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Course: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America: Nation-building, inequality and invisibility
Fall 2017
Professor: Dr. Jorge Marcelo Paixão
Student: Davi Pereira Junior
My proposition is to use the idea emerged from the course of Race and Ethnicity to
examine marriages in the race relations in three differents countries on Latin American. I will
analyze the race relationships from interracial marriages in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. My
what the implications of this type of relationship in the this three countries.
I intend to use as a comparative methodology perspective from the data and analyzes
presented by the authors that were reading in the course such as, Teles, (2004). Race in
Another America: the significance of skin color in Brazil. Sue (2013), The Land of the
Cosmic Race for analyze Mexico, and Alberto & Elena (2013), Rethinking Race in Modern
Argentina. The methodology also includes additional literature on the subject in the three
countries. Some of issues that I want to address and analyze over the final work is, for
example, how it is related to the discuss of nation's formation? how do you negotiate
interracial marriages in societies marked by racial and social hierarchies? What are the
symbolic implications of skin color in trading and composition of couples? As the ideology
The comparison will take into consideration the factor that we are analysing three
countries with specifics singularities with respect to their ethnic composition. For example,
Mexico has a largest indigenous population in Latin America, Brazil has a bigger black
population in the Americas. In another hand, Argentine always claimed to be a white country.
Regardless, the debate about the race issues was always present as a dilemma that haunt Latin
American countries. Ideologias as mestizaje and racial democracia were used by the elites as
a way to built the discuss of national unity and the own idea of nation.
Those ideologies worked well in countries like Brazil and Mexico. Already the
Argentine case may will be the unique different. Once that, the national narrative that was
building by Argentine elites was of a white country through the denial of indigenous and
black heritage. By the way, Telles (2004, p.5), address that from the white elite discuss in
Latin America concepts of race mixture hold that blacks, Indigenous, and whites socialize,
reside together, and biologically, mix to the point that racial discrimination become
unimportant. However, in the practical terms the literature and researches about racial
relations and ethnicity has showing that these discuss about mestizaje and racial democracia
as part of the nation formation it is a kind of strategy of domination used by whites elites to
Brazil and Mexico are both miscegenated and unequal countries. Sue (2013) address
that is the non Mexican elites that become an efficient mechanism of reproduction of
racial mixture of ideology and how their understand and negotiate race relations such as
intermarriage. In Telles(2014, p. 25) approaches, Thus, the tradition of race mixture was
established in Brazilian society through both violent sexual relations as well informal union
and formal union. (p. 223) Brazil’s profound racial inequality, this study has also shown that
there is substantial intermarriage. Alberto and Elena (2016. p. 8) in the Argentine case
whiteness becomes even more firmly established as a natural part of nation’s identity and of
what it means to be Argentine, too became invisible as a racial construction. In addition, both
the Mexican and Brazil marry becomes often the situation to negotiate where the black and
indigenous are at all the time at a disadvantage compared with white people. While in the
Argentine case people with skin color further from the European ideal of whitening are the
In the process of formation of the national states in Latin America the discuss about
race was always present. Sue (2013, p. 14) address that the build of idea of Mexican nation
after was guided by three ideology pillars that follow post-revolutionary Mestizaje; as symbol
of national unity the embracement of race mixture and lauding of the mestizo. Non racism;
the contention that racism does not exist in the country. Non blackness; the marginalization,
neglect, or negation of Mexico’s African heritage. In addition, from that moment, the idea of
mestizaje will become very strong and will dominate to direct the racial ideal of Mexican
society. The mestizaje will becomes the main social capital in Mexican either to marry
process.
The mestizaje in Mexico society will be internalized in a way so strong that both
people of white skin color and black skin color and even the Indians will tend to self-classify
ideologies that mediate the daily social relationship hierarchic by black inferiority. Yet, the
Mexican society privileges the whiteness and is stratified by race and color. Despite she not
offers clear arguments to explain why the Mexican wishes to erase the black heritage.
Unlike of other country of Latin America, in Mexico case the blacks are unwanted up as
powerful narrative of formation of Mexican nation. In addition, Sue (2013, p. 58)The mestizo
ideology is even powerful enough to mold the identification of those who have no phenotypic
marker of indigenous ancestry. The actuation of the ancestrality will make the indigenous
deprecated in relation to the black in the racial negotiation that happens in the market of
marriage.
