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| Vicente Guerrero |
Here I will start with race. This topic jumped to the forefront because days before my family was scheduled to return to the United States news about our airline, AeroMexico, grabbed the headlines. AeroMexico hired the advertising firm Catatonia (the irony of their name being so close to catatonic, or in a paralyzed stupor, is not lost here) to construct a new publicity campaign. The firm put out a call for actors and brazenly stated that “nadie moreno” (no dark-skinned people) should apply. The ad further stated that the applicants should have a “Polanco look,” referring to an upscale and mostly White neighborhood in Mexico City. AeroMexico had the sense to distance itself from the comments by stating that it had nothing to do with the content of the call, and it soon thereafter apologized, regardless of their responsibility in creating the ad.
The incident reminded me of an experience I had teaching graduate students in a study abroad course in Mexico. The course I co-taught focused on adolescent development and the adaptation of immigrant students, mainly Latinos, in the American school system. We had an opportunity to see some immigrant sending communities in Mexico, visit local schools, and meet with youth development workers there. This gave us a better sense of the experiences that Mexican immigrant students arrived with in the United States.
During a visiting lecture by a Mexican professor of sociology who focused on youth, one of the students asked the role that race and class played in the lives of students in Mexico. Up to that point, he focused more broadly on issues of Mexican culture, the close-knit nature of Mexican families, gender relations, and the adherence to traditional Catholic values. The professor, a man in his late-sixties, with snow-white hair, light hazel eyes, and a sartorial presence that would fit in at any elite university campus in the world, said that this was an interesting question, but not really relevant. He said that it was understandable that an American student would be concerned about race given our long history of racial tension stemming from slavery. Unlike the U.S., he said that Mexico abolished slavery early in its history. Mexico also had a long history of mestizaje or racial mixing, such that races in Mexico were hard to distinguish.
The same student who asked the initial question, who himself was of Mexican-descent, posed the follow-up, “In my own experience I have seen that Mexicans discrimante against other Mexicans with darker skin, and even use the derogatory term indio (Indian) to insult dark-skinned people.” The professor responded, “Well, that is not really racism. After all, how, if most Mexicans are mestizos and have indigenous ancestry, could they be racist? Classist? Perhaps. There are many poor people in Mexico. But, it would be impossible for someone with such heritage to be racist.” And the light-skinned professor ended the conversation there.
Race has been an ever-present part of Mexico’s history as writer Gregory Rodriguez documented in his book, “Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds.” The title alone evokes the complicated ancestry of Mexico’s citizens. Racial categorizations were present throughout colonial Mexico, such as indios (Indians/Indigenous people), Negros (blacks) mulattoes (those of mixed black and white heritage), mestizos (those of mixed indigenous and white heritage), criollos (those of Spanish heritage born in Mexico) and the españoles (Spaniards living in Mexico, but born in Spain). This complicated racial system of classification, not surprisingly was mapped closely to social class hierarchies. It was complicated further as many races intermarried, seen by the use of so many categories. The categorizations still exist today, but are used much less frequently as a larger Mexican identity has taken hold.
In the 1920’s, Jose Vasconcelos, a philosopher and Mexico’s first secretary of education, proclaimed the Mexican people a “cosmic race,” a race of the future, given their willingness to intermarry. He claimed that this mixture would create power, almost through a process of natural selection of the best attributes of all races and through the creation of harmony and commonality among all people. Mexico’s mestizos would thus become a model for what the whole globalized world would eventually become. An important side note is that some saw Vasconcelos as racist himself and that his ideal of a raza cosmica was just a way for him to justify the whitening of darker races.
Mexico’s unique history has allowed it to forget how race permeates its society. It abolished slavery very early in its history when Vicente Guerrero issued a decree emancipating Mexico’s slaves in 1829. Guerrero, the second president of Mexico, had African ancestry, with his father Pedro being an African Mexican. Perhaps it was Guerrero’s fervent nationalism, placing Mexico first, even before his own father who did not support Mexican independence that allows Mexicans to set aside his race. His famous quote, the motto of the Mexican state that bears his name, is “Mi patria es primero.”
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| Benito Juarez |
Similarly, Benito Juarez ascended to the presidency, being of indigenous Zapotec heritage, but again it is his Mexican identity and nationalism that is embraced by Mexicans, with only a secondary acknowledgement of his background; and if anything, the election of these two historical Mexican heroes is used as evidence to show that Mexico is not racist. You would be hard-pressed, however, to find another Mexican president with skin as dark as these men or with similar ancestries.
My trip to Oaxaca’s airport early on a Sunday morning confirmed the relationship between race and power in Mexico. State and federal police were heavily patrolling many of the streets. I imagine that similar to the United States, that civil service jobs provide a path to upward mobility for lower income Mexicans. Notably, the overwhelming majority of the dozens of officers I saw on our taxi ride had deep bronzed hues, jet-black hair, and indigenous features that gave little evidence of racial mixing.
As we entered the terminal the smell of poorly refined gasoline receded and we rolled our luggage across the marble floors to an airport restaurant to eat breakfast. Judging from accents, I assumed many of my fellow diners to be Mexican nationals. We all ordered breakfasts that were triple the price of what you would find in Oaxaca’s center. We wore our souvenirs of hand-woven shirts and blouses accented with indigenous designs. We tapped away on our smartphones, probably recounting to friends the tour we had just taken of one of the poorest regions of Mexico. The attendant called us to board and we entered the AeroMexico plane bound for Mexico City, affirming the Polanco look of its clientele.
