Ben Vinson, III – författare

The essays in this collection build upon a series of conversations and papers that resulted from 'New Directions in North American Scholarship on Afro-Mexico', a symposium conducted at Pennsylvania State University in 2004. The issues addressed include contested historiography, social and economic contributions of Afro-Mexicans, social construction of race and ethnic identity, forms of agency and resistance, and contemporary inquiry into ethnographic work on Afro-Mexican communities. Comprised of a core set of chapters that examine the colonial period and a shorter epilogue addressing the modern era, this volume allows the reader to explore ideas of racial representation from the sixteenth century into the twenty-first.

This is a book by and about Frank O. Etheridge, an African-American musician from an age of cultural explosion. The decade after World War II saw the coming-of-age of marginalized cultures, and in North America a new voice emerged among peoples of African descent. Etheridge performed in a period when some of the greatest cultural producers of the African-American heritage assumed center-stage. From Shanghai to Singapore; from India to Africa and beyond, Frank Etheridge left us a detailed record of his travels in his unpublished manuscript. The book contains his views, insights, and international itinerary during the 1920s. His book is an important volume in the annals of African-American history, not just for its content, but for what it means and symbolizes. Its readers will journey with him, see through his eyes, understand race and racial prejudice as lived in ordinary skin, and sample culture. Some of Etheridge’s reflections and personal biases will seem like unpleasant contradictions from the way we think about racial prejudice today. However, these jarring moments of dissonance are rich learning opportunities that will connect us to his times, while unraveling a greater understanding of ourselves in our current moment. This manuscript, published for the first time, will be accompanied by editorial commentary written by Professor Ben Vinson III, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of African American history.

This book opens new dimensions on race in Latin America by examining the extreme caste groups of colonial Mexico. In tracing their experiences, a broader understanding of the connection between mestizaje (Latin America's modern ideology of racial mixture) and the colonial caste system is rendered. Before mestizaje emerged as a primary concept in Latin America, an earlier precursor existed that must be taken seriously. This colonial form of racial hybridity, encased in an elastic caste system, allowed some people to live through multiple racial lives. Hence, the great fusion of races that swept Latin America and defined its modernity, carries an important corollary. Mestizaje, when viewed at its roots, is not just about mixture, but also about dissecting and reconnecting lives.  Such experiences may have carved a special ability for some Latin American populations to reach across racial groups to relate with and understand multiple racial perspectives. This overlooked, deep history of mestizaje is a legacy that can be built upon in modern times.

This book opens new dimensions on race in Latin America by examining the extreme caste groups of colonial Mexico. In tracing their experiences, a broader understanding of the connection between mestizaje (Latin America's modern ideology of racial mixture) and the colonial caste system is rendered. Before mestizaje emerged as a primary concept in Latin America, an earlier precursor existed that must be taken seriously. This colonial form of racial hybridity, encased in an elastic caste system, allowed some people to live through multiple racial lives. Hence, the great fusion of races that swept Latin America and defined its modernity, carries an important corollary. Mestizaje, when viewed at its roots, is not just about mixture, but also about dissecting and reconnecting lives.  Such experiences may have carved a special ability for some Latin American populations to reach across racial groups to relate with and understand multiple racial perspectives. This overlooked, deep history of mestizaje is a legacy that can be built upon in modern times.

Virgil Richardson blazed his own unique trail through the twentieth century: a co-founder of Harlem's American Negro Theater, 1930s radio personality, World War II pilot, and expatriate for most of his life. After overcoming numerous obstacles, Richardson became a Tuskegee cadet in 1943, and later saw action flying over the battlefields of Europe.