Rosana Resende

Beyond One Drop: Racial

Formation in Latin America

Center for Latin American Studies

University of Flrorida

Overview

• History and racial formation

• Latin America vs. U.S.

• Discourses and dominance

• Multicultural Latin America

• Gendering Mestizaje

Let’s talk about “race”

• Race as a social and subjective construct– Categories get reworked

– Not experienced the same way everywhere

• Race as conflated with ethnicity– Racialization based on other differences

• Race as it relates to biology– Where does heritage fit in?

– Human variation

• Don’t apply US model!

Latin America vs. U.S.

Latin America

• Miscegenation

• Full siblings, different

• Race as fluid (color)

• Social, geographical

• Colonization by men

• Mixed nation

• Integrated (though not

evenly) societies

• Whitening policies

U.S.

• Hypodescent

• Full siblings, same

• Race as fixed (race)

• Biological

• Colonization by families

• White nation

• Discrete spheres for

whites and non-whites

• Anti-miscegenation ,

segregation

Predominant Others

• Brazil, Caribbean, Colombia,

Venezuela, Panama: Afro-

descendants

• Mesoamerica, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador,

Southern Cone: Indigenous

• Other “Others” include

Arabs, Asians

History and racial formation

• Male-led colonization

• Extractive, labor needs

• Land concentration and hierarchy

Triangular Trade

Colonial Period

• Indigenous and African slaves

• 350 years, 10+ million Africans

• Complex system of categorization based on race (e.g., Mexican castas)

• Legacy of these labels

• Specific occupations and social

roles for mixed heritage

• “Erotic democracy” (Goldstein)

still privileged white males

Transatlantic Slave Trade

Timeline

• 1400s: Portugal begins trading for African slaves

• 1761: Portugal abolishes slavery in Portugal and in Portuguese possessions in India by decree

• 1804: Haitian Independence

• 1807: Slave trading abolished in British Empire.

• 1808: Importation of slaves into the US prohibited

• 1811: Spain abolishes slavery at home and in colonies except Cuba, PR, and Santo Domingo

• 1818: Treaty between Britain, Spain and Portugal to abolish slave trade

• 1862: Cuba abolishes slave trade

• 1865 United States abolishes slavery with the 13th Amendment

• 1869 Portugal abolishes slavery in the African colonies

• 1873 Slavery abolished in Puerto Rico

• 1886 Slavery abolished in Cuba• 1888 Brazil abolishes slavery

Mejorando la raza…

Hybridity, Purity, and Honor

• L.A. and Caribbean: hybrid nations

– Appropriated bodies

– Appropriated discourses

• Purity: the white woman’s legacy

• Machismo, marianismo, and purity

• Blanqueamiento as modernization

• Miscegenation as top-down,

paternalistic

Racial Consciousness

• Lack of racial solidarity and comfort in the “middle” zone labeled an “escape hatch”

• Attempts to depoliticize race highlight general racial tolerance and intermarriage, multi-shaded households, and personal narratives of multiracial ancestry

• Efforts to politicize race point to large scale studies revealing that whites remain disproportionately more visible in politics and media, control more resources, and enjoy more opportunities for advancement

“Subtle” Racism?

• The prejudice of no-prejudice

• Tolerance in personal relationships that gloss over difference

• Racial stereotypes as acceptable humor

• Conflation of social class with color, features

• Similarities to issues within African-American communities (features, hair texture, color, and social class as ways of distinguishing)

One of these things…

Discourses and dominance

• The Cosmic Race, Racial Democracy,

and other myths

• Nation-building and race: valorizing

the non-European

• Non-white actors as national heroes

• Cultural mestizaje/mulatice: white goal

• Escape hatches and deradicalized

race consciousness

Identity-Based Movements

Multicultural Latin America

• Fragmented agendas, no longer class

• Rise of identity-based movements

• Different engagement with the state

manifested through:

– Local, discrete, or targeted movements

– External, transnational orientation

– Folklorization of indigeneity—engendered and

performative (tourism)

Cultural Mestizaje/Mulatice

Gendering Mestizaje

• Wade: gender inequality integrated

• Encounter: reframed feminine roles

• Goldstein’s Erotic democracy?

Mulatice and Marginality

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A

2o4TYf5qjg

Thank you!

Rosana Resende

University of Florida

Center for Latin American Studies