D. R. M. Irving
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195378269
- eISBN:
- 9780199864614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195378269.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter argues that apparent similarities between Filipino and Spanish musical practices acted as points of convergence that promoted sustained “courtship” and engagement between the distinct ...
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This chapter argues that apparent similarities between Filipino and Spanish musical practices acted as points of convergence that promoted sustained “courtship” and engagement between the distinct cultures, which eventually resulted in the emergence of hybrid or syncretic musicopoetic genres. Case studies of three colonial genres are offered: the auit (awit), loa, and pasyon. Each case study considers the respective Filipino and Spanish antecedents of each genre, and examines the ways in which the two traditions were synthesized into a new, distinctively Filipino practice within the context of religious conversion or within broader patterns of transculturation. These genres relate to the concept of mestizaje (literally “mixing”), which is interpreted here as a subversive form of cultural expression in colonial contexts and as a powerful means of representing hispanized Filipino identity.Less
This chapter argues that apparent similarities between Filipino and Spanish musical practices acted as points of convergence that promoted sustained “courtship” and engagement between the distinct cultures, which eventually resulted in the emergence of hybrid or syncretic musicopoetic genres. Case studies of three colonial genres are offered: the auit (awit), loa, and pasyon. Each case study considers the respective Filipino and Spanish antecedents of each genre, and examines the ways in which the two traditions were synthesized into a new, distinctively Filipino practice within the context of religious conversion or within broader patterns of transculturation. These genres relate to the concept of mestizaje (literally “mixing”), which is interpreted here as a subversive form of cultural expression in colonial contexts and as a powerful means of representing hispanized Filipino identity.
David S. Dalton (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781683400394
- eISBN:
- 9781683400523
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683400394.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Mexico’s traumatic Revolution (1910–1917) attested to stark divisions that had existed in the country for many years. Following the conflict, postrevolutionary leaders attempted to unify the ...
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Mexico’s traumatic Revolution (1910–1917) attested to stark divisions that had existed in the country for many years. Following the conflict, postrevolutionary leaders attempted to unify the country’s diverse (particularly indigenous) population under the umbrella of official mestizaje. Indigenous Mexicans would have to assimilate to the state by undergoing projects of “modernization” that entailed industrial growth through the imposition of a market-based economy. One of the most remarkable aspects of this nation-building project was the postrevolutionary government’s decision to use art to communicate discourses of official mestizaje. Until at least the 1970s, state-funded cultural artists whose work buoyed official discourses by positing mixed-race identity as a key component of an authentic Mexican identity. State officials viewed the hybridity of indigenous and female bodies with technology as paramount in their attempts to articulate a new national identity. As they fused the body with technology through medicine, education, industrial agriculture, and factory work, state officials believed that they could eradicate indigenous “primitivity” and transform Amerindians into full-fledged members of the nascent, mestizo state. This book discusses the work of José Vasconcelos, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, El Santo, and Carlos Olvera. These artists—and many others—held diametrically opposed worldviews and used very different media while producing works during different decades. Nevertheless, each of these artists posited the fusion of the body with technology as key to forming an “authentic” Mexican identity.Less
Mexico’s traumatic Revolution (1910–1917) attested to stark divisions that had existed in the country for many years. Following the conflict, postrevolutionary leaders attempted to unify the country’s diverse (particularly indigenous) population under the umbrella of official mestizaje. Indigenous Mexicans would have to assimilate to the state by undergoing projects of “modernization” that entailed industrial growth through the imposition of a market-based economy. One of the most remarkable aspects of this nation-building project was the postrevolutionary government’s decision to use art to communicate discourses of official mestizaje. Until at least the 1970s, state-funded cultural artists whose work buoyed official discourses by positing mixed-race identity as a key component of an authentic Mexican identity. State officials viewed the hybridity of indigenous and female bodies with technology as paramount in their attempts to articulate a new national identity. As they fused the body with technology through medicine, education, industrial agriculture, and factory work, state officials believed that they could eradicate indigenous “primitivity” and transform Amerindians into full-fledged members of the nascent, mestizo state. This book discusses the work of José Vasconcelos, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, El Santo, and Carlos Olvera. These artists—and many others—held diametrically opposed worldviews and used very different media while producing works during different decades. Nevertheless, each of these artists posited the fusion of the body with technology as key to forming an “authentic” Mexican identity.
