| Summary: | "The Erasure of the Essential Afro Element of Mestizaje in Modern Mexico: The
Coding of Visibly Black Mestizos According to a White Aesthetic
In and Through the Discourse on Nation During the Cultural Phase of the
Mexican Revolution, 1920-1968" examines how the Afro elements of Mexican
mestizaje were erased from the ideal image of the Mexican mestizo and how the
Afro ethnic contributions were plagiarized in modern Mexico. It explores part of
the discourse on nation in the narrative produced by authors who subscribed to
the belief that only white was beautiful, between 1920 and 1968, during a period
herein identified as the "cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution." It looks at the
coding and distortion of the image of visibly black Mexicans in and through
literature and film, and unveils how the Afro element "disappeared" from some of
the most popular images, tastes in music, dance, song, food, and speech forms viewed as cultural texts that, by way of official intervention, were made "badges"
of Mexican national identity.
The premise of this study is that the criollo elite and their allies, through
government, disenfranchised Mexicans as a whole by institutionalizing a magic
mirror—materialized in the narrative of nation—where mestizos can "see" only a
partial reflection of themselves. The black African characteristics of Mexican
mestizaje were totally removed from the ideal image of "Mexican-ness"1
disseminated in and out of the country. During this period, and in the material
selected for study, wherever Afro-Mexicans—visibly Afro or not—are mentioned,
they appear as "mestizos" oblivious of their African heritage and willingly moving
toward becoming white.
The analysis adopts as critical foundation two essays: "Black Phobia and
the White Aesthetic in Spanish American Literature," by Richard L. Jackson; and
"Mass Visual Productions," by James Snead. In "Black Phobia..." Jackson
explains that, to define "superior and inferior as well as the concept of beauty"
according to how white a person is perceived to be, is a "tradition dramatized in
Hispanic Literature from Lope de Rueda's Eufemia (1576) to the present" (467).
For Snead, "the coding of blacks in film, as in the wider society, involves a history
of images and signs associating black skin color with servile behavior and
marginal status" (142).
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