Mixed Race Studies

The erasure of the Afro element of mestizaje in modern Mexico: the coding of visibly black mestizos according to a white aesthetic in and through the discourse on nation during the cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution, 1920-1968

University of British Columbia
September 2001
166 pages

Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas, Associate Professor of Spanish
North Carolina Central University

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Faculty of Graduate Studies.

“The Erasure of the Essential Afro Element of Mestizaje in Modern Mexico: The Coding of Visibly Black Mestizos According to a White Aesthetic In and Through the Discourse on Nation During the Cultural Phase of the Mexican Revolution, 1920-1968″ examines how the Afro elements of Mexican mestizaje were erased from the ideal image of the Mexican mestizo and how the Afro ethnic contributions were plagiarized in modern Mexico. It explores part of the discourse on nation in the narrative produced by authors who subscribed to the belief that only white was beautiful, between 1920 and 1968, during a period herein identified as the “cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution.” It looks at the coding and distortion of the image of visibly black Mexicans in and through literature and film, and unveils how the Afro element “disappeared” from some of the most popular images, tastes in music, dance, song, food, and speech forms viewed as cultural texts that, by way of official intervention, were made “badges” of Mexican national identity.

The premise of this study is that the criollo elite and their allies, through government, disenfranchised Mexicans as a whole by institutionalizing a magic mirror—materialized in the narrative of nation—where mestizos can “see” only a partial reflection of themselves. The black African characteristics of Mexican mestizaje were totally removed from the ideal image of “Mexican-ness” disseminated in and out of the country. During this period, and in the material selected for study, wherever Afro-Mexicans—visibly Afro or not—are mentioned, they appear as “mestizos” oblivious of their African heritage and willingly moving toward becoming white.

The analysis adopts as critical foundation two essays: “Black Phobia and the White Aesthetic in Spanish American Literature,” by Richard L. Jackson; and “Mass Visual Productions,” by James Snead. In “Black Phobia…” Jackson explains that, to define “superior and inferior as well as the concept of beauty” according to how white a person is perceived to be, is a “tradition dramatized in Hispanic Literature from Lope de Rueda’s Eufemia (1576) to the present” (467). For Snead, “the coding of blacks in film, as in the wider society, involves a history of images and signs associating black skin color with servile behavior and marginal status” (142).

Read the entire thesis here.

Africanastudies: YouTube Channel

First Documentary Posted: 2008-03-27

Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas, Asssociate Professor of Spanish
North Carolina Central University

Reconstructs the involuntary planetary dispersion of African populations, with their millenary cultural capitals, between the 15th and 19th centuries; and analyses the africanization of the places of arrival through their ethnic contributions.

Reconstruye la dispersión planetaria involuntaria de poblaciones africanas, con sus capitales culturales milenarios, entre los siglos XV y XIX; y analiza la africanización, mediante sus aportaciones étnicas, de los lugares de llegada.

View all of the documentaries here.
Also visit the blog here.

Africa in Mexico: A Repudiated Heritage/África en México: una herencia repudiada

Edwin Mellen Press
2007
140 pages
ISBN10: 0-7734-5216-8; ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5216-9

Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas, Asssociate Professor of Spanish
North Carolina Central University

This study explores the African presence in Mexico and the impact it has had on the development of Mexican national identity over the past centuries. By analyzing Mexican miscegenation from a perspective identified as mestizaje positivo (positive miscegenation) where an equality exists among all ethnic heritages are equal forming the glue that binds together the new ethnicity, it reveals that Mexico’s African heritage is alive and well. In the end, the author calls for further examinations into the damage caused to the majority of the Mexican population by a Eurocentric mentality that marks them as inferior.

The Africanization of Mexico from the Sixteenth Century to the Present

Edwin Mellen Press
2010
212 pages
ISBN10: 0-7734-3781-9; ISBN13: 978-0-7734-3781-4

Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas, Asssociate Professor of Spanish
North Carolina Central University

This work is an Afrocentric analysis that subscribes to the notion that there is one human race of multiple ethnicities. It acknowledges Mexico’s African, Amerindian (herein after called First Nations), Asian, and European ethnic heritages. Contrary to the African-disappearance-by-miscegenation-hypothesis-turned-ideology, it introduces the theory of the widespread Africanization of Mexico from the sixteenth century onward.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Foreword by Álvaro Ochoa Serrano
Introduction
1. African National Names as Denigrating, Obscene and Scatological Language in Mexican Spanish
2. The Colors of Mexican Racism
3. The Africans and Afrodescendants who Constructed Veracruz and the Jarocho Ethos 1521-1778
4. The African Sahelo-Sudanic Belt in the Birth of Mexican Vaqueros and Vaquero Culture in the Veracruz Lowlands
5. Tracing the Afro-Mexican Path: 1813-1910
6. Mexican Food is Soul Food: A Medicine for National Amnesia
7. The Africanness of Mexican Traditional Medicine
8. Memín Pinguín, Hermelinda Linda and Andanzas de Aniceto: The Dark Side of “Light-Reading”
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

African Mexicans and the Discourse on Modern Nation

University Press of America
June 2004
136 pages
Paper ISBN: 0-7618-2858-3 / 978-0-7618-2858-7

Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas, Asssociate Professor of Spanish
North Carolina Central University

In African Mexicans and the Discourse on Modern Nation, author Marco Polo Hernández-Cuevas explores how the Africaness of Mexican mestizaje was erased from the national memory and identity and how national African ethnic contributions were plagiarized by the criollo elite in modern Mexico. The book cites the concept of a Caucasian standard of beauty prevalent in narrative, film, and popular culture in the period between 1920 and 1968, which the author dubs as the “cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution.”

The author also delves into how criollo elite disenfranchised non-white Mexicans as a whole by institutionalizing a Eurocentric myth whereby Mexicans learned to negate part of their ethnic makeup. During this time period, wherever African Mexicans, visibly black or not, are mentioned, they appear as “mestizo,” many of them oblivious of their African heritage, and others part of a willing movement toward becoming “white.” This analysis adopts as a critical foundation Richard Jackson’s ideas about black phobia and the white aesthetic, as well as James Snead’s coding of blacks.

Table of Contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• The Revolution and Invisibility: African Mexicans and the Ideology of Mestizaje in La raza cósmica
• The Erased Africaness of Mexican Icons
• La vida inútil de Pito Pérez: Tracking the African Contribution to the Mexican Picaresque Sense of Humor
• Angelitos negros, a Film from the “Golden Age” of Mexican Cinema: Coding Visibly Black Mestizos By and Through a Far-Reaching Medium
• Modern National Discourse and La muerte de Artemio Cruz: The Illusory “Death” of African Mexican Lineage
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index