Dana Velasco Murillo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780804796118
- eISBN:
- 9780804799645
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804796118.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Urban Indians reveals the untold story of how ethnically diverse native peoples from western and central Mexico, drawn by wages and freedom from draft labor and tribute requirements, created ...
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Urban Indians reveals the untold story of how ethnically diverse native peoples from western and central Mexico, drawn by wages and freedom from draft labor and tribute requirements, created indigenous communities, towns, institutions, organizations, and municipal identities in Zacatecas, colonial Mexico’s most important silver-mining town, from its founding in 1546 to just before the start of independence movements in 1810. Silver mining was the motor of the Spanish Empire’s transoceanic and transcontinental economies, making mining towns among the most important cities in Spanish America. Historians of mining have generally focused on miners, production, global markets, or indigenous men in their roles as temporary or coerced workers. Urban Indians shifts the focus from indigenous peoples as laborers to settlers and municipal residents (vecinos). By redirecting its gaze from the mines to the city, Urban Indians enlarges the social footprint of New Spain’s silver-mining district, revealing the men, women, children, and families who shaped both indigenous communities and the greater city. While previous studies have stressed dramatic cultural transformation and rapid miscegenation among urban native peoples, Urban Indians argues that native peoples exploited the urban milieu to create multiple statuses and identities that allowed them to develop indigenous identities, practices, and associations, even as they embraced Spanish-style civic life. In reconsidering traditional paradigms about ethnicity and identity among the urban Indian population, the book raises larger questions about the nature of ethnicity and mestizaje in the Mexican north.Less
Urban Indians reveals the untold story of how ethnically diverse native peoples from western and central Mexico, drawn by wages and freedom from draft labor and tribute requirements, created indigenous communities, towns, institutions, organizations, and municipal identities in Zacatecas, colonial Mexico’s most important silver-mining town, from its founding in 1546 to just before the start of independence movements in 1810. Silver mining was the motor of the Spanish Empire’s transoceanic and transcontinental economies, making mining towns among the most important cities in Spanish America. Historians of mining have generally focused on miners, production, global markets, or indigenous men in their roles as temporary or coerced workers. Urban Indians shifts the focus from indigenous peoples as laborers to settlers and municipal residents (vecinos). By redirecting its gaze from the mines to the city, Urban Indians enlarges the social footprint of New Spain’s silver-mining district, revealing the men, women, children, and families who shaped both indigenous communities and the greater city. While previous studies have stressed dramatic cultural transformation and rapid miscegenation among urban native peoples, Urban Indians argues that native peoples exploited the urban milieu to create multiple statuses and identities that allowed them to develop indigenous identities, practices, and associations, even as they embraced Spanish-style civic life. In reconsidering traditional paradigms about ethnicity and identity among the urban Indian population, the book raises larger questions about the nature of ethnicity and mestizaje in the Mexican north.
Iraida H. López
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813061030
- eISBN:
- 9780813051307
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813061030.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 5 examines the vicarious returns appearing in novels by Cristina García, Achy Obejas, and Ana Menéndez, the first two writers among the youngest members of the one-and-a-half generation, and ...
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Chapter 5 examines the vicarious returns appearing in novels by Cristina García, Achy Obejas, and Ana Menéndez, the first two writers among the youngest members of the one-and-a-half generation, and the latter from the following generation. Yet, most of the work penned by these three writers revolves around Cuba, demonstrating the island’s continuing allure. The selected novels wrestle with somewhat overlooked aspects of Cuban culture, such as mestizaje, marginalized religions, and the private lives of revolutionary icons, all from the vantage point of women characters. Donning metaphorical guayaberas, García, Obejas, and Menéndez draw from a “usable past” (Lois Parkinson Zamora) that infuses all three novels with cubanidad.Less
Chapter 5 examines the vicarious returns appearing in novels by Cristina García, Achy Obejas, and Ana Menéndez, the first two writers among the youngest members of the one-and-a-half generation, and the latter from the following generation. Yet, most of the work penned by these three writers revolves around Cuba, demonstrating the island’s continuing allure. The selected novels wrestle with somewhat overlooked aspects of Cuban culture, such as mestizaje, marginalized religions, and the private lives of revolutionary icons, all from the vantage point of women characters. Donning metaphorical guayaberas, García, Obejas, and Menéndez draw from a “usable past” (Lois Parkinson Zamora) that infuses all three novels with cubanidad.
