{"id":695982,"date":"2026-03-05T15:38:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=695982"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:26:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:26:21","slug":"black-in-mexico-veracruz-people-jarocho-publics-695982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/black-in-mexico-veracruz-people-jarocho-publics-695982\/","title":{"rendered":"In Mexico, Afro-Caribbean roots run deeper than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new book reframes long-held assumptions about the denial of Black identity in the Mexican port city of Veracruz.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When cultural anthropologist Karma Frierson<\/a> traveled to the port city of Veracruz to conduct research, she intended to study Black people in Mexico. Instead, her research became an exploration of a city with people who may not necessarily identify as Afro-Mexican, but who were nonetheless knowledgeable and, in some instances, deeply connected to Mexican Blackness.<\/p>\n

Frierson\u2019s book Local Color: Reckoning with Blackness in the Port City of Veracru<\/em>z<\/a> (University of California Press, 2025) is the culmination of two years of research. Prior to joining the University of Rochester<\/a>\u2019s Black studies faculty<\/a> in 2024, she spent nearly a decade visiting and living in Veracruz, located on the coast of east-central Mexico.<\/p>\n

The book examines how Veracruzanos\u2014natives or residents of the city\u2014reckon with the Afro-Caribbean roots of their history, traditions, and culture. The Afro-Mexican population, which has struggled for recognition, was added as a category<\/a> in the Mexican census for the first time in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal color<\/em> is an homage to the people who have been on the receiving end of a new-to-them narrative about Mexico\u2019s Blackness and what they did with that narrative,\u201d says Frierson.<\/p>\n

\"Diptych
(Photo courtesy of Karma Frierson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Public spaces offer lessons on Afro-Mexican heritage <\/strong><\/h3>\n

From 2014 to 2016, Frierson conducted research on African heritage and influence in Mexico\u2014a legacy Mexican residents refer to as \u201cthe third root,\u201d the first two being their Indigenous and Spanish origins.<\/p>\n

While immersing herself in the region\u2019s communities, she observed various local affinity groups that cohered around the places and practices associated with jarocho (pronounced ha-RO-cho) legacy and traditions. (During the colonial era, the Spanish word jarocho<\/em> referred to people of mixed Indigenous and African ancestry; since the 20th century, it has been used throughout Mexico to mean people from Veracruz more broadly.) In the book, Frierson refers to the affinity groups she focused on as jarocho publics.<\/p>\n

\"Veracruzanos
Frierson immersed herself in the everyday life of Veracruz\u2019s communities. (Photo courtesy of Frierson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Frierson studied local musical traditions and attended talks, among other activities, to build rapport and gain understanding. Her participation in local life broke the ice and made locals comfortable opening up about their heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew I was there to study the third root,\u201d she says. \u201cI spent that time sitting with people, dancing with people, playing music, drinking coffee with people, and understanding their lives and how Blackness is incorporated into their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frierson\u2019s interest in learning more about the African legacy in Mexico was sparked while living in California after earning an undergraduate degree and working for an education nonprofit before graduate school. In 2009, after viewing the exhibition The African Presence in M\u00e9xico: From Yanga to the Present<\/em> at the Oakland Museum of California, she left with the impression that the Gulf State of Veracruz had a rich history. And yet she wondered about its Black present.<\/p>\n

Expanding what it means to be Black in Mexico\u2014and around the world<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before conducting fieldwork in Veracruz, Frierson found that many scholars who had traveled to the port city concluded that Black residents in Veracruz were in denial about their Afro-Mexican roots. Upon her own arrival in Veracruz, Frierson quickly understood why these previous researchers came to that conclusion.<\/p>\n

Frierson recalls initial conversations with locals during which she inquired about the Black Mexican population in Veracruz and was told, \u201cThere are no Black people here anymore.\u201d Or, Frierson says, it was not uncommon to encounter someone in Veracruz who says, \u201cI am not Black,\u201d even though in the United States, they would be characterized as such.<\/p>\n

\"Daytime
Pedestrian walkway Callej\u00f3n de la Lagunilla, located in downtown Veracruz. (Photo courtesy of Frierson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet once Frierson engaged in more sit-down talks and participated in community activities, the discussion shifted. In time, the Veracruzanos she interviewed would voluntarily acknowledge their connections to Afro-Mexican heritage, clarifying that \u201cthis thing I do is Caribbean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think of that as denial,\u201d Frierson says. \u201cJust because they might not self-recognize as the political subject of being Black Mexican or Afro-Mexican doesn\u2019t mean they are denying Blackness.\u201d In fact, she argues, by misguidedly privileging self-recognition or self-identification as Black, \u201cwe are going to miss the broader impacts of the African diaspora not only in the Americans specifically, but also in the world more broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frierson hopes academics and a general audience take many things away from Local Color<\/em>. Perhaps most importantly, the book functions as a call for nuanced definitions about what constitutes Blackness in the world, beyond the narrowness of physical bodies and skin color.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to think more expansively about Blackness and its generative possibilities\u2014world-making, place-making,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd if we think more expansively, we can get to a more productive understanding of why it matters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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