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Video history of Mexico's La Casta system

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Video history of Mexico's La Casta system

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» Casta painting in the Spanish Americas

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These challenging paintings visually separate Indigenous Americans from the Spanish elite; most were exported.

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Mexico's Elite Criollo's top of racial & social hierarchy yesterday.

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Mexico's Elite Criollo's top of racial & social hierarchy yesterday.

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In the eighteenth-century aristocratic and wealthy people commissioned portraits. People dressed in their best clothes when sitting for portraits. In viceregal Mexico and in the British colonies, portrait painters followed European styles. The portraits presented here reflect the different tastes and cultures of Mexico City and Charleston, South Carolina.

Portrait of a Lady
Franz Mayer Collection

Portrait of Mrs. John Champneys
Bayou Bend Collection

Dress
Miguel de Herrera painted the Mexican lady in an elaborately patterned silk brocade dress adorned with lace ribbon and yards of lace at the bodice and sleeves.

Dress
Mrs. Champneys wears a rich satin dress trimmed with ermine, lace and pearls. Jeremiah Theus based these clothes on printed portraits of English aristocrats. Mrs. Champneys probably did not own clothes depicted here.

Jewelry
The jewelry in this portrait is lavish. She wears bracelets, a watch, earrings, and holds an ivory fan.

Jewelry
Mrs. Champneys wears a simple necklace.

Hairstyle
The woman here has an elaborate, high hair style. Note especially the nine diamond ornaments in her hair.

Hairstyle
Mrs. Champneys has a simple, unadorned hair style.

Social Status
This portrait attests to the aristocratic status of the woman portrayed. As was the habit in Mexico City, she wears lavish jewelry and clothes as evidence of her place in society. Display of wealth is of great importance in viceregal society.

Social Status
Mrs. Champneys belonged to the upper crust in Charleston, one of the wealthiest cities in the British colonies. Although presented as having great status, she presents herself here with greater restraint than the Mexican lady.

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The Collections - Portraiture in the European Colonies

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In the eighteenth-century aristocratic and wealthy people commissioned portraits. People dressed in their best clothes when sitting for portraits. In viceregal Mexico and in the British colonies, portrait painters followed European styles. The portraits presented here reflect the different tastes and cultures of Mexico City and Charleston, South Carolina.

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Today Colorism, Racism & Classism is perpetuated by Mexican media La Casta remains

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Today Colorism, Racism & Classism is perpetuated by Mexican media La Casta remains

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When "Made in Mexico" was created, executive producer Kevin Bartel wanted it to be a show that celebrated Mexican culture as a way to contrast bigotry and racism against Mexicans, particularly due to the Donald Trump administration. Instead, the show drew backlash after its premiere on Netflix on September 28. Critics were saying that rather than relating to Mexicans on the show, it seriously lacked diversity, reflecting a larger issue in Latin America's media landscape.

"I would call it whitewashed and a very typical way we do television and advertising in Latin America, and that's the sad truth," communication scholar Maria DeMoya told Latino USA.

"Made in Mexico" trails the lives of nine wealthy (and white) socialites living in Mexico City. The cast members have said they wanted to show an "alternate view of Mexico."

"That's what really started us exploring a way to do a docu that explores Mexico in a completely different light, and to bring to light a side of Mexico that not many people have been exposed to," Bartel told Latino USA.

Apparently, given the reactions of many, that goal wasn't achieved.

Some viewers took to Twitter to address colorism and classism in the show.

It's always nice to see white, privileged people being blessed by the local indians... #MadeInMexico pic.twitter.com/KL3s5FvmCx

- Laura Martínez © (@miblogestublog) September 29, 2018

Conflicted on how I feel about the new @netflix reality series #MadeInMexico. Much like a novela, all the dark skinned Mexicans are the servants and all the white skinned Mexicans are the rich. It's realistic, I guess, but disappointing.

- Kat (@campkeesley) September 28, 2018

I watched "Made in Mexico" on Netflix and I'm tired of white latinx people being the centralized narrative..... NEXT

- Josh (@pettymexicana) October 4, 2018

I watched the first ep of @MadeInMexico, and:

1) within the first 30 mins., white Mexicans complain they aren't perceived as Mexicans, ?
2) my brain is numb, and
3) these ppl identify with the culture but cannot relate to the majority of Mexicans AT ALL.

What a waste of time.

