The Study of Racialism

gera2561

I have read much about the black heritage in Mexico. What was the real reason behind the mestizo myth? I do recognize that there is some truth to this myth as most Mexicans today are mestizos. However they leave out it seems the African heritage? I have read about slave resistances, freed slaves, black culture, and immigration to the United States. I have read because of some rather racist rulings by the government blacks and Indians were pitted against one another and laws were enacted against blacks, causing some to leave to the United States and set up territories in California. Are there any Mexicans of African and part African descent in the United States and what happened to these communities? It seems to me that in much of Latin America there have been rulers who have not looked out for the best interest of the people and those who have been affected the most were the poor, blacks, and Indians.
Included in this are genocidal policies that occured in Argentina, the Domincan Republic, Colombia, and Cuba. Sadly, all we hear about in America is that the white population is wealthy and blacks and Indians are the oppressed, hopeless poor. Racism in Latin America is horrible and that those of mixed races show contempt for blacks and Indians and try to keep blacks and Indians from gaining any sort of power in those countries. I am fascinated by Latin Americans and their history and cultures. How much of this is influenced by the Black Legend and White Legends of Spain? How much do you know about the Leyendra Negra and the Leyendra Blanca?

oevega · Posted: Sun 05 Jun 2005 18:33 Post subject:

Hi,

Sorry lady. Although I believe you have good intentions in your comments, I have the idea that you are not well documented about the issue. It is not fair to project the realities of the U.S. into a culture that is radically different from yours.

Latin America is a complex universe, compossed of more than twenty countries, each with its own ethnic groups and history. You can't generalize so easily.

Considering the racial issue, I bet the situation is a lot worst in the United States than in Latin America. After all, the one drop rule and the segregated bathrooms are U.S. inventions, aren't they?

I am Latin American and I don't like easy generalizations about our culture and heritage.

Regards,

Omar Vega

gera2561 · Posted: Mon 06 Jun 2005 00:49 Post subject:

okay, oevega, tell me about your country. Does Chile have a small part black population? What do you know about Mexico? You are right. You seem to have a problem with how I asked the questions and with America in general. I do think that there is racism everywhere, some worse in some countries than in others. But most Americans are not like that even if we have had the one drop rule, of which I personally despise. Segregation and political correctness are other things I aslo despise, so let's not generalize Americans. Anyways, tell us what us Americans need to know about Chile.

Powell · Guru Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2461 }

Here's a great article on Latino racial ancestry by William Javier Nelson:

http://www.interracialvoice.com/nelson2.html

oevega · Posted: Mon 06 Jun 2005 18:01 Post subject:

javier · Posted: Mon 06 Jun 2005 22:08 Post subject:

The recent exchanges between our latest Latino participant and some of the other posters evoke some of the exciting exchanges between some Latino posters and Anglo posters over the years—not only at Interracial Voice but also at Latino Link.

I wish we could evolve into more of a willingness to communicate with both sides recognizing strengths and weaknesses in both systems. Many times I have tried to get the ball rolling by postulating that we Latinos are (in my opinion) “better” (for want of a more suitable word) in that we:

(1) emphasize nationality over “racial” membership,

(2) accept more “racial” ambiguity and non-specificity in everyday life,

(3) accept and encourage more intermarriage among people of all colors

AND

That you Anglo North Americans are, in my opinion, “better” (for want of a more suitable word) in that you:

(1) are less class-conscious and accept more social mobility

(2) have a strong cultural ethos which emphasizes freedom, liberty and equality

(3) have a well-constructed system of legal redress in which rights can successfully be defended

[by way of a footnote to (3) for North Americans.........when my wife and I went to a very desirable subdivision here in the United States (where we now live), we were greeted by a caucasian, middle-aged man walking toward us with enthusiasm, ready to sell us a house. Although both my wife and I are brown-skinned, we did not give it a moment’s thought, because we both knew how we would legally get the realtor’s hide if he did NOT act that way]

I hope that both Latinos and Anglos can recognize the opportunities which exist for both sides to learn from each other with open and frank conversations aimed at improving life, using our own unique perspectives.

G-Man · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2992 }

Where Did Mexico's Blacks Go?

by Steve Sailer
UPI, May 9, 2002

Where did Mexico's blacks go?

The nearly complete absorption of Mexico's identifiably African people offers an intriguing contrast to the persistence of a rather distinct black race in the United State.

Most Americans, and even many Mexicans, don't realize that a significant fraction of the Mexican population once looked markedly African. At least 200,000 black slaves were imported into Mexico from Africa. By 1810, Mexicans considered at least part-African members numbered around a half million, or more than 10 percent of the population.

