Finding Afro-Mexico

Abstract

Black Disappearance Histories of indigeneity, blackness, and mestizaje after the 1910 Revolution usually begin with Manuel Gamio and José Vasconcelos. Frequently anointed as the "father of Mexican anthropology," Gamio established the terms of debate for postrevolutionary indigenous policies when he declared in 1916, "To incorporate the Indian we should not attempt to 'Europeanize' him suddenly; on the contrary, we must 'Indianize' ourselves a little in order to present to him our civilization, already diluted by his, which will make ours no longer appear exotic, cruel, bitter, and incomprehensible to him." 1 These words, as well as his position directing the Bureau of Anthropology, set in motion a modern ethnographic project to study all the nation's peoples and cultures. In short, he concluded, the Mexican state could only govern justly and democratically once ethnographers charted the nation's indigenous and mestizo culture areas. There was one notable absence: in the 1910s and 1920s, he failed to see blackness as part of the national mosaic. 2