- arlenne ? (@ArlennedelaRosa) October 4, 2018

In an interview with , cast members Kitzia Mitre Jimenez-O'Farrill and Columba "Colu" Doaz brushed off critiques about the lack of representation and colorism. Diaz went on to call the critics calling the show racist, saying "It's super racist to say 'they're white.'"

Bartel said the idea for the show came after witnessing how his Mexican-American wife's family took offense to Donald Trump's statements about Mexicans. He said much of her upwardly mobile family, including FBI agents and district attorneys, took offense to the generalization that all Mexicans are rapists, drug dealers, and criminals.

When asked about why the show focuses on white Mexicans, Bartel said that they "didn't cast based on skin color" but rather on personal stories and dynamic personalities.

"Our goal was to show how beautiful Mexico is, and how interesting the people are," he said.

In addition to wanting to distance itself from the discrimination of Mexicans making headlines in the U.S., the show featured sweeping aerial shots and street scenes in Mexico City, the capital currently experiencing a large tourism boom. In one episode, Liz, a New Yorker now living in Mexico City, walks through downtown with her fiancé and steps right into the middle of a dance ceremony led by Aztec dancers just steps away from the ruins of the Templo Mayor. They're cleansed with incense in front of dozens of onlookers.

The production team wanted to film the docuseries in Mexico City to boost the city's tourism industry.

"The grand goal was to have a similar impact on tourism in Mexico City that 'Sex and the City' had on New York," Bartel said.

"When you look at the cast, and people are watching from all over the world they have no idea that this part of Mexico existed," he added.

Many viewers and media scholars, however, took issues with the show's attempt to represent a racially, linguistically and culturally diverse country by following the lives of Mexicans in an aspirational reality show.

"By calling it 'Made in Mexico' and having everyone say that they wanted to change the perspective of Mexicans, then you're kind of positioning yourself as an ambassador of Mexico, when you're really a very narrow and manipulated view of Mexico," DeMoya said.

Racism and classism are persisting issues in Mexico. Mexico's rich constitute 1.7 percent of the population, while the country's poverty-stricken communities represent 59.1 percent of the country's total population and live mostly in the rural areas.

Mexican and the rest of Latin American television is also known to drop the ball when it comes to diversity.

As a Dominican scholar who follows representation and diversity in advertising, DeMoya says the whitewashing of television has happened for "as long as there has been television in Latin America."

Whitewashing is a problem, particularly in Mexico's advertising industry. For instance, a recent featured all white models wearing "Orgullosamente Indio" t-shirts (which roughly translates to "Proudly Indian") in an attempt to challenge Mexicans' use of bigoted language and discrimination against indigenous communities. By casting white Mexicans to spread its message, the ad appears tone deaf and prompted outrage on social media.

Dolores Inés Casillas, a media professor at UC Santa Barbara, says she understands the backlash to the show, and as a Chicana says it's difficult to relate to the cast members.

"I cannot watch excessive wealth right now. It's so painful to have a bird's eye into this very privileged, and very small area of Mexico City, and have that be representative of all of Mexico," Casillas said.

For Casillas, rather than uniting Mexicans in the face of racism and bigotry during the Trump administration, "Made in Mexico" seems to distance some Mexicans from others.

"In some instances, it gets filmed and read as 'I'm not that kind of Mexican.' 'We're not all working poor people.' 'We're not all dark-skinned,'" she noted.

Other shows, like Netflix's "La Casa de las Flores," have been very popular with Mexican and U.S. Latinx audiences. Starring celebrated Mexican actress Veronica Castro, the show follows the dysfunctional life of a rich family running a family-run flower business in Mexico City. DeMoya says it had better success with Latinx viewers because, although still about the lives of white and elite Mexicans, it took a satirical and comic view of the elite and "doesn't claim to represent Mexico."

"It's just a story of one crazy family," DeMoya said.

Bartel says that his team recognizes that the show caused a lot of discussion and that the "show definitely struck a chord, whether it was positive or negative, and people were talking about it."

"It struck a social conversation in Mexico. You rarely get to have shows that have that impact," he said.

The show premiered at a time of intense public outrage and concern for migrant families who were being separated at the border while trying to secure asylum in the U.S. For Casillas, she couldn't separate the show from what was happening.

"We have children in tent cities, we have this large caravan traveling through Mexico. We have all these really big, serious issues and then we're just going to follow socialites," Casillas said. "It's hard to see something devoid of [the political context]."