Mexican music, for example, has deep roots in West Africa. "La Bamba," the famous Mexican folk song that was given a rock beat by Ritchie Valens and a classic interpretation by Los Lobos, has been traced back to the Bamba district of Angola.

What's especially ironic about Mexico's "racial amnesia" -- a term coined by African-American historian Ted Vincent -- is that during Mexico's first century of independence, more than a few of its most famous leaders were visibly part black.

Emiliano Zapata was perhaps the noblest figure in 20th century Mexican politics, a peasant revolutionary still beloved as a martyred man of the people. Although Marlon Brando played him in the 1952 movie "Viva Zapata!" the best-known photograph of the illiterate idealist shows him with clearly African hair. His village had long been home to many descendents of freed slaves.

Similarly, Vicente Guerrero, a leading general in the Mexican War of Independence and the new nation's second president, appears from his portraits to have been part black.

Perhaps African-Mexicans were so often leading the revolutionary vanguard because they were even more oppressed by law than Mexico's Indians. Back in the 16th century, the great Spanish Bishop Bartolome de las Casas, the first modern human rights activist, in the sense of battling for justice for another race, persuaded the King of Spain to ban the enslavement of Indians, at least nominally. Yet, bondage for Africans remained legal until "El Negro Guerrero" officially abolished it in 1829. It had largely withered out before then, however.

The apparent assimilation of Mexico's ex-slaves into the overall gene pool is in marked contrast to America's experience, where the black race has remained relatively distinct. In the average self-declared white American's family tree, there is only the equivalent of one black out of every 128 ancestors, according to the ongoing research of molecular anthropologist Mark D. Shriver of Penn State University and his colleagues.

In fact, Mexico even differs from the rest of Latin America, where distinct black populations remain genetically unassimilated. "Mexico is unique in this regard," commented population geneticist Ricardo M. Cerda-Flores of the Mexico's Autonomous University in Nuevo Leon.

Cerda-Flores' team found that a sample of Mexicans living around Monterrey in Northeast Mexico averaged around 5 percent African by ancestry, according to its genetic markers. In other words, if you could accurately trace the typical family tree back until before the first Spaniards and their African slaves arrived in Mexico in 1519, you would find that about one out of twenty of the subjects' forebears were Africans.

Cerda-Flores and his colleagues also examined the DNA of Mexican-Americans in Texas, who came out as about 6 percent black. Other studies of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans by molecular anthropologists have come up with black admixture rates ranging from 3 percent to 8 percent.

By way of contrast, this appears to be, very roughly, something like half of the black ancestry level of the overall American population, as implied by Shriver's studies. Of course, most of the African ancestors of Americans are visibly concentrated among African-Americans, who average 82 percent to 83 percent black, according to Shriver. Among Mexicans, however, African genes appeared to be spread more broadly and evenly.

Nevertheless, the official ideology of Mexico has been that the Mexicans are simply a "mestizo" people -- a mixture of Spaniards and Indians -- officially referred to as "La Raza" or "The Race." Since 1928, Mexico has celebrated Oct. 12 as "The Day of The Race." On Oct. 12, 1946, Mexican politician José Vasconcelos famously declared mestizos to be "the cosmic race."

African-American anthropologist Bobby Vaughn wrote, "Issues of race have been so colored by Mexico's preoccupation with 'the Indian question' that the Afro-Mexican experience tends to blend almost invisibly into the background, even to Afro-Mexicans themselves. Mexico's official narratives ... leave Afro-Mexicans outside of the national consciousness."

That's because Mexico's national ideology centers on "the belief that contemporary Mexico is a kind of 'perfect blend' of both Spanish and Indian heritages, and that this synthesis is at the heart of what it means to be Mexican."

Socially, Mexico does not have any kind of "color line," in contrast to the United States, where "one drop of African blood" frequently categorizes a person as "black." For example, Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry's white mother raised Halle to think of herself as black, even though her African-American father abandoned the family when she was quite young. Those kind of sharp-edged racial categories seldom exist in Latin American countries.

In reality, Mexico's white-Indian racial blending is far less complete than Mexico's political orthodoxy would make it appear. What Mexico does have instead of a color line is a "color continuum." There are no sharp racial divides, yet the rule for social prestige remains "the whiter the better." For example, the stars of Mexican television are almost completely European. In fact, the actresses on Mexican "telenovelas" tend to be blonder than the ones on American soap operas.

Mexico's elites are much whiter looking than its working class. At 6'5" tall, President Vicente Fox stands roughly a head taller than the average Mexican man. Fox's paternal grandfather was an Irish-American born in Cincinnati.

There remain in dire poverty millions of virtually pureblooded Indian peasants, who speak the same Indian languages as their ancestors did before 1492.

