Rethinking race, racism, identity and ideology in Latin America - Tanya Golash-Boza Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

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Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Rethinking race, racism, identity
and ideology in Latin America
Tanya Golash-Boza & Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Published online: 18 Jun 2013.
To cite this article: Tanya Golash-Boza & Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2013) Rethinking
race, racism, identity and ideology in Latin America, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36:10,
1485-1489, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2013.808357
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Introduction
Rethinking race, racism, identity and
ideology in Latin America
Tanya Golash-Boza and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Abstract
This special issue explores ideas of race and racial hierarchy in Latin
America in the twenty-first century. By examining the intersection
between racialization and processes of identity formation, political
struggle, as well as intimate social and economic relations, these essays
question how and to what extent traditional racial ideologies continue to
hold true. In so doing, we consider the implications of such ideologies for
anti-racism struggles. This collection of articles provides a unique insight
into the everyday lived experiences of racism, how racial inequalities are
reproduced, and the rise of ethnic-based social movements in Latin
America. The qualitative nature of the projects allows the authors to
advance our understanding of how racial ideologies operate on the
ground level. The geographic diversity of the articles ! focusing on Brazil,
Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica and Cuba ! enables a greater
understanding of the distinct ways that racial ideologies play out across
different settings.
Keywords: national ideology; Latin America; blackness; indigeneity; transnation-
alism; racial democracy.
Race and national ideologies in the Americas are inextricable. The
ideas and practices of race were essential to the conquest and
colonization of the Americas (Smedley 2007). As European colonizers
and settlers shaped the western hemisphere into nations, distinct racial
ideologies emerged alongside national ideologies. This special issue of
Ethnic and Racial Studies provides us with new insights into how race
and national ideologies continue to shift in Latin America, in the
context of a globalizing world.
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2013
Vol. 36, No. 10, 1485!1489, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.808357
# 2013 Taylor & Francis
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.808357
During the nineteenth century, Latin American countries began to
break away from their colonial past and form independent states.
Intellectual and political elites across Latin America preoccupied
themselves with building national unity (Knight 1990). In these nation-
building projects, national leaders had to contend with European
scholars who denounced their racial degeneracy due to extensive racial
mixing (Stepan 1991). Latin Americans could not simply ignore
European arguments about racial inferiority ! as these arguments
were central to scientific and medical discourses. Thus, they chose to
counter European intellectuals’ claims about their inferiority and
argue that racial mixture was not only beneficial, it was the hallmark of
Latin American nations. During the twentieth century, ideologies of
whitening, mestizaje (racial and cultural mixture), blackness, indigene-
ity and racial democracy informed national ideologies across Latin
America. Instead of countering ideas of white supremacy espoused by
European intellectuals, Latin American intellectuals and political
leaders embraced white supremacy and worked to facilitate and justify
a system of pervasive race and colour stratification whereby darker-
skinned people, typically with more notable indigenous and African
features, occupy the lower rungs of the racial ladder, and those of
primarily European descent are at the top.
Starting in the 1980s, mobilization by black and indigenous
movements began to upset state and popular discourses surrounding
race in Latin America. At the same time, complex patterns of
international migration led many Latin Americans to re-examine their
own racial identities and question the foundations of racial discourse
in their homelands. Recent surveys using Latin American Public
Opinion Project (LAPOP) data in a host of Latin American countries
including Mexico, Brazil and Peru have also shown that many Latin
Americans believe that their countries are racially stratified ! an idea
that is fundamentally incompatible with popular racial ideologies of
racial democracy.
This special issue explores how ideas about race and racial hierarchy
are understood on the ground in Latin America in the twenty-first
century. More specifically, by examining the intersection between
racialization and processes of identity formation, political struggle, as
well as intimate social and economic relations, these essays question
how and to what extent traditional racial ideologies continue to hold
true in the twenty-first century across Latin American countries. In so
doing, we consider the implications of such ideologies for anti-racism
and racial equality struggles. Beyond an empirical contribution to the
study of comparative race relations, this volume offers new conceptual
tools for understanding racial hierarchy and race ideologies in today’s
globalizing world. Through in-depth analyses, the authors shed light
on new manifestations of mestizaje, multiculturalism and racial
1486 Tanya Golash-Boza and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
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democracy, how racial ideologies are deployed and altered at various
levels of discourse, and how structural racism operates in Latin
America.
This collection of articles provides unique insight into the everyday
lived experiences of racism, how racial inequalities are reproduced,
and the rise of ethnic-based social movements inLatin America. The
qualitative nature of the projects allows the authors to advance our
understanding of how racial ideologies operate on the ground level.
The geographic diversity of the articles ! focusing on Brazil,
Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica and Cuba ! enables a greater
understanding of the distinct ways that racial ideologies play out
across different settings. In addition, all of the articles take into
account how these ideologies are changing through global and
transnational processes: the diffusion of mass media, the internet,
travel and migration. Together, these articles provide a nuanced
perspective on how ideologies of race and racism are changing in
Latin America.