Netflix did not confirm whether "Made in Mexico" will come back for a second season.

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Critiques of Netflix's MADE IN MEXICO Reflect Ongoing Diversity Issue in Latin American Media, Experts Say - Latino USA

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When "Made in Mexico" was created, executive producer Kevin Bartel wanted it to be a show that celebrated Mexican culture as a way to contrast bigotry and racism against Mexicans, particularly due to the Donald Trump administration. Instead, the show drew backlash after its premiere on Netflix on September 28.

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Juan Rodríguez Juárez was born in Mexico City in 1675. Like his older brother, Nicolás (1667-1734), Juan presumably received his earliest training from his father, Antonio Rodríguez (1636-1691/92). Juan's early works show the marked influence of Antonio and Juan's grandfather, José Juárez (1617-1661/62). Juan's career offers a bridge from 17th-century tenebrism and subsequent Baroque art to the Rococo styles of the 18th century, fully in touch with European developments. It was his version of a Mexican national style which, in the hands of his younger associate, José de Ibarra (1688-1756) and Miguel Cabrera (1695-1768), would dominate the 18th century. Among the most interesting images to have come from viceregal Latin America were the Mexican casta paintings, depictions of the racial mixtures prevalent in viceregal society.

Originating in the first decades of the 18th century, the castas tradition continued to the end of the viceregal period, with hundreds of examples still extant today. The tradition followed popular systems of racial classification found in Spanish viceregal society. The system assigned epithets to signify each combination of racial types. Casta paintings, including the Hispanic Society canvas, were painted in series, with each racial mixture shown in the guise of a married couple with their offspring, labeled to ensure that the viewer would understand.

Rodríguez Juárez is known to have painted a series of casta paintings for his patron, the Viceroy, Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, Duke of Linares, whom he portrayed in 1717 (Mexico City, Museo Nacional de Arte, inv. 3180). The Hispanic Society painting is likely to be from this commission. Linares probably intended to take the set back to Madrid to show to King Philip V and the court, as a way to report on the realities of the New World society, but he died in Mexico City the same year Rodríguez Juárez portrayed him. Other sets were surely sent for this purpose throughout the 18th century, since the majority of extant examples are found in Europe.

In the Hispanic Society picture, the figures are silhouetted monumentally against the sky and wall behind them, progressing from right to left in a dignified manner. A mestizo man of European and Amerindian parentage has married an indigenous Mexican woman-she is dressed in a folded headdress and highly elaborate embroidered huipil, tunic. Their well-dressed son, who carries small white pears in his hat, is given the nickname of a "Coyote," signifying this particular racial mixture. The mestizo is dressed simply but elegantly, and he holds a horn container for snuff or tobacco in his proper right hand, his hat in his left. The hand with the hat seems to be resting on something that pushes his cape up; possibly Rodríguez Juárez was suggesting that the man wears a sword, the mark of a gentleman.

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Juan Rodríguez Juárez was born in Mexico City in 1675. Like his older brother, Nicolás (1667-1734), Juan presumably received his earliest training from his father, Antonio Rodríguez (1636-1691/92). Juan's early works show the marked influence of Antonio and Juan's grandfather, José Juárez (1617-1661/62).

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Mexico's  excluded & impoverished Indigenous communities yesterday & today.

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Mexico's  excluded & impoverished Indigenous communities yesterday & today.

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Speaking to a crowd in the southern state of Chiapas in February, a region with the largest indigenous population in Mexico, Pope Francis condemned what he called "the systemic and organized way your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society" (Puella and Bernstein, 2016). These misunderstandings and exclusion have created in Mexico a situation in which indigenous communities face significantly higher rates of poverty, a problem that impacts their overall quality of life and access to basic resources for 12.6 percent of the population.

Chiapas is an important state for understanding indigenous history in Mexico. Since 1400 BCE, Chiapas has housed a sizable indigenous population. Today, one can still find the Mayan ruins of Palenque, Yaxchilán, Bonampak, and Chinkultic in the state. Chiapas was the state that produced Emiliano Zapata, a famous revolt by the Zapatista army in 1994, as well as the occasional indigenous rebellion. Currently, "the state has one of the largest and most diverse indigenous populations in Mexico, with approximately 959,000 native language speakers over the age of five, which represents one quarter of the state's population" (History Channel).

