Discrimination in Argentina
One of the first things an American, at least an awake one, notices on arriving in Argentina is, well, the severe dearth of people of African descent. When Argentines refer to someone as black ("Che, negro, dame la cerveza..."), then, it usually means someone who's dark skinned, dark haired, indigenous--not necessarily someone with African ancestors. Thus, Argentina got me thinking on race, both on the theoretical level (how do we construct race, blah blah blah) but also on the cultural level. What today's (24/2/06) poll in Clarín shows--and what a bunch of Argentine friends have previously told me--is that the principal line of discrimination in Argentina is along class (you're poor, therefore you're bad/dumb/dangerous/etc.), not racie (you're black, therefore...). In the poll, 42.2% of respondents said the leading cause of discrimination in 'Economic condition' while 34.7% said 'Nationality/Race'.
Of course there is class discrimination in the U.S. (where it run on the lines of 'If you're poor, you must be lazy'), but it seems more clear and common here. What I've been told, and also thought myself, is that in a society that offers little class mobility but rather a history of inherited money and inherited poverty--and in one where there are relatively few 'minorities'--inherited class is to be the defining characteristic. Which leads me to wonder on what grounds would members of a relatively homogenous, class-mobile society feel the need descriminate on (because, sadly, it seems it's something humans do)? Any comments, of course, are welcome...
posted by Ian @ 7:46 PM
22 comments
links to this post
22 Comments:
I apologize for the length of this comment – it all came tumbling out – but I hope it’ll be of some use.
A look back at Argentine history shows that this is a nation that has gone to great lengths to whiten and Europeanize its blood stream. Race has a huge place in nineteenth century legal writing and literature - from Alberdi's 1852 "Bases," on which the Constitution of 1853 was largely based, to the epic Martín Fierro (there's a scene where the hero slices up a "negro" with both his wit and his knife), to José Mármol's novel Amalia (1851), which constantly depicts the blacks of Buenos Aires as grotesque and traitorous.
Buenos Aires, well until the middle of the nineteenth century, had a sizeable African population (well over 20%, I believe) – though the cattle raising interior had little need for a slave workforce like the US South. Many former slaves were sent off to the front lines during the war with Paraguay in the 1860s, many more emigrated to Uruguay and Brazil. For the last century and a half, there has been a sort of racial amnesia – I’m pretty sure that “Afro-argentine” didn’t appear on the national census until the 1980s. Yes, the twentieth century.
As far as indigenous go, there are certainly still many different populations throughout the country: Kolla, Aymara, Ranquel, Mapuche, Guaraní, etc. I live a block from the Plaza “Campaña del Desierto,” which commemorates the military campaign led by the to-be president Julio A. Roca in the 1870s and 80s. There was even a plan at the time to dig a 400km trench to keep the indigenous out of the province of Buenos Aires.
As far as present-day racism goes, there is plenty, though I think it is muffled by class distinctions. A few examples: think about how people treat and talk about the owners and workers of the “supermercados chinos,” which are everywhere. Menem was known as “el turco,” the Turk. Check out the documentary “Río arriba,” showing this weekend at the MALBA to learn about racism in the province of Salta. (It has English subtitles, curiously.)
Certainly there are fewer indigenous or mestizos in the social circles that professional American and European expats may frequent, but even in the capital or in Gran Buenos Aires, there are plenty of indigenous and mestizos, as well as immigrants from Perú, Bolivia, and other Latin American countries – who rarely receive the same hospitality as a dollar or euro-toting yanqui or gringo.
This may be a bit simplistic, but I would say that the repeated, almost compulsive insistence on this myth of Argentina as a racially homogenous society (particularly by upper and middle-class Argentines and disseminated as “news” by the most powerful media outlet of the country) serves to conceal many of the racial tensions that continue to exist in Argentina.
No need to apologize for the length of the comment. Always happy to have long thoughtful dialogues, even if they are in the comment sections of a blog entry...
I'm fairly up to speed (though far less than you) on the history of race in Argentina and I wouldn't want to suggest that Argentina history is one of perfect homogeny. From the shame of using black Argentines as cannon fodder in the war with Paraguay to the current fight between Benetton and the Mapuche in Patagonia, it's obvious that Argentina's past is not solely a European one.