In the imaginary of the Brazilian nation the narrative of race mixture appear as main
element of national. Talles (2004, p. 16) address that Brazil had been one of the first
multiracial states to go beyond race, but it had become apparent that its racial democracy
continued to privilege whites at the expense of non whites, just as it did during most of its
history of white supremacy. The Brazilian elites had a whiteness project based in the
eugenics beliefs that through the genes combination of black and white could progressively
Unlike in Mexico indigenous heritage was not used as in a strong way for Brazilian
social imagination. In Albert & Telles point of view, over several generations, such unions
led to a large mixed race population that was widely recognized as such and its existence,
bolstered by elite nation-making narratives of mestizaje, has arguably encouraged (or not
discouraged) racial mixture in the modern period. Telles (2004, p. 226) approaches as
scientific theories about race began to be discredited, the Brazilian state began to promote a
self-image of a racial democracy that was based on miscegenation, a large dose of African
culture, and an aversion to racism. These factors would become central to Brazilian national
identity. Integration, although in the more abstract sense of peoplehood, nation. The
interracial social interactions in Brazilian society was polarized between black and whites
Alberto and Elena (2016. p. 7/8) addressing that racial questions is important to
understand why Argentina emerged as Europeanized nation unlike all other country in Latin
America. The Argentine State with the white elite contribute did subtle movement for
nonwhite people in Argentine disappear from national history. In the wake of the subjugation
of independent indigenous groups and the consolidation of the national territory, Argentine
nation. "Blacks" too, official histories and statistics of the period asserted, had disappeared or
were well on their way toward group extinction, due to their supposedly disproportional rates
of death in nineteenth-century wars or epidemics and their high degree of intermixture with
Obviously, which behind this has racist ideologies that try erasing blackness and
indigenous existence. They belief in the national identity more close of European ideal and
without the black and indigenous presence. The racist ideologies come from scholars that
think the problems of incorporation of non white in the composition of Argentine society.
In the sphere of the social relations in Mexico the race should be negotiated daily.
In the symbolic capital that mary represents in Mexican society blacks should know as to
play the game rule to negotiate some benefits in these mekart where who has the skin color
more darker tends to have less bargaining power. The case of the black in mexico is very
similar with which happens with the Brazilian blacks who are in disadvantaged in the
competition by the preference of marriage. In the case of the brown Sue (2013) says that they
try to minimize their brownness by highlighting their European background. In the other
hand, any discuss about race seems inconvenient and cause of discomfort for reflecting the
however, they were also demonstrating clear preference for whiteness and is in these context
that the marry negotiate happens. In the in these Mexican society context choose a couple to
marry can be a very complex situation. As address Sue (2013) they are always concern with
interracial relationship. And then, the marry becomes often a situation to negotiate where
the black and indigenous are at all the time at a disadvantage, unless their financial condition
is privileged. This fact shows contradictory to the dominant ideology, mostly lighter skin
aversion to marry Indigenous. The marriage preference is always white, but it is always
accompanied strategies that allow them simultaneously claim European ancestry without
The theory of racial democracy becomes the Brazil a reference in the world mainly to
studies of racial relations. Telles (2004, p. 16) address that Brazil had been one of the first
multiracial states to go beyond race, but it had become apparent that its racial democracy
continued to privilege whites at the expense of non whites. Despite the Brazil be seen as the
racial paradise when supposedly does have racism or racial discrimination and where the
miscegenation is accepted historically as a natural process into the social relations of the daily
life by Brazilian society as affirms thinks like Gilberto Freyre in his book Casa Grande e
Senzala.
whites elites for the purpose of mask their racism stemming from a project of domination and
white supremacy and making the social relations more rigid. As address Telles & Garcia
(2013 p.2) Although one may argue that the recent increase of black-white intermarriage
represent growing social interactions and the blurring of black-white distinctions, the fact that
they still hardly occur reveals the persistence of a rigid black-white In these sense, the racial
democracy works as a kind of myth in the process of notional narrative which alleviates
tensions in racial and social relations. The racial democracy will allow that the game played
by white elite works well once the supposed equality is at the level of discussion because in
practice it has the purpose of hierarchizing social and racial relations and making the
In the Argentine case is more complicated to understand and analyse the negotiate
these logic they supposedly would not have the same dilemma as the rest of Latin America,
once everybody there is white. However, the book that was organized by Alberto and Elena
(2016) put in question some important issues about intermarriage in Argentine. Deutsch
address in her article the issues of intermarriage between Argentines and Jews. Aside she
highlighting the racial characteristics, she described how Jewish immigrants corrupted
Argentines physically and morally. Deutsch, likened this process to the spread of disease, in
which Jews and other foreigners carried the germs of materialism and of imported cosmetics,
hair dyes, and fashions that infected Argentine women and disguised her "heritage of Spanish
blood". In these sense the Jews are responsible for corrupting local women and weakening
their racial Identity, Jews were agents of barbarism. Alberto and Elena (2016, p. 30).