Yet, despite a rich history, Chiapas, as compared to the rest of Mexico, has historically faced higher levels of poverty and economic insecurity. This poverty and insecurity has roots in what Pope Francis labeled the "systemic and organized" exclusion of the indigenous communities from Mexican society. Chiapas is not the only state with a rich history of indigenous communities, and as such, it is not the only state with a troubled history of the marginalization of the indigenous. Indigenous communities in Mexico live on the margins of Mexican society, living in communities with higher levels of poverty, poorer health outcomes, lower life expectancies, and poor academic performance (Sevran-Mori et al, 2014).

Levels of Poverty: According to the United Nations' 2015 report on the status of the world's indigenous peoples, 80.6 percent of Mexico's indigenous population lives in extreme poverty (United Nations, 2015). These high rates of poverty correlate with high rates of food insecurity among children. In the three states with the most concentrated indigenous populations, the vast majority of children live under the poverty line on less than two dollars a day. In Chiapas, 81.7 percent of children live below the poverty line; 77.1 percent in Guerrero; and 66.9 percent in Oaxaca. This means that the majority of children in these indigenous communities go to bed hungry (Yucatan Times, 2014). Furthermore, these high rates of poverty equate to low levels of adequate infrastructure, with indigenous communities lacking widespread access to durable flooring material, clean water and sanitation, schools, health clinics, or medical insurance. All of these factors of poverty combine together to create a situation of poor health, lowered life expectancy, and decreased education rates in these indigenous communities.

Health Indicators: Due to extreme poverty, the indigenous population of Mexico faces poorer health indicators compared to the non-indigenous population. In the states of Guerrero, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, where indigenous populations are concentrated, maternal mortality rates are significantly higher than the national rate. The maternal mortality rate of Guerrero is 103.2; Chiapas is 82.7; and Oaxaca is 80.6, compared to a national rate of 38 deaths per 100,000 live births. Additionally, the prevalence of preventable diseases in considerably higher in the rural areas where the indigenous communities are concentrated. In these states, the probability of death due to preventable death is 181 percent higher in rural areas with concentrated indigenous populations than it is in the urban centers of the same states with low numbers of indigenous peoples (United Nations, 2015). The infant mortality rate is 50 percent higher among indigenous children than it is among the non-indigenous. Children who survive this increased infant mortality rate have higher levels of malnutrition. Notably, 44 percent of indigenous children are malnourished, compared to only 17 percent of non-indigenous children (Sevran-Mori et al, 2014). Due to these decreased health indicators, the indigenous population in Mexico has a lower life expectancy than the non-indigenous, with a 5 year gap in life expectancy (United Nations, 2015).

Academic Performance: As of 2014, in Mexico's indigenous communities, only 27 percent of children graduated from high school. While the national illiteracy rate in Mexico is 8.4 percent, among the indigenous populations the illiteracy rate is raised to 44 percent (PressTV News, 2014). Higher education attendance is extremely low, with only 3 percent of indigenous peoples attending institutions of higher education, compared to 15 percent of the national population. These lower rates of education can be equated to a lack of schools in rural areas; lower quality teachers in indigenous areas; and poorer test scores and academic achievement due to language barriers, as Spanish is a second language for most indigenous children.

Oportunidades, a social cash transfer program in Mexico, has been instrumental in helping poor communities in Mexico. Despite this, many rural indigenous communities in Mexico have been excluded from the program. These communities do not meet the basic requirement for inclusion in the program, as they do not have a school or health center that would be necessary for the inclusion in the program. The result of these requirements is that those most need of aid are excluded, perpetuating a cycle of marginalization and poverty. While Mexico has written the protection of indigenous rights into their constitution, and has signed international treaties on the issue, the continued marginalization and exclusion of these groups has created widespread poverty and chronic health and education problems, problems that the Mexican government has largely failed to address.
References:
"Chiapas." History Channel. http://www.history.com/topics/mexico/chiapas

"Mexico." CIA World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html

"More than 20 Million Mexican Children and Adolescents Live in Poverty (More than 4 Million in Extreme Poverty)." Yucatan Times. May 26, 2014. http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2014/05/more-than-20-million-mexican-children-and-adolescents-live-in-poverty-more-than-4-million-in-extreme-poverty/

"Only 27 Percent of Indigenous Mexicans Finish High School." PressTV News Videos. Jun. 28, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_w4uUGfvGc