Mónica G. Moreno Figueroa and Emiko Saldívar Tanaka
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381717
- eISBN:
- 9781781382288
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381717.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Emiko Saldivar explore the discourses of mestizaje (racial and cultural mixture) in Mexico in an attempt to understand the politics of public recognition of racism. They ...
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Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Emiko Saldivar explore the discourses of mestizaje (racial and cultural mixture) in Mexico in an attempt to understand the politics of public recognition of racism. They argue that the Mexican case can offer some interesting lessons on processes of mixture and diversity, encounter and dealing with difference in Europe and beyond, by reflecting on the notion of mestizaje, which like creolization, has emanated from the Americas. This is particularly relevant as there are some analysts in Europe claiming that the flux and mélange of cultures, accompanied by a politics of recognition, is a recipe against racism. The relationships between discourses and experiences of official mestizaje, nationalism and notions of ‘race’ in Mexico prompt us to examine the problem of recognition and disavowal of racism. By looking at the approaches to racist discourse and practices in Mexico they explore the limitations and opportunities of public racial recognition and associated debates about ‘political correctness’ and identity politics framed by mestizaje dynamics. Drawing on a controversy around the Mexican children’s character Memín Pinguín, and on a similar controversy in the UK concerning the golliwog doll, this chapter engages with the disjunctions between ‘race’, nation and political projects, be they mestizaje or creolization.Less
Mónica Moreno Figueroa and Emiko Saldivar explore the discourses of mestizaje (racial and cultural mixture) in Mexico in an attempt to understand the politics of public recognition of racism. They argue that the Mexican case can offer some interesting lessons on processes of mixture and diversity, encounter and dealing with difference in Europe and beyond, by reflecting on the notion of mestizaje, which like creolization, has emanated from the Americas. This is particularly relevant as there are some analysts in Europe claiming that the flux and mélange of cultures, accompanied by a politics of recognition, is a recipe against racism. The relationships between discourses and experiences of official mestizaje, nationalism and notions of ‘race’ in Mexico prompt us to examine the problem of recognition and disavowal of racism. By looking at the approaches to racist discourse and practices in Mexico they explore the limitations and opportunities of public racial recognition and associated debates about ‘political correctness’ and identity politics framed by mestizaje dynamics. Drawing on a controversy around the Mexican children’s character Memín Pinguín, and on a similar controversy in the UK concerning the golliwog doll, this chapter engages with the disjunctions between ‘race’, nation and political projects, be they mestizaje or creolization.
Ruth Hellier-Tinoco
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195340365
- eISBN:
- 9780199896998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340365.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, Dance
This chapter contextualizes the historical, political, and ideological trajectory through eras of prehispanicity, colonization, independence with burgeoning forms of nationalism and indigenismo, ...
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This chapter contextualizes the historical, political, and ideological trajectory through eras of prehispanicity, colonization, independence with burgeoning forms of nationalism and indigenismo, leading to a period of revolution in the early twentieth century. Focusing on the postrevolutionary period, particular emphasis is placed on issues of ethnicity, race, nationalism, indigenismo, and mestizaje. The role of governmental institutions, and artists, intellectuals, and politicians working in an official capacity through state organizations is discussed, specifically centering on education and anthropology, the Secretariat of Education (SEP), Misiones Culturales (Cultural Missions), José Vasconcelos, and Manuel Gamio. Elements of folklore, music, dance, and theater are outlined, with particular reference to the regional, folkloric, synthetic, and open-air theater movements, the magazine Mexican Folkways, and two events of 1921, Noche Mexicana (Mexican Night) and the Exhibición de Artes Populares (Exhibition of Popular Arts).Less
This chapter contextualizes the historical, political, and ideological trajectory through eras of prehispanicity, colonization, independence with burgeoning forms of nationalism and indigenismo, leading to a period of revolution in the early twentieth century. Focusing on the postrevolutionary period, particular emphasis is placed on issues of ethnicity, race, nationalism, indigenismo, and mestizaje. The role of governmental institutions, and artists, intellectuals, and politicians working in an official capacity through state organizations is discussed, specifically centering on education and anthropology, the Secretariat of Education (SEP), Misiones Culturales (Cultural Missions), José Vasconcelos, and Manuel Gamio. Elements of folklore, music, dance, and theater are outlined, with particular reference to the regional, folkloric, synthetic, and open-air theater movements, the magazine Mexican Folkways, and two events of 1921, Noche Mexicana (Mexican Night) and the Exhibición de Artes Populares (Exhibition of Popular Arts).
