Introduction: Theorizing Afrolatinidades

Contesting Mestizaje: Black Politics and Oral Traditions in Venezuela

“…These instructive works on Afro‐Latin American cultural resistance are located within a wider scholarship on Afro‐Latino social movements that engages issues of racism, racial politics, anti‐blackness and Black empowerment (Dixon and Johnson, 2019; Hanchard, 1994; Perry, 2013; Laó‐Montes, 2020; Paschel, 2016; Rahier, 2012). However, there has been an upsurge of work on the racial politics of Afro‐descendant's popular culture (Dixon and Burdick, 2012; Fernandes 2020; Rivera‐Rideau, 2015; Rivera‐Rideau, Jones and Paschel, 2016). Notably, Petra Rivera‐Rideau (2015) juxtaposes ‘folkloric Blackness’ and ‘urban Blackness’ as threads that enable Puerto Rican artists to engage African diasporic consciousness within a racial politics that challenges Latin America's racial democracy fiction.…”

Troubling the Essentialist Discourse ofBrownin Education: The Anti-Black Sociopolitical and Sociohistorical Etymology of Latinxs as aBrownMonolith

“…For example, racial democracy in Cuba is appended to the politics of the revolution (Clealand, 2017), whereas in Puerto Rico, racial democracy is grounded in dominant ideas of nationalism, or the “great Puerto Rican family” (Godreau, 2015; Llorens, 2014; Rivera-Rideau, 2018). However, for the purpose of this article, we take up Brazil and Mexico that are assigned regional significance due to the historical currency of their transnational projection (Hooker, 2017) as well as their adoption in anti-racist U.S. Latinx political formations such as the Chicanx movement (Banks, 2006; Haney López, 2003; Hernández, 2004; Hooker, 2017; Jones, 2018; Rivera-Rideau et al, 2016).…”

“…Arguably, the scholarship on race in Latin America is deeply rooted in the political struggles over racial categories and nation building. Resultantly, the first waves of race scholars emerged in the 19th century when the newly independent Latin American nations were attempting to “make sense of their past, present, and future” (Rivera-Rideau et al, 2016, p. 4). Affirmations of racial and cultural hybridity emerged in Argentina (Rojas, 1924/1951; Ugarte, 1920), Brazil (de Morais, 1922; Bomfim, 1929; Freyre, 1943/1946), Mexico (Sáenz, 1939/1976; Vasconcelos, 1925/1997), Cuba (Ortiz, 1940/1978), and Puerto Rico (Blanco, 1942).…”

“…Second and relatedly, scholarly conversations salient to U.S. Latinxs as uniformly Brown isolates racialization to the United States while failing to underscore its relationship to processes of racialization, racial politics, and colonial logics in Latin America (Banks, 2006; Dzidzienyo & Oboler, 2005; Haney López, 2003; Hernández, 2004, 2016; Hooker, 2014, 2017; Urrieta, 2003; Urrieta & Calderón, 2019). Third, the discursive reference to U.S. Latinxs as monolithically Brown has implications for determining who matters and, reciprocally, who does not matter within social and political discourses of U.S. Latinidad (Afro-Puerto Rican Testimonies, 2010; Jones, 2018; Jorge, 1986/2010; Rivera-Rideau et al, 2016). Political and social inclusivity is often relative to how ideologies of mestizaje, racial democracy, and racial egalitarianism are situated within regional and nation-state–specific racial identity politics (Hooker, 2005a, 2005b, 2014, 2017; Paschel, 2016; Telles & Paschel, 2014).…”

“…Political and social inclusivity is often relative to how ideologies of mestizaje, racial democracy, and racial egalitarianism are situated within regional and nation-state–specific racial identity politics (Hooker, 2005a, 2005b, 2014, 2017; Paschel, 2016; Telles & Paschel, 2014). A transnational lens is thus necessary for understanding how the multidirectional movement of these ideas and logics are central to the construction of Latinidad and, more specifically, the U.S. Latinx subject as Brown or mestizx in racialized discursive practices in U.S. education research (Blackwell et al, 2017; Chacón, 2017; Dache et al, 2019; Hooker, 2017; Milian, 2013; Rivera-Rideau et al, 2016; Urrieta & Calderón, 2019). Moreover, situating anti-Black colonial logics, mestizaje, and racial democracy within this transnational frame reveals the underbelly of our racialized discursive practices in U.S. education research.…”