Out of the Curtain of Silence
  • Integrating Experiences and Recovery of Indigenous Mind
  • Threads Interwoven
  • Ancestral Gifts
  • The Tapestry Woven
  • A Pathway
  • Mists of Lost Time
  • Limitations
  • Further work
• References
• APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY—OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS
• APPENDIX B: THE SOCIALIZATION AND ISM PRISM
• APPENDIX C: BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PEOPLE OF MIXED HERITAGE
• APPENDIX D: MULTIRACIAL OATH OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Purchase the dissertation here.

The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White [Discussion]

Lillian Goldman Law Library
Yale University
2011-03-07

Daniel J. Sharfstein, Professor of Law
Vanderbilt University

Moderator: Claire Priest, Professor of Law
Yale University

The Lillian Goldman Law Library together with the Yale Law School Legal History Forum and the Yale Black Law Students Association invite you to a discussion featuring an important new book by Professor Daniel J. Sharfstein, with critical commentary by Professor Claire Priest.
 
The Invisible Line unravels the stories of three families who represent the complexity of race in America and force us to rethink our basic assumptions about who we are. For example, one of the families that started out black produced a Yale-educated Confederate general! This book has been called a “must read” by major scholars spanning the fields of legal history and African American Studies. It is written with the sensitivity of a novelist from the perspective of a legal scholar and provides a fascinating account of how laws and court decisions help shape racial attitudes.

Running Time: 01:17:37

Bantum talks race, religion

The Falcon
Seattle Pacific University
Volume 82, Issue 25 (2011-05-18)

Nicole Critchley

New book looks to redeem ‘mulatto’

Mulattos defy classification, said Assistant Professor of Theology Brian Bantum.

Part black and part white, they do not fit neatly into any preconceived notions of our society—and that, in part, is what makes them so fascinating, he said.

“There is a structure of belief in whiteness, this idea of what it should be. It is a very clean system,” Bantum said. “Mulattos mixed things up.”

At Thursday’s Food for Thought in the Library Reading Room, Bantum read from his book “Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity.” Bantum said the inspiration for this book came from his doctoral dissertation and is highly personal.

Bantum’s book discusses theology in a mixed-race world and explores the intersection between identity and theology, he said. He said he began searching for the answer to race through church and religion, because he wanted to know what it meant to be mulatto and Christian…

…But now a third identity, mulatto—neither black nor white—is very strong, he said, and he believes it is directly tied to the Christian concept of a savior who is both divine and human. Bantum said the mixed identity of mulattos is similar to that of Jesus, who is both God and man…

Read the entire article here.

Barack Obama’s Irish Roots

The Daily Beast
2011-04-11

Tom Sykes

President Obama set down in Dublin Monday [2011-05-23] as part of a six-day European trip that will include a stop in Moneygall, the tiny town where his great-great-great grandfather was born. In anticipation, the 350 people who live there have painted their homes and opened a coffee shop called “Obama’s café.” Tom Sykes on the president’s Irish roots.

The great, but generally unvocalized, astonishment of the people of Moneygall is not so much that one of their descendants is president of the United States, but that one of their descendants is black. You see, a lad going off to America and doing well for himself … well, all the folks in the pub drinking their pints of Guinness can get their heads around that story; sure, wasn’t JFK the most famous Irishman of all?

But a black man? From Moneygall? What?…

…But the fact remains: Moneygall is very, very white. There are no black people living in the village, although there is a “very nice Indian family” living in the housing estate outside town. But Moneygall is not unusual in that respect; rural Ireland is very, very white. The 2006 census showed that just 1.06 percent of Irish citizens are black, and outside major city centers, black people are still a rarity. In the countryside, the presence of black people is usually commented on. Inadvertent racism pervades conversation and society, both polite and impolite. Mixed-race people, for example, are often referred to as “half-castes” or “half-and-halfs.”…

Read the entire article here.