Peter A. Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622091214
- eISBN:
- 9789882207493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622091214.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This concluding chapter discusses postcolonial theories of cultural hybridity to delineate some of the main forms of Siamese/Thai responses to the West. It compares Nestor García Canclini's account ...
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This concluding chapter discusses postcolonial theories of cultural hybridity to delineate some of the main forms of Siamese/Thai responses to the West. It compares Nestor García Canclini's account of the hybrid mestizaje discourse of Latin American Hispanic elites as a mode of hegemonic rule to the nineteenth-century Siamese elite discourse of siwilai (“civilized”). In contrast, at the international level in which Siam's rulers were subordinate to the West, the chapter draws on Homi Bhabha to read siwilai as a hybrid discourse manifesting Thai elites' subaltern resistance to Western imperialism. Both Bhabha's and García Canclini's different accounts of postcolonial cultural hybridity are needed to explain all these patterns of Thai–Western cultural mixing.Less
This concluding chapter discusses postcolonial theories of cultural hybridity to delineate some of the main forms of Siamese/Thai responses to the West. It compares Nestor García Canclini's account of the hybrid mestizaje discourse of Latin American Hispanic elites as a mode of hegemonic rule to the nineteenth-century Siamese elite discourse of siwilai (“civilized”). In contrast, at the international level in which Siam's rulers were subordinate to the West, the chapter draws on Homi Bhabha to read siwilai as a hybrid discourse manifesting Thai elites' subaltern resistance to Western imperialism. Both Bhabha's and García Canclini's different accounts of postcolonial cultural hybridity are needed to explain all these patterns of Thai–Western cultural mixing.
Frances R. Aparicio
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042690
- eISBN:
- 9780252051555
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042690.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
I examine the racial experiences that four Intralatino/as have had visiting their respective home countries, as well as within their own social circles in Chicago, in being excluded and Othered in ...
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I examine the racial experiences that four Intralatino/as have had visiting their respective home countries, as well as within their own social circles in Chicago, in being excluded and Othered in terms of their skin color and their multiple, hybrid national identities. These experiences with race and skin color—both dark and light skin colors—are informed by the dominant racial national imaginaries of countries such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Ecuador. While highlighting the relational and situational nature of the social meanings accorded to skin color, these four anecdotes of racial belonging and non-belonging also problematize and complicate our understanding of race and social identities in the United States.Less
I examine the racial experiences that four Intralatino/as have had visiting their respective home countries, as well as within their own social circles in Chicago, in being excluded and Othered in terms of their skin color and their multiple, hybrid national identities. These experiences with race and skin color—both dark and light skin colors—are informed by the dominant racial national imaginaries of countries such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Ecuador. While highlighting the relational and situational nature of the social meanings accorded to skin color, these four anecdotes of racial belonging and non-belonging also problematize and complicate our understanding of race and social identities in the United States.
Claudio Lomnitz-Adler
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520077881
- eISBN:
- 9780520912472
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520077881.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
This chapter proposes a terminology and conceptual framework for studying culture in internally differentiated regional spaces. It develops a notion of regional culture as culture in power-regions, ...
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This chapter proposes a terminology and conceptual framework for studying culture in internally differentiated regional spaces. It develops a notion of regional culture as culture in power-regions, and illustrates five concepts: “intimate culture,” “culture of social relations,” “localist ideology,” “coherence,” and “mestizaje.” It reviews key areas for the ethnographic description of regional culture and hegemony. It is shown that there are internal contradictions involved in the organization of social space. The spatial structure of sign distribution is linked to the general economic regional structures in which sign transmission occurs. The manipulation of national mythology and the construction of frames and idioms of interaction between cultural groups are elaborated. Three major dimensions of the analysis have been the economy of sign transmission and distribution, the regional political economy of class and its implications for the spatial analysis of meaning, and the ways in which dominant discourses help organize social space.Less
This chapter proposes a terminology and conceptual framework for studying culture in internally differentiated regional spaces. It develops a notion of regional culture as culture in power-regions, and illustrates five concepts: “intimate culture,” “culture of social relations,” “localist ideology,” “coherence,” and “mestizaje.” It reviews key areas for the ethnographic description of regional culture and hegemony. It is shown that there are internal contradictions involved in the organization of social space. The spatial structure of sign distribution is linked to the general economic regional structures in which sign transmission occurs. The manipulation of national mythology and the construction of frames and idioms of interaction between cultural groups are elaborated. Three major dimensions of the analysis have been the economy of sign transmission and distribution, the regional political economy of class and its implications for the spatial analysis of meaning, and the ways in which dominant discourses help organize social space.
