Múcara and Madera: Tangible and Intangible Blackness in Mexico’s Oldest Port City

• In Event: Seepage: Viscous Readings of African Diasporic Archives

Description for Program

Heroica Veracruz: open, fun-loving, by the sea. Heroica Veracruz: walled, beleaguered, under siege. The city is all these things and more. Yet these two ideas, as culturally Caribbean and historically heroic, often run parallel narrative lives. In this talk, I look at the intersections of these two faces of Veracruz to consider how Blackness surfaces in the narrative veracruzanos tell themselves and others about themselves. While most often described in the realm of the intangible such as local practices, music, dance, and cuisine, I argue the built environment of Veracruz, a place built to withstand and endure intervention, is also a tangible vestige of the city’s Black heritage despite the lack of discourse. What is more, I ask what present and futures of Mexican Blackness are made possible by revisiting the very materiality of the city, the múcara and madera, and the spatial practices it engendered.

Author

• Karma Frierson, University of Rochester