Pullella, Phillip and Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein. "Pope Courts Indigenous Mexicans as Catholic Fervor Fades." Reuters. Feb. 15, 2016. https://news.yahoo.com/pope-heads-mexicos-indigenous-south-catholic-fervor-fades-140618064.html;_ylt=A0LEVvDWR8NW7h0AYlQnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTEyaHRvazA2BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDQjE2MzhfMQRzZWMDc3I-

Servan-Mori, E., Torres-Pereda, P., Orozco, E., & Sosa-Rubí, S. G. (2014). "An Explanatory Analysis of Economic and Health Inequality Changes Among Mexican Indigenous People." 2000-2010. International Journal for Equity in Health, 13(1), 21-21. http://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-9276-13-21#CR36

"State of the World's Indigenous Peoples." 2nd Volume. United Nations. 2015. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/2015/sowip2volume-ac.pdf

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Mexico's Indigenous Population Continues to Face High Rates of Poverty

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Speaking to a crowd in the southern state of Chiapas in February, a region with the largest indigenous population in Mexico, Pope Francis condemned what he called "the systemic and organized way your people have been misunderstood and excluded from society" (Puella and Bernstein, 2016).

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School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University

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Mexico. Take a moment to think about the movies and images you have viewed that reference groups of people in the history of Mexico. You may recall images of the Aztecs, the Mayans, or Spanish conquistadors. These images present conflicts between a Spanish and an indigenous past: two roots that fused to form a national identity. Yet, in other Latin American countries the images of the nation incorporate a third root: African descendants. African influences are seen and felt in Brazil from Candomblé to Capoeira; in Cuba through Santeria and Salsa; and in Peruvian music and their Pacific coast communities. The African presence extends through Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, and throughout Latin America.

Despite the dominant narrative, African descendants also have a history and presence in Mexico. In 2015, the Mexican government conducted an interim census that incorporated African descendants into the categories of race and ethnicity, which had not been done since the 1830s. Citizens had the opportunity to self-identify and almost two million people identified as African descendant. After the results of the 2015 census were released, media outlets immediately questioned where African descendants in the interim census came from, some speculating that they were recent immigrants from West Africa or from the Caribbean.

The longer history was little appreciated. In the 1500s and early 1600s, New Spain (colonial Mexico) had one of the highest importation rates of enslaved Africans to the Americas leading to large populations in cities. In their first decade of independence, the Mexican government abolished the slave trade in 1824 and the institution of slavery in 1829. As a result, countless African Americans in the southern U.S. took advantage of this new law and participated in the southern route of the Underground Railroad fleeing to their neighbor, Mexico-quite contrary to the standard narrative of slaves seeking freedom north.
Despite the dominant narrative, African descendants also have a history and presence in Mexico.
For example, on July 7, 1839, twenty-seven passengers boarded a merchant ship in New Orleans. They exited the ship in the Mexican port city of Tampico. Among the passengers were seven African Americans whose passport status in Mexico listed them as enslaved. These African Americans had traversed the Gulf, hidden on a merchant ship that took them from enslavement in the U.S. to newfound freedom in Mexico. They practiced their own agency and took advantage of the abolition of slavery in Mexico. Passport records of New Orleans from 1830 to 1840 combined with Mexican importation logs reveal a significant number of enslaved and free African Americans who moved to Mexico.

Many of the African Americans remained in the port cities and found employment in the shipping arena and marketplaces, joining the African descendant communities already present in Mexico. African descendants contributed to society in various ways, including through their occupations as dock workers, vendors, in the military, and as shop owners, and became integral to every aspect of life in Mexico from their roles as political participants, to religious and artistic capacities.

As African descendants received state recognition in the interim census of 2015, and will be included going forward, the census should be used to do more than count their numeric presence. The Mexican census can help politicians, lawmakers, and citizens carefully assess issues affecting African descendants, such as access to resources, education, and other critical aspects of life throughout Mexico, which many communities are fighting for today. Although there seems to be minimal representation of Afro-Mexicans, the art of historical research challenges us to consider the past in connection with current-day circumstances to illuminate the "invisible," not only to reveal the vibrant history of Afro-Mexicans, but to enhance the quality of life of present-day citizens as a model for social justice work for other forgotten groups and spaces.

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Afro-Mexicans: Illuminating the Invisible From Past to Present, School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University

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Mexico. Take a moment to think about the movies and images you have viewed that reference groups of people in the history of Mexico. You may recall images of the Aztecs, the Mayans, or Spanish conquistadors. These images present conflicts between a Spanish and an indigenous past: two roots that fused to form a national identity.