Kimberly Eison Simmons
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813036755
- eISBN:
- 9780813041858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813036755.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter considers the history of immigration to the Dominican Republic with a focus on the state, the census, and categories of mestizaje (processual “race mixture”). Attention is also paid to ...
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This chapter considers the history of immigration to the Dominican Republic with a focus on the state, the census, and categories of mestizaje (processual “race mixture”). Attention is also paid to blanqueamiento (whitening) practices, the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (1930–1961), and the construction of Dominican nationality and mixedness, with the institutionalization of the color category indio to represent the majority of Dominicans on the cédula, the national identification card.Less
This chapter considers the history of immigration to the Dominican Republic with a focus on the state, the census, and categories of mestizaje (processual “race mixture”). Attention is also paid to blanqueamiento (whitening) practices, the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (1930–1961), and the construction of Dominican nationality and mixedness, with the institutionalization of the color category indio to represent the majority of Dominicans on the cédula, the national identification card.
Tanya Marie Golash-Boza
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813035741
- eISBN:
- 9780813038490
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813035741.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This book addresses what it means to be black in Peru. Based on extensive ethnographic work in the country and informed by more than 80 interviews with Peruvians of African descent, this study ...
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This book addresses what it means to be black in Peru. Based on extensive ethnographic work in the country and informed by more than 80 interviews with Peruvians of African descent, this study explains how ideas of race, color, and mestizaje in Peru differ greatly from those held in other Latin American nations. The conclusion that is drawn from rigorous inquiry is that Peruvians of African descent give meaning to blackness without always referencing Africa, slavery, or black cultural forms. This represents a significant counterpoint to diaspora scholarship that points to the importance of slavery in defining blackness in Latin America as well as studies that place cultural and class differences at the center of racial discourses in the region.Less
This book addresses what it means to be black in Peru. Based on extensive ethnographic work in the country and informed by more than 80 interviews with Peruvians of African descent, this study explains how ideas of race, color, and mestizaje in Peru differ greatly from those held in other Latin American nations. The conclusion that is drawn from rigorous inquiry is that Peruvians of African descent give meaning to blackness without always referencing Africa, slavery, or black cultural forms. This represents a significant counterpoint to diaspora scholarship that points to the importance of slavery in defining blackness in Latin America as well as studies that place cultural and class differences at the center of racial discourses in the region.
Juliet Hooker
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190633691
- eISBN:
- 9780190633714
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190633691.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, Political Theory
Theorizing Race in the Americas analyzes the accounts of race formulated by four key thinkers from the Americas: the former slave, abolitionist leader, and thinker, Frederick Douglass; the ...
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Theorizing Race in the Americas analyzes the accounts of race formulated by four key thinkers from the Americas: the former slave, abolitionist leader, and thinker, Frederick Douglass; the Argentinean statesman and pensador Domingo F. Sarmiento; the towering black intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois; and the Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos. Latin American thinkers are generally viewed as having formulated more flexible and complex notions of racial identity than those that emerged in the United States. This has led to the claim that, because of their growing demographic presence, Latinos are dismantling or challenging US ideas about race, particularly the tendency to think in binary terms (black-white) and overlook the existence of mixture. At the same time, African American thinkers such as Douglass and Du Bois are viewed as having been solely preoccupied with domestic problems of racial equality for African Americans in the United States. This book disproves both of these claims by showing how US and Latin American thinkers, in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, looked to political models in the "other" America to advance racial projects in their own countries. I argue that we should move beyond easy narratives about one region's superior approach to race to see that hemispheric comparison has been central to the formulation of both Latin American and US ideas about race.Less
Theorizing Race in the Americas analyzes the accounts of race formulated by four key thinkers from the Americas: the former slave, abolitionist leader, and thinker, Frederick Douglass; the Argentinean statesman and pensador Domingo F. Sarmiento; the towering black intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois; and the Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos. Latin American thinkers are generally viewed as having formulated more flexible and complex notions of racial identity than those that emerged in the United States. This has led to the claim that, because of their growing demographic presence, Latinos are dismantling or challenging US ideas about race, particularly the tendency to think in binary terms (black-white) and overlook the existence of mixture. At the same time, African American thinkers such as Douglass and Du Bois are viewed as having been solely preoccupied with domestic problems of racial equality for African Americans in the United States. This book disproves both of these claims by showing how US and Latin American thinkers, in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, looked to political models in the "other" America to advance racial projects in their own countries. I argue that we should move beyond easy narratives about one region's superior approach to race to see that hemispheric comparison has been central to the formulation of both Latin American and US ideas about race.