However, while that history does exist and while there currently are substantial numbers of Amerindian and mestizo people in Argentina (especially from Paraguay and Bolivia; I was down in Villa 20, in Lugano, reporting a story, and I think that villa is 60% Parguayo/Boliviano), my point is that Argentina is comparatively a weirdly homogenous place (compared to, say, the U.S.), especially in the Buenos Aires area. [These stats may be wildly wrong--they're from the World Factbook and INDEC--but even if you jack up the minority population to account for undercounting, Argentina is still around 80-90% 'European']
That said, I find it interesting (as an American) to examine the common markers of discrimination in a country with different demographics than my own. It amazes me how openly some middle and upper class Argentines turn their noses up at the poor, something I think can only happen in a country where people don't have muche class mobility and therefore don't have many grandparents around who grew up substantially poorer than they now are (obviously there are exceptions to this and the U.S. has its own class issues, but in a general sense...).
I don't know Ian, while yes, there's obviously the class discrimination that you describe, I think the racism card is played alot here. I get to experience it pretty regularly given that my boyfriend is mestizo - it's a constant in our lives, from the people in my building who were shocked that I appeared to be friendly with someone who was obviously "my servant," to immigration officials who stop and search him at the border, to portena/os who I've met and then introduced to him who refuse to include him in conversations as if he didn't exist, even when we're both sitting right there - not to mention their usual "surprise" that "one of them" works for living (at a job other than menial labor) and is college educated.
I spent three months in BA during the BA winter of 2001. I was told by several Portenos that Argentina was free of racism. So I posed the same question to other Portenos & most said that it didn't exist. My unscientific conclusion was that these folks are in denial. I speak fluent Spanish & I felt and heard the racial tension constantly.
There is an interesting article today in Página/12 about the supermercados chinos and racist advertising used by Carrefour, a French supermarket chain.
Also, Clarín ran on Sunday a suggestive, if poorly conceived article on discrimination. (I couldn't find the link).
I'm wondering whether "race" and "economic condition" can be separated from each other as different sources of discrimination. Don't most racist and racial discourses always point to a certain economic goal? (19th Century Argentine intellectuals wanting to get rid of blacks and indians so they could "progress") And don't they usually stem from an already existing economic inequality (Argentines supposedly discriminating against the "poor" minorities)?
Most Argentines are absolutely convinced that they are not racist but this is only because the concept of "racism" as we know it has not reached Argentina yet. Ironically, the evidence that Argentines provide for their non-racism is that "there are only whites in Argentina anyway" so they couldn't possibly practice racism.
On an individual level, Argentines do have racist ideas but this does not mean that will socially ostracize someone for being of a different race. My parents are Korean and I was born and raised in Buenos Aires.I never had trouble integrating to a 100% white community. Similarly, many Afro-argentines currently living in Buenos Aires have testified that they have no trouble leading a happy social life among white Argentines but that they constantly have to put up with racist comments from friends such as "Pero vos no sos realmente negro, sos argentino". I guess this could be interpreted in multiple levels...
On the other hand, racism on an institutional level has no ambiguities whatsoever. The Constitution of 1837 explicitly mentions the encouragement of European immigration and later on they added several laws that would regulate the entrance of non-Europeans or expel some that had managed to get in. Regarding the census Brandán was talking about (you are casi casi right), the census only started to include indigenous groups in the 90s (the 1990s, not 1890s) and the term Afro-argentine entered the census in the year 2005 under a pilot questionnaire. Another extreme case of institutionalized discrimination is that Argentines were only supposed to have first names whose etymology could be traced to be hispanic (or european maybe, not sure). (I'm a victim of this law...) If someone contested this, linguists were hired to settle the dispute. I've heard this law changed only a couple of years ago.
But all in all, it´s a great country to live in...
I too appologize for the long comment!
Dan and I had a long discussion about this. I would like to have one of my good friends come visit once we have settled in, but not only is he gay which probably isn't a huge problem, but he's black, albeit very well educated. I certainly would never want him to come and visit and experience racial discrimination, he can stay in Connecticut and experience that.
I have met many Argentines that clearly have a belief that they are better than "non-white" classes, but I've also met some very hip and forward thinking Argentines as well (typically of the younger generation). In Miami, most, but not all, think they're better than everyone else whether you're white and of their class or not.
