Afro-Mexicanos: Mexico Finally Recognizes Its Black Citizens

Join Afro-Mexican speaker Jorge Gonzalez for a stimulating discussion on the presence and history of people of African descent in Mexico. For the past 500 years, Afro-Mexicans have been omitted from Mexico’s history, governmental rights, and society. At 1.38 million, the country’s black population will be recognized for the first time in the Mexican national census of 2020. Mexico was previously one of the only two Latin American countries (with Chile) to not officially count their African-descended citizens.

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Mexico has a deep and long African history. Between the 1500s and 1600s, one of every two enslaved persons en route to the Caribbean was dropped off in Mexico, mostly through the port of Veracruz. Upon landing, many escaped and sought refuge in the mountainous regions of the state where they founded a maroon colony and fought against the Spanish army for over 30 years under the leadership of Gaspar Yanga. After three decades of war, the Spanish sued for peace. In 1618, the maroon settlement achieved self-rule as the town of San Lorenzo de los Negros, now known as Yanga, considered to be the first liberated and independent town in the Americas.

Gonzalez is a first generation Mexican-American/Chicano border hybrid from San Diego and Tijuana. He directs the Afro-Mexican department at the WorldBeat Cultural Center and lectures widely to raise awareness of the Afro-Mexican presence in Mexico. He is an expert on the Afro-Mexican social movement for social justice and recognition in Costa Chica, Oaxaca. He’s the author of the thesis: The (Re)construction of Blackness in Costa Chica, Oaxaca: NGOs and the Making of an Afro-Mexican Ethnic Group