Rendering Visible the Afro-Argentine Life in the Twentieth Century

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

For much of the twentieth century the official and popular view in Argentine was that the nation had no population of African descent and that the slaves and freed people found in the nineteenth century historical record had died off in various calamities leaving neither descendants nor significant cultural remnants. This view served to buttress the image cultivated by the nation’s political and cultural elites that the modern Argentine Republic was not only a white nation, but a fundamentally European one that had shed all contact with the African and indigenous elements that were part of the nation’s colonial and nineteenth century past. As a result, the twentieth century represents the times when the Afro-Argentines are considered “disappeared”.
This panel’s presenters challenge this traditional view. Although there was a visible Afro-Argentine population in the twentieth century complete with social institutions, racial stereotypes and employment and residential patterns, little has been written on the topic. This panel, which is part of a broader book project, is an attempt to start filling in some historical blanks. By doing so we hope to shed some light on a little examined aspect of Argentine history. We also intend to make a contribution to the broader study of peoples of African descent in the American Hemisphere.

Sub Track

• Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples

Session Organizers

• Lea N Geler, Universidad de Buenos Aires/CONICET

• Robert J Cottrol, George Washington University

Chairs

• Robert J Cottrol, George Washington University

• Lea N Geler, Universidad de Buenos Aires/CONICET

Discussant

• George Reid Andrews, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• The Vagaries of Black Celebrity: Argentina’s “El Negro Raúl” (1910s-20s) - Paulina L Alberto, University of Michigan

• Marginalización, inclusión y algo más: representaciones visuales de afroargentinos en las décadas de 1930 y 1940 - Maria de Lourdes Ghidoli

• The Performance of Race, Nation, and Gender in the Lives of Rita Montero and Josephine Baker - Judith Anderson, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of NewYork (CUNY)

• A City for Those Who Deserve It: The Social Housing Projects and the Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires during the Twentieth Century - Lea N Geler, Universidad de Buenos Aires/CONICET