BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – This Southern Cone nation of 38 million is best known for tango, grilled steaks, red wine, knockout landscapes and its gaucho culture. Its capital city is regarded as the “Paris of South America” because of its numerous plazas, statues, fountains, outdoor cafes, museums, French colonial architecture and bohemian zest.
Argentina values its relationship with France and other European nations, and many of its residents have European grandparents and great-grandparents.
Although indigenous people and blacks are few in number, according to some estimates, blacks constituted 30 percent of the population in the early 1800s. But later in that century a yellow fever epidemic and a war with Paraguay killed off many black Argentines.
Alejandro Frigerio, an Argentine sociologist familiar with issues facing blacks, considers that to be an overestimate. He said it is difficult to be precise about the number of blacks living in Argentina. He believes that descendants of Argentine slaves are outnumbered by blacks from the Cape Verde Islands, most of them born here, in addition to blacks from Brazil, Uruguay and elsewhere in Latin America who’ve settled here.
The following are excerpts from my interview with Frigerio:
Question: Have there been any recent issues involving black Argentines? What are the most critical challenges facing black Argentines? Education? Employment? Is there housing discrimination?
Answer: The most pressing urges for Afro-Argentines are, as one of them recently said in a public meeting at the university, to fight invisibilization and discrimination.
Also, as Africa Vive leaders say, most of them are poor, and have the same problems that millions of Argentines now face after a decade of harsh neo-liberal economic policies: unemployment and reduced social and welfare services. The new Kirchner government is trying to improve things, but it will take time.
We lack good research on the needs of Afro-Argentines. They have only recently been “re-discovered” as a topic of research. Also, when I started research in the 1990s, several of them did not want to talk about their condition as “blacks.” Now a group of activists are trying to change things – although they also encounter the resistance of some of their peers who do not want to be reminded of their blackness.
Q: I see that Montevideo has a black city councilor. Are there any black elected officials in Argentina?
A: No.
Q: Who are some of the best known black Argentines?
A: Because of the invisibilization of Afro-Argentines, and the way racial categorization works here (I have a paper on this but it is in Spanish), most living notable blacks are not considered so because they are light mulattos. The greatest living tango musician (pianist Horacio Salgan) has a black mother. Since he is light-colored, he is not considered black.
The most famous jazz musician (Oscar Aleman, who died I think 20 years ago) is also black, but this is not mentioned so frequently nowadays. Probably the most famous black figure is Gabino Ezeiza, the most noted payador, who died a century ago.
Q: Are there antidiscrimination laws in Argentina? Are those laws strong enough?
A: The only good thing the [former President Carlos] Menem government did was to create a National Institute Against Discrimination (INADI – Instituto Nacional contra la Discriminacion). This has created a forum where people can denounce discrimination of all sorts.
There have been a couple of laws against discrimination. In this sense, people have legal advantages they did not have years ago. The institute and the laws were probably thought more in terms of Jews and other ethnic groups but now many minority groups can take advantage of them.
The Third Person 