Blackness in Mexico

An up-closeview of the movement to make “Afro-Mexican” an official cultural category

Through historical and ethnographic research, Blackness in Mexico delvesinto the ongoing movement toward recognizing Black Mexicans as a cultural groupwithin a nation that has long viewed the non-Black Mestizo as the archetypal citizen. Anthony Jerry focuses on this process in Mexico’sCosta Chica region in order to explore the relational aspects of citizenshipand the place of Black people in how modern citizenship is imagined.

Jerry’s study of the Costa Chica shows the politicalstakes of the national project for Black recognition; the shared but competinginterests of the Mexican government, activists, and townspeople; and the waysthat the state and NGOs are working to make “Afro-Mexican” an official culturalcategory. He argues that that the demand for recognition by Black communities callsattention to how the Mestizo has become an intuitive point of referencefor identifying who qualifies as “other.” Jerry also demonstrates that whileofficial recognition can potentially empower African descendants, it cansimultaneously reproduce the same logics of difference that have brought abouttheir social and political exclusion.

One of few books to center Blackness within adiscussion of Mexico or to incorporate a focus on Mexico into Black studies,this book ultimately argues that the official project for recognition is itselfa methodology of mestizaje, an opportunity for the government to continue to use Blackness todefine the national subject and to further the Mexican national project.

A volume in the series New World Diasporas, edited by KevinA. Yelvington

Publicationof this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the AmericanRescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.