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La Casta's erasure of Afro Latinos in Mexican History & Society yesterday & today.

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La Casta's erasure of Afro Latinos in Mexican History & Society yesterday & today.

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Rocky, uneven, and unlined streets slope throughout town. Separate piles of stones and wood lay against one-story homes layered with red and gray bricks. A young, brown-skinned girl sporting a tied-up curly mane navigates her town's terrain on her bicycle. The adults in Coyolillo pedal as well, but through a fight for visibility and recognition.

Coyolillo is a small town made up of nearly 4,000 residents that serves as one of the few examples of black activism in the Mexican coastal state of Veracruz. Best known for its version of the annual Carnaval, a festival featuring traditional African dance and music, the town welcomes visitors with an affirmation of its identity: Afro-Mestizo. The term applies to one of mixed African descent.

Daniela Lopez Carreto began to strongly identify as Afro-Mexican while on a bus ride to her high school in a town about 30 minutes away from Coyolillo. She overheard a man speaking about the black history of her town and how it was founded. "From there, I started to pay more attention to all that is Carnaval, as the festival that's most tied to our origin."

Prior to overhearing the gentleman historian, Carreto had learned little of black history in her town, state, and country.

This isn't uncommon. State-mandated textbooks don't include the contributions of Afro-descendants.
HIDDEN HISTORY
Abel Villanueva Hernandez, an activist for México Negro, or Black Mexico, an organization that has been at the forefront of Afro-Mexican visiblisation since 1991, and an operational staff member for the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) whose job entails working with the Afro-descendant population, only ever remembered seeing a photo of a black man playing the drums, while studying in the southern state of Oaxaca. "There is nothing in the textbooks," said the Cuajinicuilapa native, a predominantly Afro-Mexican city in the southern state of Guerrero.

Beginning in the 16th century, about 200,000 slaves were shipped to Mexico by Spanish conquistadors, mostly through the port of Veracruz. Between the 1500s and 1600s, an estimated one of every two slaves en route to the Caribbean was dropped off in Mexico. Many slaves escaped when they landed and sought refuge in the mountainous regions of the state. One revolutionary, only known as Yanga, led attacks against the Spanish army for over 30 years.

After three decades of warring with Yanga, the Spanish decided they had enough and agreed on peace terms with him. On August 10, 1609, San Lorenzo de Los Negros, later known as Yanga, was founded. It is considered to be the first liberated and independent town in the Americas, 11 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

Mexico's second president Vicente Guerrero and Jose Maria Morelos, a political and military leader, were also Afro-Mexican and played crucial roles in achieving Mexico's independence from Spain during the Mexican Revolution in the early 19th century. Morelos wrote the doctrine Feelings of a Nation that called for the eradication of slavery, among other constitutional propositions. Guerrero eliminated enslavement in 1830 during his presidency, along with a racial caste system, which, ironically, could be one of the various reasons why there is so little acknowledgment of blacks in Mexico's history.
THE ACTIVISTS
Hugo Arellanes, a photographer who works with the activist organization Huella Negra, or Black Footprint, says, "We are affected by the fact that Vicente Guerrero is not recognized as an Afro-descendant. He keeps being painted as white in the pictures in where he is presented as the president of the republic, and the same goes for Jose Maria Morelos."

Starting in 2013, Huella Negra focused its efforts on increasing visibility for Afro-descendant populations and combating negative stereotypes that apply traits like aggressiveness, lack of intelligence, and poor work ethic to Afro-Mexican men, as well as, exotic and fiery traits to Afro-Mexican women. Along with Mexico Negro, Huella Negra, was one of many leading organizations at the forefront of the historic 2015 national census, which permitted Mexicans to officially claim Afro-descendancy for the first time. Approximately 1.4 million identified as such and the number more than doubled to 2.9 million in the 2017 National Survey on Discrimination led by the Governing Secretary and the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED).

México Negro was started in 1991 by Sergio Peñaloza Pérez, who is seen by many, including his protege Hernandez, as a living legend. A deceased legend would be Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, the first to research the Afro-Mexican population. The anthropolgist published The Black Population of Mexico, 1519-1810: Ethnohistoric Stud y in 1946, focusing on communities in Guerrero and paving the way for future researchers, one of whom, is Gabriela Iturralde Nieto.

