4 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2016
    1. Mexico’s 2015 population survey, released Dec. 8, counted 1.38 million people of African heritage, representing 1.2% of the country’s population (link in Spanish.) Most live in three coastal states, including Guerrero, where they account for nearly 7% of the population, and overall they are poorer and less educated than the national average, Mexico’s census bureau (INEGI by its acronym in Spanish) has found.

      Mexico has started counting its Mexican population.

  2. Dec 2015
    1. There's little question that, whatever else the Cuban Revolution has done or not done, it triumphed with a strong and progressive platform on race. At every single official level, it explicitly and forcibly banned racial discrimination. In fact, it may have done so too forcefully. Because Cuba is a top-down society -- especially under Fidel Castro -- the new anti-racism codes rained down without explanation and, more importantly, without process. People understood that racism was no longer tolerated but not how they participated in racist structures, how they were affected by the legacy of racism and, least of all, how light-skinned Cubans -- especially on the island -- benefited from those legacies.

      Article on the existence of modern racism in Cuba

    1. Latin America's past of slavery and colonization is linked to anti-black racism, which some countries have tried to fight with anti-discrimination and affirmative action policies. Denying the existence of the black population by not counting them in the national census is one major way structural racism plays out in Latin American countries although anti-blackness is a pervasive issue in other issues, as well.

      Mexico Takes Big Steps In Finally Recognizing Afro-Latinos

  3. Oct 2015
    1. We were walking along Washington Avenue, the main street that runs through the town, past the Town Hall that looks like a castle, and the duck pond. I don’t remember what we were talking about or if we were even talking, but I remember his face, bloated and red and angry. He stuck that face out of the truck that slowed down as it passed, then he threw a lit cigarette at us, two teenage girls – her 16, me 13 – and said, “Go home, n*ggers.” We jumped away to avoid getting burnt and stared at the truck as it sped off. She started crying, a quiet, blubbering cry that shook her shoulders. I stayed quiet the rest of the walk home. The following year, a black girl who was all of a shade darker than me told me I didn’t know prejudice – “because you’re not black.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. I thought back to that lit cigarette and that bloated, red face.

      A woman sharing the complexity of her identity as a black latina. Being seen as a "n*gger" by white people, yet not being accepted as black by African Americans, while at the same time her latino family refuses to acknowledge her blackness because of their negative perceptions on blacks.