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Neither Enemies nor Friends
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Neither Enemies nor Friends
Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos
Edited by
Anani Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler
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NEITHERENEMIESNORFRIENDS
© Anani Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler,2005.
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
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Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire,England RG21 6XS
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of
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Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.Macmillan® is a registered trademark
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ISBN 1–4039–6567–6 hardback
ISBN 1–4039–6568–4 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neither enemies nor friends :Latinos,Blacks,Afro Latinos / edited by Anani
Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–4039–6567–6 (cloth)—ISBN 1–4039–6568–4 (pbk.)
1.America—Race relations.2.Latin America—Race relations.3.United
States—Race relations.4.Racism—Political aspects—America.5.Racism—political
aspects—Latin America.6.Racism—Political aspects—United States.7.African
Americans—Relations with Hispanic Americans.8.African Americans—Race identity.
9.Hispanic Americans—Race identity.10.Ethnicity—America.I.Dzidzienyo,Anani,
1941– II.Oboler,Suzanne.
E29.A1N45 2004
308.8(cid:2)0097—dc22 2004052797
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:March 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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Contents
art 1
P
omparative acialization in the mericas
C R A 1
1. Flows and Counterflows: Latinas/os, Blackness, and Racialization in
Hemispheric Perspective 3
Suzanne Oboler and Anani Dzidzienyo
art 2
P
he olitics of acialization in atin merica
T P R L A 37
2. A Region in Denial: Racial Discrimination and Racism in
Latin America 39
Ariel E. Dulitzky
3. Afro-Ecuadorian Responses to Racism: Between Citizenship
and Corporatism 61
Carlos de la Torre
4. The Foreignness of Racism: Pride and Prejudice Among Peru’s
Limeños in the 1990s 75
Suzanne Oboler
5. Bad Boys and Peaceful Garifuna: Transnational Encounters
Between Racial Stereotypes of Honduras and the United States
(and Their Implications for the Study of Race in the Americas) 101
Mark Anderson
6. Afro-Mexico: Blacks, Indígenas, Politics, and the Greater Diaspora 117
Bobby Vaughn
7. The Changing World of Brazilian Race Relations? 137
Anani Dzidzienyo
art 3
P
he olitics of acialization in the nited tates
T P R U S 157
8. Framing the Discussion of African American–Latino Relations:
A Review and Analysis 159
John J. Betancur
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vi/ contents
9. Neither White nor Black: The Representation of Racial Identity
Among Puerto Ricans on the Island and in the U.S. Mainland 173
Jorge Duany
10. Scripting Race, Finding Place: African Americans, Afro-Cubans, and
the Diasporic Imaginary in the United States 189
Nancy Raquel Mirabal
11. Identity, Power, and Socioracial Hierarchies Among Haitian
Immigrants inFlorida 209
Louis Herns Marcelin
12. Interminority Relations in Legislative Settings: The Case of African
Americans and Latinos 229
José E. Cruz
13. African American and Latina/o Cooperation in Challenging Racial
Profiling 247
Kevin R. Johnson
14. Racial Politics in Multiethnic America: Black and Latina/o Identities
and Coalitions 265
Mark Sawyer
15. Racism in the Americas and the Latino Scholar 281
Silvio Torres-Saillant
Appendix Witnessing History: An Octogenarian Reflects on Fifty Years
of African American–Latino Relations 305
Nelson Peery
Notes on the Contributors 313
Index 317
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Part 1
Comparative Racialization in
the Americas
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Chapter 1
Flows and Counterflows: Latinas/os,
Blackness, and Racialization in
Hemispheric Perspective1
Suzanne Oboler and Anani Dzidzienyo
In a country of slaves, there are neither political enemies nor friends: there are some wise people
who do business and an enormous mass that wants nothing other than to obey. Moreover, there
are whites, Blacks, and mulattos who must continue living together. And that, in the final analy-
sis, is this country’s only difficulty.
—Baroness E. de Langsdorff, Brazil, 1842–18432
Who are the Afro–Latin Americans?3What historical contributions do they bring to
their respective national polities? What is the nature of their identity? What happens
to their identities as a result of migration to the United States? What do we know of
the experience of the second and subsequent generations of Afro–Latin American
immigrants categorized under the current social labels as “Afro-Latinas/os” in the
United States? What is the impact of their growing presence within Latina/o popu-
lations, particularly with respect to the dynamics of race relations in the United
States today? And, more generally, what are the possible goals, the prospects, and
obstacles for coalition building between and among racial(ized) minorities and other
groups in U.S. society today?
These are some of the key questions guiding the articles in this anthology, the
purpose of which is twofold: on the one hand, to examine the contemporary
construction and meanings attributed to blackness in the Americas; and, on the
other, to acknowledge the role of population movements, specifically of Black and
other nonwhite peoples such as Native Americans and Asian Americans within
the hemisphere, in reshaping the ways we think about color and phenotype, as well
as racialization—a term that, as defined by Darder and Torres (2003:315), alludes to
“the use of ‘race’ in structuring social relations” in the United States today.4
The following pages provide a brief rationale for this volume and serve to frame
the essays we have included in our anthology. We begin by proposing a transnational
framework for situating the parallel origins and development of racialization in the
hemisphere. Recognizing the impact of the growing circular migration of people
of Latin American descent, we briefly outline some of the commonalities and
Description:In this collection, leading scholars focus on the contemporary meanings and diverse experiences of blackness in specific countries of the hemisphere, including the United States. The anthology introduces new perspectives on comparative forms of racialization in the Americas and presents its implicat