Nieto, a social anthropologist and Program Collaborator of Afro-descendants and Cultural Diversity Research at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), has been studying Afro-Mexican identity and organizing for over two decades. She says black history is excluded in Mexico and when incorporated, only viewed through the context of slavery. "The participation of the Afro-descendant population is left out. It's known that it's there. Their history is known."
A LACK OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This lack of acknowledgment enables many Mexicans to remain unaware of their Afro-descendancy. In addition to Afro-Mexican, Afro-mestizo and Afro-descendant, multiple self-identifying terms are implicitly linked with Afro-identity, including "jarocho" and "mascogo," used in Veracruz and the Northen Mexican region respectively. Some people, such as in Cualjinicualpa, Guerrero, only call themselves Black.

Nieto says that the lack of unity around one identifying term, such as Black or African-American in the United States or Afro-Latino elsewhere in Latin America, has been problematic and that the term "Afro-Mexican" should be adopted in Mexico's upcoming 2020 census, though it is not what's most important. "What I think is fundamental, more than what term is used in the [census] question, is to do a sensitization campaign because people only identify if they know their history. If people don't know their history and don't have positive references, why are they going to accept a term?"

However, Nieto believes that people should identify as they please and their perspective is crucial to understand, "From an academic or research position, I think there's a need to be respectful and to see in what contexts people favor one over the other and why."

Efforts to increase Afro-Mexican visibility are hamstrung by nonexistent to minimal national and local media coverage. Activists and organizations like Huella Negra hold workshops, panels, discussion, work with universities, and are increasingly active on social media to promote awareness and support.
DANIELA LOPEZ CARRETO
Carreto is looking to jump deeper into the fray. Having already started a non-profit group called Casa Coyolillo with her family and childhood friends, the recent college graduate, who also teaches a dance class in preparation for Carnaval every year, is in the process of forming an anti-racist club with a specific focus on hair.

At 20 years old, she began studying at the Universidad Veracruzana, the largest university in Xalapa, the capital city of Veracruz. Her hair was a familiar topic on a campus that features a state-of-the-art soccer field and sits above a pool of water that flows into Los Lagos, Xalapa's tourist attraction of a lake. "Everyone was talking about my hair; they wanted to touch my hair. I have never liked it."

That never happened in Coyolillo, where most people have curly hair.

Carreto had recently decided to go natural and stop combing or altering her hair. During that year's Carnaval, she participated in a celebratory African dance performance, which traditionally feature Guinean genre called sinte. Each of the eight days of the festival she had combed her hair, except for the last, skipping the routine due to lack of time. After reviewing photos and videos of the festivities, she preferred the look of her natural hair. "From there, I let my hair out all the time," she says.

Her mane has brought a lot of attention, not always positive.

A group of boys once called her a witch while she was walking with her mother in Xalapa. "I didn't know if I should go back, if I should explain it to them, if I should yell at them to be quiet, or just keep walking. It's something that we're fighting all the time."
SPEAKING OUT
Raquel Peña Virgen has had to fight too.

At 10-years-old, Virgen, whose 84-year-old mother Sosima Virgen claims lineage to the revolutionary Yanga, she and her cousins were stopped by a truck in Mexico City, which is about a six hour drive from her hometown Mata Clara, another Afro-Mexican locale layered in passion and pride. A group of men she described as "rateros," or gangsters, instructed them to enter their vehicle. They assumed Virgen and her cousins were from Central America because they were "too black to be Mexican," she recalls.

Virgen is wearing a white sweater over a multi-colored striped turtleneck, sporting curly hair knotted in a ponytail and white pants pressed against a padded, wooden bench in a large, gated house in Cuitláhuac, a town that's 10 minutes driving from Mata Clara. Her eyes meet the ceiling, failing to restrain tears as she remembers the traumatic experience.

Terrified, she and her cousins ran, escaping to the shelter of a nearby home. After the girls said they were being chased, the woman who owned the home called the police. The gangsters did not locate their Central Americans.

"It's a defense mechanism to normalize racist behavior," notes Virgen, who afterwards struggled to cope with the event. "It was an experience that I wanted to forget completely."

Mata Clara is home to over 3,000 Veracruzanos. Its roads are rocky and crooked with minimal organizational lines, driving indicators or street signs. Most homes aren't taller than a basketball hoop. Roosters and stray dogs slowly meander through the streets. "Mata Clara is huge," says resident and tour guide Efrain Blanco Vera, who also notes the strong presence of religion in the town helps sustain bonds within the community, "We're all united, here." The town is home to three different churches.