This ideological assumption that all Mexicans are mestizo can lead to some amusing conundrums. For example, Luis Echeverria, president from 1970-1976, saw himself as the natural leader of the nonwhite Third World. The problem was that he, like most Mexican presidents, appeared to be pure white. So, he spent many hours under sun lamps, trying to tan himself into the Third World.

While it's easy to scoff at this "mestizo myth" as propaganda put out by the mostly white ruling class to keep the brown lower classes from noticing Mexico's racial hierarchy, its usefulness at maintaining the peace should not be despised. In recent decades, Mexico has suffered much less from racial violence than nearby Guatemala or more distant Peru. During the '80s in both of those countries, where attitudes of white superiority are more blatant than in Mexico, oppressed Indians joined Marxist intellectuals in guerilla wars against the white ruling class.

The Mexican populace's African "third root" is occasionally honored, but Mexican officials have generally ignored it. University of Minnesota demographer Robert McCaa wrote, "Afro-Mexicans, who numbered one-half million in 1810, more or less vanished, thoroughly intermingled and unidentifiable by 1895 if the official discourse is accepted at face value."

That discourse should be viewed skeptically. It's unlikely that African racial characteristics had become so blended in by 1895 that they had actually vanished. Yet, since then, black genes appear to have been so broadly distributed around the population that few Mexican individuals stand out today as notably black.

In fact, the black contribution to Mexico's "cosmic race" has been so forgotten that in last November's race for governor of the state of Michoacán, Alfredo Anaya of the former ruling party PRI hammered away at his opponent Lázaro Cárdenas, the scion of Mexico's most famous leftist dynasty, for having a part-black Cuban wife and son.

Anaya argued, "There is a great feeling that we want to be governed by our own race, by our own people."

One of his supporters said, "It's one thing to be brown. The black race is something different."

Ultimately, this strategy failed, as Anaya lost. Still, he came within five percentage points of beating the son of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the man who is widely believed to have been cheated out of Mexico's presidency in 1988 by massive PRI vote fraud. Further, this Lázaro Cárdenas is the grandson of The Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico's most popular president, who is still adored for triumphing over the United States by nationalizing American-owned oil companies in 1938. So, considering the vast name recognition enjoyed by Cardenas, Anaya's pro-mestizo and anti-black ploy cannot be dismissed as wholly ineffectual.

By 2001, after generations of intermarriage, no more than 1 percent of the Mexican population is said to be identifiably African. Most of the remaining Afro-Mexicans are concentrated in the humid coastal regions, rather than the cooler highlands or dry northern desert.

There are self-consciously Afro-Mexican communities on the Gulf of Mexico near Vera Cruz, where the slave ships docked. There are heavily black villages on the Costa Chica on the Pacific, although the residents tend to see themselves as simply Mexicans with dark skins. One confusing factor is that Mexico also imported slaves from across the Pacific, including some African-looking New Guineans and also Negritos from the Philippines.

Life can be difficult for black Mexicans, because they are often assumed to be illegal immigrants from elsewhere in Latin America, such as Panama. The Mexican police often treat illegal aliens harshly.

Mexico's obliviousness to its black roots is slowly changing. An Afro-Mexican Museum recently opened south of Acapulco in Cuajinicuilapa in the state of Guerrero, which is named after the Afro-Mestizo second president.

So, what happened to the Afro-Mexicans who made up one tenth of the population in 1810?

The massive importation of East African slaves into the Middle East has not left much of a visible trace there either, although Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to America, is clearly part black. Historian Bernard Lewis attributes this lack of blacks to the tendency in the Islamic world to castrate male slaves and work both sexes to death.

In contrast, the Mexican experience appears to have been much more benign. According to Cerda-Flores, intermarriage continued steadily until African genes had widely diffused into the population.

It's often argued these days that race is purely a "social construct." This view often puzzles geneticists, such as the forensic anthropologists who are employed by the police to examine hairs left at crime scenes and determine the race of suspects from their DNA.

Yet, there is a definite sense in which societies construct their own genetic makeups. America's color line and "one drop" rule have kept the genes of black Africans relatively isolated. In contrast, Mexico's color continuum and openness to interracial marriage have spread them so widely that there are few conspicuously black Mexicans left.

oevega

Hi,

I would like to explore the myth of the African influence in Mexico. Although there were Africans in Mexico at one time, that does not means the country is not mestizo. Mexicans are 99 % the descendents of both Native Americans and European conquestadors. They are proud of THAT heritage, because represents almost all people that live in Mexico today. The other 1% is shared by many other ethnicities, including Asian, people from the Middle East, and those famous Blacks of Costa Chica, that are always mentioned when looking for Africans roots of Mexico.

