Newspaper Article

BLACK LIKE M -- THE AFRICAN INFLUENCE IN MEXICO

ELIZABETH COOK-ROMERO, PHOTOS: COURTESY MUSEO DE LA SECRETARA DE HACIENDA Y CRDITO PUBLICO, ANTIGUO PALACIO DEL ARZOBISPADO

2007

Overview

[Gaspar Yanga]'s story, like all Afro-Mexican history, is not well-known, according to [Sagrario Cruz-Carretero]. \"In history classes he's not usually mentioned,\" she said. \"Even in Veracruz, not all people know who Yanga was.\" From the Afro-Mexican beauty in Manuel Alvarez Bravo's 1947 Black Mirror; to Joaqun Santamara's Malecn del Paseo, an image of three boys hanging out on a dock; to Tony Gleaton's 1990 The Barber Shop; many of the show's photographs are stunning artworks that together take on new meaning. In the next few rooms, movie posters from the 1950s and 1960s, handmade dolls with elaborate costumes by an anonymous 19th-century maker, and a polychrome wooden carving of a child musician -- all clearly depicting Mexicans of African descent - - seem to insist that no matter how hard an African presence is denied, Afro-Mexicans have been making their contributions to the culture for centuries. The African Presence is not just about history, [Claudia Isaac] said during a phone interview. \"We are talking about a contemporary Afro- Mexican presence, and it's a presence of resistance,\" Isaac said. \"It's shared with a history against oppression in the United States and elsewhere.\"

• Publisher: Santa Fe New Mexican
• Subject: Alberto, Guillermo Vargas / Cruz-Carretero, Sagrario / Isaac, Claudia / Nunn, Tey Marianna / Yanga, Gaspar