As the white elite Argentines solved the “racial problem” by eliminating the
Afro-descendants and indigenous in a clear official action of ethnic cleansing using the state
as instruments. The elite project of domination had the purpose of dissipating the myth of
disappearance of their racial minorities due to war victimization or epidemics such as yellow
fever and assume the European heritage as the unique cultural matrix in the country.
However, Argentines elite had to dealing with non-European immigrants such as Jews, which
as already pointed out were seen as agents of barbarism that that threatened the European
purity of the Argentine nation. Rubel (2013) address that, the mixed marriage between Jews
and Argentines was a constant process mainly in the suburban areas of the capital and this
The literature about racial relations in Latin America always point out that the
interracial marriage, intermarriage or mixed marry as a negotiated strategy for both whites
and non whites as a way of up their social condition. In these negotiation process what being
some kind of specifics social capital such as; education, economic condition, social class and
skin color. These is a strategy supposedly are more present more in Mexico and Brazil then
Argentina.
Sue Christina in her book about mexico address the intermarriage in Mexico as a
process of exchange of social status. By Sue’s approaches (2013, p. 88), in Veracruz, even
though such relationships are fairly common intercolor couple often draw attention,
suggesting that such alliances are not, in fact, view as a societal norm. Individuals in this
Criteria like skin color is important traits that in the market of marriage. In these
sense, the individual who has a skin lighter have more power of negotiation in the market
marriage. The individual who has a skin lighter will have also the preference for marriage
from the other individuals who have skin more dark. Also, people who has skin lighter has
more social acceptability and are more hapto to exchange their social capital with other
individual that has some positive traits to exchange such as education, high economic status.
As Sue (2013, p. 90) approaches, When individuals with dark skin, a perceived negative traits
marry someone lighter there is an expectation that they will compensate for their color by
contributing a positive attribute such as higher economics status. However, marry with
someone who has lighter skin for someone with skin dark does not mean that she/he will
integrate into Mexican society in the point that she/he does not suffer any kind of prejudice
Like Mexico in Brazil, people who has skin lighter also has the preference in the
market of marriage in comparison with people that has a skin more dark. In addition, the
social class is another factors that influences in these choose. As Draper III (2011)
approaches, Brazilian marriages between blacks and whites are less common upper class
nonwhites tend to marry whites more often than do lower-class nonwhites. Yet that the Brazil
had the fame to be racial paradise and that the ideology of racial democracy remain stronger
in the social mentality of the Brazilian, in the marriage market blacks rieman being the social
capital less valued. Telles (2004) address that especially black women are extremely rejected
In the Brazilian case the brown seems to have more valued and more successful.
People with brown skin seems to have preference for both white and non white to be married.
So the brown people has more power of bargain. Regardless of social condition, education,
economic condition, because you will always have an option to marry. However, Telles
(2004), point out that in these game of racial relationships many young black and brown men
prefer white women than blacks preferably a blonde is a symbol of success honor, and power.
In the same way Telles affirms that black men seems like a fetish in the sexual imagination of
white women. Besides of a supposed devotion that young blacks show for white couple.
These kind of situation in Argentina for example, is not recurring like Brazil and Mexico.
However, yet that Argentina deny non white heritage in beneficitic of a white national
narrative. Alberto and Elena (2016) address that marriage in Argentina has formed social
Regardless of difference that have in the discuss of nation formation in Argentina that
preferred put away the influence of Afro-descendants and indigenous despise their heritage
for a European heritage. Mexico with the exaltation of mestizaje based on indigenous
ancestry. And Brazil social and racial harmony that seems a racial paradise thanks to racial
democracy. The three country play the same game, still the rules of game seems differents
and specifically for each country. The racial ideology as racial democracy has been the
reproduced mainly by non-white groups on daily day. In the same, way that the Argentine
Argentines can not self-perceive without the optics of the ideology of whiteness. These same
logic can also be applied to the Mexican case and the ideology of mestizaje that is imbued
their own idea of Mexicanness. These three case show how the racial democracy as ideology
do not was restricted only in Brazil. On the contrary, gained strength across Latin America.
Being adapted to the particular contexts of each country by the local elite to serve as