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News > Latin America

'Mexico is Also Afro-Descendant, Not Only Indigenous': Leader

  • Afro-Mexican leaders gathered for the Second International Conference of Afro-descendants in Oaxaca, Mexico Nov. 27, 2015.

    Afro-Mexican leaders gathered for the Second International Conference of Afro-descendants in Oaxaca, Mexico Nov. 27, 2015. | Photo: Twitter / Socpinda

Published 27 November 2015
Opinion

Afro-Mexicans recognize their common struggle with Indigenous people, but they also want visibility.

Afro-Mexican leaders this week have called on fellow Afro-descendants from Latin America to support their struggle for legal recognition of their unique ethnicity.

The call for solidarity was made during the Second International Conference of Afro-descendants in Oaxaca, Mexico, which gathered over 30 Afro community leaders from 18 different countries.

Opening the conference, Afro-Mexicans made clear that the Mexican Congress must pass a bill that recognizes their distinct ethnicity in the Constitution, a requirement for their communities to access basic services,

According to a 2007 study on racial and ethnic discrimination in Mexico, 74 percent of Afro-Mexicans do not have access to health care while 96.5 percent of Black workers do not get paid vacations.

“Mexico is also Afro-descendant and it should stop from being seen as only an Indigenous country. We share a common struggle with our Indigenous siblings, but it should also be seen as a country of Afro-descendants,” affirmed Isidro Ramirez Lopez, director of the Organization for Social and Productive Development of Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Descendant Communities (Socpinda).

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"The liberation struggle did not end in the colonial era, in the struggle for independence, the liberation struggle continues and it continues in the search for recognition. Here we are remembering our grandparents, vindicating our ancestors, honoring our parents," Ramirez Lopez added.

Afro-Mexicans are currently not recognized as a formal ethnicity and are therefore not counted in the national census.

Recognition means that Mexico’s estimated half-a-million Afro-descendants could receive the necessary funds for what organizers call the “economic, cultural and social development of Afro-Mexican communities."

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Formal recognition by the state could also mean Afro-Mexican can start to identify themselves as such.

"Because of the stereotypes we have implemented in us, people often do not recognize themselves, and they are ashamed or feel self-conscious when they say that they really are from the black population,” Yara Itzayana Molina de la Cruz, member from the Afro-Mexican Youth from Acapulco, told CNN last year.

“If Mexicans of African descent recognize themselves as such but they are not accepted by the rest of the populations, coexistence become very difficult,” said Itzayana.
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