As is in Coyolillo, most Mata Clarans are employed in the fields, cutting tomatoes, cultivating corn, cucumbers, tamales and much more produce.

According to recent data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 31 million tons of corn were grown nationally in 2017, along with nearly two million of chile, over 3 million of tomatoes, over one million of onions, and over 56 million of sugarcane.

Fernando Carreto, a 25-year-old Coyolillo native, has contributed to the large quantity of produce and has been doing so for quite some time. "I basically woke up working."

According to the 2017 National Survey on Discrimination led by the Governing Secretary and the National Council to Prevent Discrimination, 11 percent of the population said they have darker skin complexions. Only 2.9 million of the 100 million Mexicans identified as Afro-Mexican.

Approximately 76 percent of Afro-descendants, who are also classified as Afro-Mexicans, are in the socioeconomic brackets of "Low" or "Lower Middle Class," though they have an unemployment rate 3 percent lower than the national average.

The upcoming 2020 national Mexican census is fast approaching. Activists and researchers like Arellanes and Nieto call for supportive Afro-Mexican legislation. Nieto says they need "punctual policies that last," including official recognition in the nation's constitution.

The fight continues.

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Afro-Mexicans Fight for Visibility and Recognition

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Rocky, uneven, and unlined streets slope throughout town. Separate piles of stones and wood lay against one-story homes layered with red and gray bricks. A young, brown-skinned girl sporting a tied-up curly mane navigates her town's terrain on her bicycle. The adults in Coyolillo pedal as well, but through a fight for visibility and recognition.

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Pigmentocracies : Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America by Edward Telles Ch2

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Pigmentocracies : Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America by Edward Telles Ch2

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Telles's text details Mexico's Casta transformation through the 16th, 17th, 18th, and the Mexican Revolution when Mexico's citizens assume a baseline of identity accepting Mestizajes, becoming a mixture of all races. However, as we move through the centuries, what remains a division that is attributed to class is the indigenous languages that the Castillian Spanish spoken in Mexico is now the dominant language spoken among most of its citizens. To speak an indigenous language is considered "backward" in society. Moving forward into the 19th and 20th centuries, Mexican society may claim to embrace multiculturalism, and to an extent, there is some tolerance, yet the ideologies for embracing indigenous language remain the same. It is "backward" for Mexican students to learn their "other" native tongue. Indigenous people still maintain that their language is considered a "problem" to the advancement of society.

According to Telles, "In 2001, a more comprehensive reform was introduced in Mexico with a new version of Article 2, which proclaimed indigenous peoples' right to their own languages and cultures, as well as to political autonomy. In addition, Article 1 was expanded to penalize the perpetrators of discrimination based on ethnicity,

language, or gender, among other things(47) In addition,while indigenous people of Mexico still face challenges in recogongition of identity,similiar to afro-latinos who have faced erasure in Mexico and Latin American history,indigenous languages face the same issues, "throughout the twentieth century, many indigenous people and their descendants collectively adopted both the Spanish language and a mainstream mestizo identity, leaving behind a population that has continued to speak indigenous languages and transmit its language to the next generation (50). However, in maintaining their native tongue, society frowns upon it.

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2017 Mexico study of Colorism  evidence of La  Casta's racial & socioeconomic inequities remain

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2017 Mexico study of Colorism  evidence of La  Casta's racial & socioeconomic inequities remain

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This survey conducted in Mexico validates the socioeconomic inequities faced by people of color: mestizos, indigenous & afro-latinos, citizens who are denied access to education, healthcare, employment and other resources based on the color of their skin denying them social mobility just as the Colonial days of La Casta

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La Castas in Mexico remains resilient today. Despite Mexico's racial progress during the 1930s-40s due to labor and economic growth, La Casta's elite systemic practices continued to oppress the predominant mestizo, indigenous & afro-latinos working class. Led towards a significant socioeconomic divide during the 1960s as European descendant business owners partnering with media & marketing that demonstrated wealth are linked to white elitism; Martinez states, "Latin America's racial caste system has been quite resilient. It endured the political transformations brought about by independence and the rapid economic growth experienced during the  period known  as the  Export-led era (1850 – 1945)(7). As Mexico's industry and economics prospered between 1945-1990 under much of European descendant own businesses , Martinez states," Therefore, the racial caste system is not likely to disappear in the foreseeable future(7)