Why Ian, you budding sociologist! If you just add "gender relations" to your query, you'd have the markings of a very thoughtful social stratification-ist (if that term exists). Living in a relatively homogeneous society now that takes pride in being very exclusionary and only letting immigrants in as guest-workers (whether low-skilled or high-skilled, it doesn't matter, we're all here to serve the purpose of promoting "their" country), it comes as no surprise that people all over the world (but I guess I've only really been to bits and pieces of that world), are eager to draw lines. In this country (and you know where I am), your position in society is based on family/tribal affiliation--not on wealth (most are relatively wealthy), education (years of schooling can provide you with access to certain social welfare benefits), or even the tone of your skin (because that ranges remarkably within a family branch). One theory on ethnicity (see Barth), is that as social beings, we create the "other" (yes, that social construction of race that you mention) to help define ourselves. We are like a ceramic vase: whatever is outside of the pottery is "them" and whatever is inside is "me". If we throw a little "Matrix" pop-philosophy, we just aren't human beings unless we have a social order. May that be a socio-economic pecking order or a racial/ethnic/religious division, is up to us and how we've been socialized (whether by our society growing up, or by our self-edification). Anyway, that's enough of my digging into my comprehensive exam notes. As an aside, you should check out the history of miscegenation (sp?) in Latin America. Fascinating. There were whole books dedicated to the "art" of categorizing the people in Spanish colonies according to the amount of Spanish blood they had, since this had all kind of effect on land grants. Those early Spanish could be quite meticulous.
Hi! I'm surfing among you exprat blogger. It's really interesting to see how you guy see us, aregntinians. Refering to this issue I was aked here in Indiana constantly about the racism discrimination and the population of my country. It was strange for me to answer, I was forced to put in words (what it's worst english words) what i felt and lived all my life. Telling my friends here that my nickname was "negra" because i was "mestiza" surprised them.. but what surprised them mostly, was that i didn;' care. Used to that class divisio my whole life I was forced to do more to demonstrate what eventually helped me. But as I said explain how my country was formed by people of everywhere that we have "turcos", "tanos", "gallegos" and people like me "negros" made me aware of how difficult is to define an identity. I was born in the north of Argentina, Salta. More mestizo than any other place , the north has a complete different identity. Some mix od indigen culture, old spanish and arabic is a unique place that is pretty different to teh Buenoso Aires you know. I recommend you to visit that place if you really want to know the whole Argentina.
ok I'm rumbling here, i just wante dto thank you because i feel very well refekected in your descriptions!
This link might be useful, though it is in spanish:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etnograf%C3%ADa_de_Argentina
It cites research by the University of Buenos Aires, that shows 56% of the argentinian population has at least one amerindian ancestor. This is not a "white" country. This is a very heavily mixed country, with a very high frequency of intermarriage. Americans may assume someone has only european ancestors, when that is not the case. But then, maybe americans are not used to the results of intermarriage. Jorge Luis Borges had amerindian ancestors. General Peron mother was amerindian. This is a very snob and classist country. Hardly a racist one.
i just a huge ass comment and it just delted itself word per word.. strange...
anyway, as a mestizo looking latin american I can attest to the eurofaniticsm. ARgentine pride.. the national discourse is built upon the idea of a european superiority. this country was built usurped the land and knowledge of pueblos de origen and served it on a plate to welathy landowners and later southern european immigrants, who to this day live the legacy and reap the benefits of racist immigration system. On a personal note, I have been called ugly to my face... and experienced constant denigration of any production of culture of anything supposedly ethinically mestizo or mulatto... unless its exoticized... just liek in the north... the system in the end, which privileges whte bodies, is the same one we have back home... it just finds different ways of clutching on.. of maintaining the status quo...
a ver si el movimiento indigenista de los andes nos libera de estas manos blancas traicioneras...
I was just reading this blog because it relates to some of the negative experiences a friend of mine -- a gay Chinese-American from San Francisco -- is going through right now in BA. It's interesting to get perspectives from people looking in on Argentinian society; outsiders always have a knack for spotting the best and the worst of a society (since for the most part native inhabitants become habituated to shared attitudes and outlooks, the common tropes, present in their own society).