Mexico is a Native and Hispanic country. That's not a myth. That's the actual truth.

>Where did Mexico's blacks go?

Nowhere. When you are a very small minority in a huge population, you are absorved. That's what happened.

>The nearly complete absorption of Mexico's identifiably African people .
>Most Americans, and even many Mexicans, don't realize that a >significant fraction of the Mexican population once looked markedly >African. At least 200,000 black slaves were imported into Mexico from >Africa.

That number does not represent anything because it out of context. There always were more that 10 millions natives in Mexico, even since contact, for example.

>By 1810, Mexicans considered at least part-African members numbered >around a half million, or more than 10 percent of the population.

That might be. However, I doubt the numbers are correct. However, Mexico has been a land of immigrant for centuries. Besides, Natives fertility soared after the masive vaccination campain that started early in the XIX century.

>Mexican music, for example, has deep roots in West Africa. "La Bamba," >the famous Mexican folk song that was given a rock beat by Ritchie >Valens and a classic interpretation by Los Lobos, has been traced back >to the Bamba district of Angola.

I have never seen Mariachis in Angola Smile

There is a tendency to attribute every single Latin American rythm to Africans. It should not be forgotten that Spaniards had a very developed Music, and that Natives also developed quite interesting music styles. I'm not expert in that issue, but the proofs seems to me circumstancial.

>What's especially ironic about Mexico's "racial amnesia" -- a term coined >by African-American historian Ted Vincent -- is that during Mexico's first >century of independence, more than a few of its most famous leaders >were visibly part black.

Instead of African-American historian you should say "Afrocentrist" historian. The racial amnesia does not exist. What happened is Mexicans know they deserve most of their heritage to Aztecs and Spaniards. Those are their main roots. If they were to look at the Muslim, Asian, Russian and other influences as well, they would become mad.

>Emiliano Zapata was perhaps the noblest figure in 20th century Mexican >politics, a peasant revolutionary still beloved as a martyred man of the >people. Although Marlon Brando played him in the 1952 movie "Viva >Zapata!" the best-known photograph of the illiterate idealist shows him >with clearly African hair. His village had long been home to many >descendents of freed slaves.

First, the guy is not know if was African at all. There are very dark skinned natives. Even before contact. I have seen American mummies of thousands of years all that were dark skinned, although not African at all.
If he was curly, well, a large number of Southern Europeans, Arabs, Jews and Gypsies are curly, and nobody say they are African.
However, if he really was Black, who cares? The important thing is he was a Mexican! Not a Nigerian. Emiliano is one of the most beloved Mexicans of all. He is not Beethoven or Cleopatra, though.

>In fact, Mexico even differs from the rest of Latin America, where >distinct black populations remain genetically unassimilated. "Mexico is >unique in this regard," commented population geneticist Ricardo M. >Cerda-Flores of the Mexico's Autonomous University in Nuevo Leon.

That's another mistake. There are lots of countries in Latin America where Blacks does not exist today, or they only represent small minorities: Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc.

>Nevertheless, the official ideology of Mexico has been that the Mexicans >are simply a "mestizo" people -- a mixture of Spaniards and Indians -- >officially referred to as "La Raza" or "The Race." Since 1928, Mexico has >celebrated Oct. 12 as "The Day of The Race." On Oct. 12, 1946, Mexican >politician José Vasconcelos famously declared mestizos to be "the >cosmic race."

The one that wrote this should read Vasconcelos.

>Bobby Vaughn wrote, "Issues of race have been so colored by Mexico's >preoccupation with 'the Indian question' that the Afro-Mexican >experience tends to blend almost invisibly into the background, even to >Afro-Mexicans themselves. Mexico's official narratives ... leave Afro->Mexicans outside of the national consciousness."
>The Mexican populace's African "third root" is occasionally honored, but >Mexican officials have generally ignored it. University of Minnesota >demographer Robert McCaa wrote, "Afro-Mexicans, who numbered one->half million in 1810, more or less vanished, thoroughly intermingled and >unidentifiable by 1895 if the official discourse is accepted at face value."

The truth is the following. If they have to choose between the large number of influence from the outside world the Mexican have they have the following priorities:

(1) Native American, because Mexicans believe their country started a long before the conquest. They are proud of that.

(2) Spaniard: Becose most Mexicans have a Spanish ancestor, in most of the cases a male ancestors.

They are not interested in remembering anything more. After all, is Mexican identity, not us.

Regards,

Omar Vega

MixedGirl · Probationary Joined: 07 Jun 2005 {Posts: 1 } Location: USA

I'm learning so much. I never new ao many African slaves were taken to Mexico.

oevega · Posted: Tue 07 Jun 2005 22:59 Post subject: Re: Black Heritage in Mexico