The Subject in Black and White: Afro-German Identity Formation in Ika Hügel-Marshall’s Autobiography Daheim unterwegs: Ein deutsches Leben

Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture
Volume 21 (2005)
pages 62-84
DOI: 10.1353/wgy.2005.0012
E-ISSN: 1940-512X;Print ISSN: 1058-7446

Deborah Janson, Associate Professor of Foreign Languages
West Virginia University

Black Germans still experience prejudice and social isolation based on their appearance. Alhough they are born and raised in Germany, their fellow citizens often do not accept them as Germans because of their skin color. Such social exclusion makes it difficult for Black Germans to define for themselves who they are and where they belong. Yet through their own community-building efforts and the transnational diasporic interactions with Blacks in other countries, Black Germans are developing the means to resist marginalization and discrimination, to gain social acceptance, and to construct a cultural identity for themselves. This essay explores these and other aspects of Afro-German identity formation via an examination of Ika Hügel-Marshall’s autobiography, a work that, until now, has received little scholarly attention despite its relevance to the ongoing—albeit relatively new—Black European identity movement. As an “occupation baby” of mixed-race origins who was raised in a Catholic home for children with special needs, Hügel-Marshall’s transformation from a neglected and abused child into an empowered and politically active adult is inspiring, while her experiences with racism are paradigmatic for the Black-German experience.

The Afro-Mexican presence in Guadalajara at the dawn of independence

Purdue University
December 2010
85 pages
Publication Number: AAT 1490649
ISBN: 9781124557854

Beau D. J. Gaitors

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University by Beau D. J. Gaitors In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

Scholars often characterize the Afro-Mexican experience through depictions of a large presence during the colonial period and a rapid decline after Mexican independence. Prior studies emphasized miscegenation and racism as causes of the disappearance of Afro-Mexicans from Mexican society. This thesis addresses the presence and subsequent disappearance of Afro-Mexicans from Guadalajara. Census records show that the Afro-Mexican population in Guadalajara was significant, one-fourth of the population, at the end of the colonial period. However, records also show that the Afro-Mexican population experienced a substantial decline to only two percent of Guadalajara’s population at the dawn of independence. This thesis asserts that the “disappearance” of Afro-Mexicans was a result of integration, especially in the residential and occupational spheres of Guadalajara. The two percent of Afro-Mexicans recorded in the census illustrates that Afro-Mexicans continued to integrate into society and did not simply disappear. Afro-Mexicans became Mexicans through social incorporation into the city through residential, occupational, and marital integration.

Table of Contents

• LIST OF TABLES
• ABSTRACT
• CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 2. THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN NEW SPAIN
• CHAPTER 3. THE GROWTH OF GUADALAJARA TO 1791
• CHAPTER 4. RESIDENTS OF GUADALAJARA 1791-1822
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY

List of Tables

• Table 1. Afro-Mexicans in Guadalajara, 1821-1822, by Cuartel
• Table 2. Marriage within Race (Major Groups)
• Table 3. Afro-Mexican Marriage Across Race
• Table 4. Race in the System of Education
• Table 5. Distribution of Afro-Mexican Occupational Positions

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

On December 6, 1810, standing on the balcony of the Palacio Real in the city of 

Guadalajara, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla proclaimed the independence of the Mexican nation. In this proclamation he also declared that the independence of Mexico, known as New Spain in the colonial period, would be accompanied by the emancipation of all slaves in the nation.1 More specifically, Hidalgo stated that all slaveholders should emancipate their slaves within ten days of the decree. These enslaved individuals constituted several different racial and ethnic groups, including Native American and African. Native Americans were taken captive during wars and employed as slaves by the Spanish especially in Northern New Spain. In contrast, the vast majority of Africans arrived in New Spain alongside Europeans either as enslaved laborers or free conquistadors, creating a sizeable population of Africans within New Spain. African descendants remained in many regions of New Spain throughout the colonial period; however, centuries of assimilation and integration rendered the African presence in Mexico miniscule at the dawn of independence.