That being said, I have a question: do white gay Argentines seem worse when it comes to racism and classism than your average Argentine? My friend, when seeking dalliances on local gay websites, has had more than his fair share of putdowns and insults generated mostly because he's of Chinese descent. Coming from San Francisco and New England, he's not accustomed to the bald-faced racism that he encounters almost every day in BA. He's had so much of it that he's cutting his time in BA short and moving north to Sao Paulo, where racial diversity is greater. It has seriously made me rethink the whole idea of visiting BA since I myself am a Latin American mestizo (another group Argentines like to exclude). Between BA and Paris -- two cities I've been thinking of visiting this upcoming summer -- Paris probably deserves my tourist dollars more than BA, if only because they have more racial diversity and better museums. I shudder to think what ignominies I might suffer at the hands of supposed "non-racist" Argentines.
Your thoughts on this question, and on this matter in general, would be much appreciated.
i am the friend of entry´s author from above. i had written this before my said friend directed me to your extremely insightful site. in light of my experience here, i´m terribly glad i wasn´t being delusional.....
Enjoy (figuratively):
"i was chatting with a "butterfly" online (say it in spanish; it means
faggot) and he tells me that in my photo i look more like a dark peruvian than chinese, that he has no interest in getting to know me because he´s racist and that there´s no way he would ever be interested in a facist
midget.
all in spanish, mind you.
....i really don´t want him/them to have that much power over me but this might be the last straw.
if i could choose again i would NOT come to buenos aires. it´s dandy with the bang-for-your-buck and all but frankly i´ve never had such an unpleasant experience abroad-- not in india, not in thailand, not in france,
not in puerto rico..... oh but yes, perhaps in rome (but it wasn´t race related).
i´m sure there are nice people outside buenos aires. and i CAN say that there are PLENTY of sweet and kind porteños within the city itself. but i can´t say that the GENERAL vibe/arrogance in the air is far from suffocating.
WHO pulls that shit after an economic meltdown of 2001 the sends your 1 peso:1 dollar down to 3 pesos:1 dollar??? if anything, the chilean economy is booming like mad right now but they don´t seem to have gigantic sticks
up theirrrr asses. if anything, our lesson learnt today is this: the financial crisis of 2001 apparently wasn´t enough to humble Narcissus. perhaps they need another. and with the way things are looking internally right now, the outlook is not very bright (at least not for them).
i´m 99% sure that i won´t be staying here next semester.
call me petty. call me weak. call me too dignified to suffer these
indignities.
i am sorry."
Check out Amy Chua's book *WORLD ON FIRE* which examines race, class and ethnic hatred around the world, as well as denial of said racism, classism and hatred even when riots and outright ethnic murder occurs. Chua is a professor at Yale University Law School and began to write the book after her aunt was murdered in the Philippines--in large part because her aunt, as an ethnic Chinese, was scapegoated for the economic problems and economic inequality in the Philippines. Chua's book is very balanced and informative. She also discusses some of the denial has encountered while reseaching her book, specifically from Argentinian students who claim their country has no racism because everyone is *mixed* yet they refuse to see that they as light-skinned, straight-haired Argentinians (who would be considered white or pass as such in the U.S.) they benefit from assumptions about race and class that put them at the top of the class pyramid. They believe they are there due to merit alone. But *merit* is a loaded term when it is concentrated amongst people of a single ethnicity--or appearance of one--as Chua points out.
I am a student who came to BsAs to complete my diploma in Spanish language, and brought my 13 year old son with me to have what I thought would be for us both an enjoying and fabulous experience. Well it has been an experience to say the least, i am of european descent, but as my son's father is a black African, and my son he has suffered much abuse at the hands of his class mates in a private school and from the general public.
Never before have we encountered such open racism,
and I will be happy to finnish my studies and return home, where discrimination is not accepted as it is here in Bs As.
I have met several African American students who are eager to return home and in fact regret having come to study in Buenos Aires as i now do myself.
Argentines are PIGS!! Racist, arrogant pr*cks who are slowly being overrun by other races though. It will be good for them to wake up one day and realize that there are other races and nationalities in the world and they will then be forced to deal with them!