Michelle A. Gonzalez
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813029979
- eISBN:
- 9780813039343
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813029979.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter resents a critical examination of the notion of identity functioning in Latino/a theology and religious studies. It analyses the manner in which Latino/a history and identity have been ...
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This chapter resents a critical examination of the notion of identity functioning in Latino/a theology and religious studies. It analyses the manner in which Latino/a history and identity have been represented and the notions of mestizaje and mulatez as categories for identity, epistemology, and religiosity. It also provides commentaries on the primacy of Mexican-American experience, identity, and religiosity within Latino/a theology.Less
This chapter resents a critical examination of the notion of identity functioning in Latino/a theology and religious studies. It analyses the manner in which Latino/a history and identity have been represented and the notions of mestizaje and mulatez as categories for identity, epistemology, and religiosity. It also provides commentaries on the primacy of Mexican-American experience, identity, and religiosity within Latino/a theology.
Tanya Maria Golash-Boza
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813035741
- eISBN:
- 9780813038490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813035741.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter discusses the transatlantic and transpacific slave trades that brought Africans to Peru and juxtaposes this history with how the contemporary descendants of Ingenio construct their ...
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This chapter discusses the transatlantic and transpacific slave trades that brought Africans to Peru and juxtaposes this history with how the contemporary descendants of Ingenio construct their origins. It argues that the local history of Ingenio explains why slavery does not form part of people's collective consciousness. This conceptualization of blackness also has implications for ideas of mestizaje in Latin America.Less
This chapter discusses the transatlantic and transpacific slave trades that brought Africans to Peru and juxtaposes this history with how the contemporary descendants of Ingenio construct their origins. It argues that the local history of Ingenio explains why slavery does not form part of people's collective consciousness. This conceptualization of blackness also has implications for ideas of mestizaje in Latin America.
Tanya Maria Golash-Boza
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813035741
- eISBN:
- 9780813038490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813035741.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter traces the transnational discourses of race from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. This analysis reveals that the pattern in Latin America has been for elites to accept ...
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This chapter traces the transnational discourses of race from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. This analysis reveals that the pattern in Latin America has been for elites to accept indigenous people into the nation through a process of acculturation (or deculturation), yet to accept blacks only through miscegenation. It argues that this difference arose from the different roles of blacks and Indians in the colonies and in subsequent nation-making projects. National projects focused on acculturating Indians and on incorporating blacks through biological dilution. This analysis adds complexity to our understanding of mestizaje, which purports to capture both interracial unions and acculturation, and of blanqueamiento (whitening), which also is meant to include both de-ethnicization and physical lightening.Less
This chapter traces the transnational discourses of race from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. This analysis reveals that the pattern in Latin America has been for elites to accept indigenous people into the nation through a process of acculturation (or deculturation), yet to accept blacks only through miscegenation. It argues that this difference arose from the different roles of blacks and Indians in the colonies and in subsequent nation-making projects. National projects focused on acculturating Indians and on incorporating blacks through biological dilution. This analysis adds complexity to our understanding of mestizaje, which purports to capture both interracial unions and acculturation, and of blanqueamiento (whitening), which also is meant to include both de-ethnicization and physical lightening.
Tanya Maria Golash-Boza
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813035741
- eISBN:
- 9780813038490
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813035741.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
The majority of the people in Ingenio are the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to Peru on ships more than three centuries ago. This chapter explores why this history of chattel slavery is not ...
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The majority of the people in Ingenio are the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to Peru on ships more than three centuries ago. This chapter explores why this history of chattel slavery is not central to Ingenio identity. The relative unimportance of slavery in the regional economy has meant that chattel slavery has not endured as part of the townspeople's collective memory. This represents a significant counterpoint to diaspora scholarship that points to the importance of slavery in defining blackness in Latin America as well as studies that place cultural and class differences at the center of racial discourses in the region.Less
The majority of the people in Ingenio are the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to Peru on ships more than three centuries ago. This chapter explores why this history of chattel slavery is not central to Ingenio identity. The relative unimportance of slavery in the regional economy has meant that chattel slavery has not endured as part of the townspeople's collective memory. This represents a significant counterpoint to diaspora scholarship that points to the importance of slavery in defining blackness in Latin America as well as studies that place cultural and class differences at the center of racial discourses in the region.