Today when people are asked, “What is a Mexican?” individuals rarely visualize a person of African descent. Despite a considerable presence in the history of Mexico, Mexicans of African descent, or Afro-Mexicans, have been essentially invisible in the history of Mexico. Afro-Mexicans, like many other marginalized groups in other nations, have been constantly neglected in contemporary national narratives or given brief references in national histories despite the prominent historic role they played. Afro-Mexicans have experienced varying degrees of invisibility in the contemporary portrayal of Mexican history and national identity. The neglect of the Afro- Mexican in the national history directly impacts the present-day position of people of African descent in Mexico. The inability of individuals to immediately and quickly point to the significant contributions and the presence of Africans in the history of Mexico makes it easy to assume that African descendants do not have a space in present-day Mexico. More specifically, the neglect of the African presence in the narrative of Mexico makes it easy for people to imagine Mexico as a nation without strong ties to African heritage and blood. Yet, in the last fifteen to twenty years, Afro-Mexicans have struggled to gain a representative space in the Mexican self-portrait, causing many scholars to reevaluate and reconsider the presence of people of African descent in Mexico. Although individuals have reconsidered the varying degrees of invisibility of the African heritage in Mexico, there is still a lack of momentum in recovering the African links to Mexico in the present day.

The process resulting in the invisibility of Afro-Mexicans is not simply a contemporary issue; it is steeped in the historic construction of the Mexican identity. Centuries of miscegenation and assimilation of different racial and ethnic groups led to the creation of a multi-racial society in Mexico. Theories emerged to account for the image of the Mexican nation and its interracial heritage. Individuals in power constructed the Mexican identity with great influence on the perceptions of citizens. In the 1920s Mexican intellectuals, most notably José Vasconcelos, began to promote the idea of a cosmic race, “la raza cósmica,” in Mexico. This theory sought to promote a collective group identity that went beyond race and ethnicity in Mexico. Individuals of Spanish descent, Native American descent, and African descent populated the vast region that made up Mexico. However, these three groups had many variations within themselves. There were numerous indigenous groups that populated the region that would later become Mexico. People of African descent had a significant role in populating Mexico in the colonial period. Some were born in different regions in Africa and brought to the New World, while others were born in the Americas. Furthermore, the African position in the colonial system varied, as some Africans were enslaved while others were free. Just as with the African case, there were Spaniards who were born in the New World, known as criollos, and Spaniards born in Spain, known as peninsulares. Throughout the colonial and post-independence periods the indigenous, African, and Spanish groups constituted a multiracial and multiethnic society. Contributing to this mixed landscape were the sexual relations between these individuals, resulting in the birth of mixed-race individuals who inhabited colonial Mexico.

The concept of the “cosmic race” necessitated the erasure of specific group contributions in the construction of the Mexican state in order to create a homogenized Mexican national identity. This new identity was intended to go beyond the multiple distinct groups and mixed groups in Mexican society. The new Mexican identity would theoretically represent the diverse groups as equal participants in the construction of the Mexican nation. These diverse groups would be represented as part of a collective that provided the building blocks to construct the Mexican nation. Yet, the emergence of a homogenous identity resulted in a substantial disappearance and neglect of some groups that participated in the construction of Mexican society. Individual groups were subsumed into the collective identity of the Mexican nation as their contributions were bulked into a single framework of progress.

Although specific groups were brought into a collective identity, they found it difficult to ignore their distinct differences. With this in mind, specific groups presented themselves as both Mexican and their unique group identity. When the cultural contributions to Mexico were acknowledged, the focus was on Spanish and indigenous groups as the primary participants in the construction of Mexico, while the contributions of Afro-Mexicans were relegated to the margins.

Although Afro-Mexicans have been relegated to the margins, their presence in Mexico cannot be so easily overlooked. There are locations in Mexico that hold populations of African descendants in large numbers. Coastal regions and port cities such as Costa Chica, Guerrero, and Veracruz, reflect the significant presence of people of African descent in Mexico. Despite the presence in these regions, the potential for the representation of Afro-Mexicans is limited. The concentration of Afro-Mexicans in these regions encourages the social invisibility of African presence within the greater Mexican nation. More specifically, it is readily assumed that people of African descent have resided solely in these areas. However, Afro-Mexicans were also present on a large scale in other areas of Mexico, especially in urban centers such as Mexico City and Guadalajara. Many Afro-Mexican slaves found their way to various locales in colonial Mexico as a result of slavery and the migratory patterns of slaveholders…

Purchase the dissertation here.