Hello, I stumbled upon your site by accident, but boy do I love this discussion. My mother is argentinian of german-jewish descent (her family was allowed into argentina during the holocaust) and my father is afro-mexican. I feel like I identify definately as racially mixed. My mother has never expressed any negative racial ideology towards mestizos, africans, asians, or whites. My mothers family is pure of such feelings as well, going as far as to completely embracing my father, never pushing him out for being of african descent. I am not sure if other argentinians would do this though, and I have heard my mom speak of many racist tensions back home. When I visited my moms home in buenos aires eight years ago I was warmly received, but otherwise do not remember too much. Now that I am older and concious to these racial tensions being suffered in argentina as your discussion points scares me because I will be visiting for a month this summer...
I like Argentina and the Argentines, but it is a country that has to believe its own lies so that they can figure out their place in the world. Sure, it's a European country, but so are most of the countries in the Americas. Afterall, the Americas were colonized by European powers, speak primarily romance and anglo languages, are either Catholic or Protestant and have European legal systems, but so what, most people are still mixed - slavs with anglos, anglos with amerindians, blacks and whites, etc. Argentina is no different. Have you been to Corrientes or Posadas? Most of the street aren't even paved! Maybe Argentines say they are European country, they mean medieval European country.
I hate it when Argentines denigrate, "los indios" or "los cabecitas negras". They need to look deep into their own bloodlines and deep into the roots of their "blond" women, most of whom bleach their hair to be blonds. Their disdain for the poor also shocks me. Most of the poor that I have met there are extremely hard working (considering they live in a feudal society, they have to work extra hard for very little). They are not lazy or dangerous, they just don't have opportunities.
The biggest problem in Argentina is that it's run by an "elite" that is for the most part mediocre. They know how to hang on to their money and power, but they don't do much of anything to advance the society. Outside of the wealthy neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Argentina is just another Latin American country, a pigmentocracy, class concious society, hypocrical and in denial, more interested in promoting a false mythology about themselves then progressing in any real way. It saddens me, but that is Argentina.
Sadly, Argentina is now a land of imported & misplaced people who do not by ANY means belong to South America. They are rude, arrogant, corrupt and racist to say the least. The original and largely extinct Argentinians were the original people of that land . It is now a country of immigrants who have no connection to the South American continent and should be deported back to where they came from.
Is true, argentinians are racists, and is the only country in the world that that happens. Is not human nature, is an argentinian thing. Americans, Mexicans, Europeans, everyone else embrace the entire world, except the argentinians. They are the only racisist in the world, everyone else are brothers and sisters of Mother Teresa...
Ok that last comment is pretty rediculous. i'm from the united states and believe me, there is lots of sick racism here. white trash country folk who have confederate flags in their windows? (for those who don't know, confederate flag is the old flag of the southern states that had slavery)
also, some black americans are so sick of being victims to white racism that they become racist themselves. unfortunate.
in los angeles, there is a lot of tension between mexican immigrants and the rest of the white/black communities...infringement issues and such. my point is only that there are racial tensions wherever you go..unfortunately. even in countries like the united states that in alot of ways is very open minded and the great melting pot of humanity, there are still racial tensions. sad but true.
I have to say the argentine differences i'm reading about sound unique and kind of useless. if the rich are so arrogant, yet don't advance themselves and are rich from inheritance, that is trashy. i believe in working for your status. and actually, what you possess doesn't make who you are.
i'm just rambling...but i guess my point is that racism is stupid and whatever form it comes in, there's always an easy way to understand those idiot's point of view, which just makes them look like bigger idiots.
thanks.
Hi,
I am an Argentinian and let me tell you that this is the first time I hear so sad comments on us. I don´t consider myself a racist, but I am not going to tell you that there is no discrimination in my country.
I am absolutely sure that we are not europeans, in fact many of them are really cruel with a lot of Argentinians in their own countries.
What I believe is that in Argentina to be not only poor, but also an uneducated person with bad manners is totally disgusting. In Argentina when you say that someone is "un negro", you are not taking into account the colour of his/her skin, you are making reference to a rude attitude or negative way of beheaving. On the other side, if you call someone "negro" you can even be saying that nicely, showing that you love him/her.
Anyway, I don't remember myself or friends or relatives discriminating people in the way many of you mention that we usually do.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home