Sonja Stephenson Watson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813049861
- eISBN:
- 9780813050331
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813049861.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This book tells the story of Afro-Hispanics whose ancestors came as African slaves during the colonial period and West Indians who emigrated from the English-speaking countries of Jamaica and ...
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This book tells the story of Afro-Hispanics whose ancestors came as African slaves during the colonial period and West Indians who emigrated from the English-speaking countries of Jamaica and Barbados to build the Panama Railroad and Canal during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Earlier nation-building rhetoric (1880–1920) excluded black identity from the Panamanian national paradigm, which explains why Afro-Hispanics assimilated after centuries of mestizaje (race-mixing) and overwhelmingly identify with their Panamanian (Spanish) heritage, while West Indians clung to their British Caribbean roots and identify as Anglicized subjects in a hispanicized white world. The result is that in Panama, Afro-Hispanic discourse is shaped primarily by ideologies of mestizaje while West Indian discourse is marked by Caribbean and African philosophies of identity. This dynamic unique to Panama has impeded racial consolidation between Afro-Hispanics and West Indians and is manifest in black Panamanian writings. The Politics of Race in Panama chronicles the literary works of Afro-Hispanic and West Indian writers from the nineteenth century to the present and illustrates how nation-building rhetoric coupled with West Indian immigration has contributed to two competing views of black identity in the nation that have led to literary discourses of contention. Thus, despite a shared African heritage, the forging of Afro-Panamanian identity between Afro-Hispanics and West Indians continues to be complicated by perceptions of cultural, racial, and national identity that are shaped by ideologies of mestizaje and blackness.Less
This book tells the story of Afro-Hispanics whose ancestors came as African slaves during the colonial period and West Indians who emigrated from the English-speaking countries of Jamaica and Barbados to build the Panama Railroad and Canal during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Earlier nation-building rhetoric (1880–1920) excluded black identity from the Panamanian national paradigm, which explains why Afro-Hispanics assimilated after centuries of mestizaje (race-mixing) and overwhelmingly identify with their Panamanian (Spanish) heritage, while West Indians clung to their British Caribbean roots and identify as Anglicized subjects in a hispanicized white world. The result is that in Panama, Afro-Hispanic discourse is shaped primarily by ideologies of mestizaje while West Indian discourse is marked by Caribbean and African philosophies of identity. This dynamic unique to Panama has impeded racial consolidation between Afro-Hispanics and West Indians and is manifest in black Panamanian writings. The Politics of Race in Panama chronicles the literary works of Afro-Hispanic and West Indian writers from the nineteenth century to the present and illustrates how nation-building rhetoric coupled with West Indian immigration has contributed to two competing views of black identity in the nation that have led to literary discourses of contention. Thus, despite a shared African heritage, the forging of Afro-Panamanian identity between Afro-Hispanics and West Indians continues to be complicated by perceptions of cultural, racial, and national identity that are shaped by ideologies of mestizaje and blackness.
Rebecca M. Bodenheimer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781628462395
- eISBN:
- 9781626746886
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628462395.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter summarizes the nationalist notions of race that have been dominant since Cuban independence, focusing on critiques of the discourse of mestizaje, or racial mixture, that has been issued ...
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This chapter summarizes the nationalist notions of race that have been dominant since Cuban independence, focusing on critiques of the discourse of mestizaje, or racial mixture, that has been issued by many Cuba scholars. It lays out the theoretical approaches underpinning the book’s arguments, explaining how the politics of place includes several elements: regionalist sentiment, racialized discourses of place, and localized notions of hybridity. The chapter also elucidates methodological approaches employed in research for the book, and presents a discussion of the politics of representation entailed in conducting fieldwork in Cuba.Less
This chapter summarizes the nationalist notions of race that have been dominant since Cuban independence, focusing on critiques of the discourse of mestizaje, or racial mixture, that has been issued by many Cuba scholars. It lays out the theoretical approaches underpinning the book’s arguments, explaining how the politics of place includes several elements: regionalist sentiment, racialized discourses of place, and localized notions of hybridity. The chapter also elucidates methodological approaches employed in research for the book, and presents a discussion of the politics of representation entailed in conducting fieldwork in Cuba.
