Mexico Officially Recognizes 1.38 Million Afro-Mexicans in the National Census, as Black People Fight Against Racism and Invisibility Throughout Latin America

ATLANTA BLACK STAR - December 14, 2015

In what is being hailed as a step forward for people of African descent, Mexico has for the first time recognized its Afro-Mexican population.  The decision reflects a larger issue of what it means to be Black in Latin America.
The Mexico national census is now accounting for the 1.38 million people of African ancestry, as the Huffington Post reports.  Since the 1910 Mexican Revolution, people of African descent have not been documented.  The Latin American nation has maintained a national identity of “mestizaje”–which ignored the descendants of African slaves, while acknowledging those who came from a mixed background of indigenous peoples and Spanish colonizers. And yet, this happened despite the role of people such as Gaspar Yanga, a national hero who established a free society of formerly enslaved Blacks, and Vicente Guerrero, one of the leading generals in the Mexican war of independence from Spain and the second president of Mexico.

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