These new perspectives reveal important shifts in the landscape of
racial dynamics that scholars will find crucial to pay attention to. For
example, intellectuals have held it as self-evident that interracial
marriages are a whitening strategy. However, when Chinyere Osuji
asked Brazilians who were in black!white relationships about whiten-
ing, new findings emerged. Osuji finds evidence for a transformation in
the meanings of whitening ideology in Brazil: instead of being a
laudable strategy, the idea of whitening is offensive, particularly to the
darker partners. In addition, some white women admitted they were
engaging in darkening. Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman’s illuminating
study in Bahia reminds us of the pervasive nature of black
stigmatization in Brazil, and, like Osjui’s, reveals the family to be a
key site of racial socialization. Hordge-Freeman’s work elucidates how
the family can both be a site of devaluation of blackness and convey
signals of racial pride. Together, these two studies on blackness and
whitening in Brazil shed light on the importance of family formation
for race in Brazil. We find a new layer of complexity in Tiffany
Joseph’s study of racial democracy in Governador Valadares ! Brazil’s
premier migrant-sending area. Joseph contends that exposure to US
racial ideals via emigration influence Brazilians’ perceptions of racial
democracy. Joseph found that, in Governador Valadares, none of her
respondents believed that Brazil had achieved a racial democracy.
Instead, some embraced an aspirational view of racial democracy,
whereas others found the ideology to be oppressive. Joseph argues that
transnational migration between Governor Valadares and the USA
has shaped how Brazilians view racial dynamics in their hometowns.
Collectively, these three works challenge conventional thought on
racial dynamics in Brazil. These three qualitative studies of racial
Rethinking race, racism, identity and ideology in Latin America 1487
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dynamics in Brazil ! in three different areas ! and all conducted by
African-descended women ! provide new and unique perspectives on
racial dynamics in Brazil.
The essays by Paschel and Jones also show us how ideas of
blackness and race continue to evolve ! and explain how, when and
why these discursive shifts happen. Tianna Paschel’s study of another
South American country, Colombia, focuses on the Beautiful Faces of
My Black People campaign surrounding the 2005 Colombian census.
Paschel argues that Afro-Colombian organizations were successful in
pressuring the state to change its discourses around blackness in the
census ! a key site of struggle over resources and recognition ! and
that this shift is evidence of a move away from mestizaje and towards
multiculturalism in Latin America. Jennifer Jones’s essay takes this
conversation about blackness and mestizaje to Mexico ! a country
where the black presence is much less salient than in Colombia. Jones
argues that, whereas urban coastal Mexicans disavow discussions of
race, rural, coastal Afro-Mexicans are well aware of their own racial
status and how race structures Mexican society. Similar to Joseph,
Jones finds that increased emigration affects how Mexicans perceive
racial dynamics in their home countries. And, similar to Paschel,
she finds that local organizing efforts have changed discourses of
blackness at the local level.
The articles by Sue and Golash-Boza, Christian and Clealand call
attention to racism in Latin America and help us to understand how
racism operates at the discursive and structural levels. The article by
Christina Sue and Tanya Golash-Boza explores how racial humour is
used to frame denigrating characterizations about people of black and
indigenous descent in Mexico and Peru as ‘only jokes’ and therefore
not racist. These analyses reveal how racial humour works to maintain
colour-blind ideologies in these countries, despite evidence of dramatic
racial inequality. Similarly, Michelle Christian explores how ideologies
of Costa Rican exceptionalism and whiteness are deployed to maintain
racial inequality within the tourism industry. Christian’s keen analysis
moves the scholarship on whiteness in Latin America forward by
including a structural analysis of white racial ideologies. Danielle
Clealand’s study of racial discrimination in Cuba further advances our
understanding of structural racism in Latin America by showing how
it cannot be reduced to individual prejudice. She finds that many
blacks in Cuba experience blocked opportunities and that these
common experiences contribute to a sense of group identity among
Afro-Cubans. These three articles make conceptual advances in our
understanding of structural and colour-blind racism in Latin America
and provide new ways for Latin Americanists to theorize race.
This collection of essays drives home the point that scholars cannot
take whitening for granted, nor can we presume that mestizaje is the
1488 Tanya Golash-Boza and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
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operative discourse. We also cannot afford to ignore the pervasive
effects of transnational discourses on racial dynamics in migrant-
sending areas. Finally, these essays point to the importance of
understanding how both racial and racist ideologies operate in Latin
America and beyond.
The conceptual work undertaken in these articles will be of interest
to scholars of race, ethnicity, nationalism and racism around the
world. In particular, the focus on the tension between popular and
national ideologies, the analysis of the use of humour to smooth over
racial incidents, the consideration of migrating people and ideas, and
the examination of the role of race-based social movements all have
relevance around the globe.
We are pleased and humbled to bring the voices of these women ! all of
whom have spent considerable time in Latin America ! into conversation
with each other and with the readers of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
References
KNIGHT, ALAN 1990 ‘Racism, revolution, and indigenismo: Mexico, 1910!1940’, in
Richard Graham (ed.), The Idea of Race in Latin America, Austin, TX: University of Texas
Press, pp. 1!6
SMEDLEY, AUDREY 2007 Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview,
Boulder, CO: Westview Press
STEPAN, NANCY LEYS 1991 The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin
America, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
TANYA GOLASH-BOZA is Associate Professor in the Department of
Sociology at the University of California, Merced
ADDRESS: School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University
of California, Merced, 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95348, USA
Email: tgolash-boza@ucmerced.edu
EDUARDO BONILLA-SILVA is Professor of Sociology at Duke
University.
ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, Box 90088, Duke University,
Durham, NC 27708-0088, USA.
Email: ebs@duke.soc
Rethinking race, racism, identity and ideology in Latin America 1489
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mailto:tgolash-boza@ucmerced.edu
mailto:ebs@duke.soc
	Abstract
	References