Julie M. Weise
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624969
- eISBN:
- 9781469624983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624969.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Chapter One reconstructs the lives of the roughly 2,000 Mexican immigrants who lived for a time in New Orleans as refugees or economic migrants from Revolution-era Mexico. The chapter argues that ...
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Chapter One reconstructs the lives of the roughly 2,000 Mexican immigrants who lived for a time in New Orleans as refugees or economic migrants from Revolution-era Mexico. The chapter argues that nearly all of them—even those who hailed from working class backgrounds and had darker skin—eventually assimilated into white society. Though biological, blood-based ideas of race were at their height in the United States during this period, Mexicanos used culture to wedge their way into white New Orleans. They secured their white status in large part by ignoring the elements of Mexican nationalism that valorized their nation’s self-proclaimed identity of mestizaje, or “mixed” biological inheritance. Thus, their stories also illuminate the powerful influence of U.S. white supremacy on other nations’ projects of self-definition, in this case Mexico’s. Interwar New Orleans is the first case historians have yet uncovered in which Mexicans’ racial trajectory paralleled that of European immigrants much more closely than that of their Mexican counterparts elsewhere in the United States.Less
Chapter One reconstructs the lives of the roughly 2,000 Mexican immigrants who lived for a time in New Orleans as refugees or economic migrants from Revolution-era Mexico. The chapter argues that nearly all of them—even those who hailed from working class backgrounds and had darker skin—eventually assimilated into white society. Though biological, blood-based ideas of race were at their height in the United States during this period, Mexicanos used culture to wedge their way into white New Orleans. They secured their white status in large part by ignoring the elements of Mexican nationalism that valorized their nation’s self-proclaimed identity of mestizaje, or “mixed” biological inheritance. Thus, their stories also illuminate the powerful influence of U.S. white supremacy on other nations’ projects of self-definition, in this case Mexico’s. Interwar New Orleans is the first case historians have yet uncovered in which Mexicans’ racial trajectory paralleled that of European immigrants much more closely than that of their Mexican counterparts elsewhere in the United States.
Carol A. Hess
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199919994
- eISBN:
- 9780199345618
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199919994.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
This chapter explores the explicitly Pan Americanist ballet H.P. (Horsepower), with a score by Chávez and sets and costumes by Diego Rivera. In depicting the technologically advanced North with ...
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This chapter explores the explicitly Pan Americanist ballet H.P. (Horsepower), with a score by Chávez and sets and costumes by Diego Rivera. In depicting the technologically advanced North with modernist machine music and the fertile South with salon-type, body-conscious Latin American dances, Chávez, at first blush, would seem to be enshrining north-south difference. Yet musical and visual elements of H.P. embrace sameness through a phenomenon the cultural historian Jeffrey Belnap calls “dialectical indigenism,” which proclaims the continued presence of indigenous culture in modern technology. Likewise the Chávez enthusiast Paul Rosenfeld masculinized the habitually feminized South in H.P. with his customary panegyrics. Ultimately, however, Chávez returned almost immediately to ur-classicism, resulting in the Sinfonía India, his best-known work. Considered “exotic-primitivistic” in the 1970s, the Sinfonía India inspired a series of sameness-embracing paeans from critics the stature of Colin McPhee and John Cage, all of whom found little to exoticize.Less
This chapter explores the explicitly Pan Americanist ballet H.P. (Horsepower), with a score by Chávez and sets and costumes by Diego Rivera. In depicting the technologically advanced North with modernist machine music and the fertile South with salon-type, body-conscious Latin American dances, Chávez, at first blush, would seem to be enshrining north-south difference. Yet musical and visual elements of H.P. embrace sameness through a phenomenon the cultural historian Jeffrey Belnap calls “dialectical indigenism,” which proclaims the continued presence of indigenous culture in modern technology. Likewise the Chávez enthusiast Paul Rosenfeld masculinized the habitually feminized South in H.P. with his customary panegyrics. Ultimately, however, Chávez returned almost immediately to ur-classicism, resulting in the Sinfonía India, his best-known work. Considered “exotic-primitivistic” in the 1970s, the Sinfonía India inspired a series of sameness-embracing paeans from critics the stature of Colin McPhee and John Cage, all of whom found little to exoticize.
