Afro-Latin American Culture

The study of the “expressive culture” of African descended peoples in Latin America can reveal quite a lot about their history and their contributions to the historical formation of peoples and nations in modern Latin America. Their expressive culture in both Cuba and Brazil, and in much of Latin America, was initially shunned and viewed as something barbaric and distinctly ‘other.’ Cuba and Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were focused on protecting, preserving, and promoting whiteness and a culture almost entirely derived from European tradition. This changed in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, as Afro-Latin American culture and tradition gained acceptance and national publicity as something uniquely their own. As part of a larger

“In Cuba of the 1910’s, African cultural retentions of any sort were considered ‘barbaric’ or vulgar.” To the white upper class elites in Cuba, African music was little more than the “senseless pounding of children.” While they continued to scoff, son, an Afro-Cuban style of music with roots in both African and European musical styles, grew in popularity in both the black and white working class communities. This was problematic for the ruling classes and the administration of President Mario Menocal, who looked to promote Cuba’s white Spanish heritage. They looked to suppress this musical activity, “claiming that their efforts were contributing to an overall decline in the quality of Cuban culture.” Jailing and harassment became less common as son’s popularity continued to rise, but they still faced discrimination from the musical establishment. Son players were not accepted in musicians unions until around 1935. Though popular with the working classes, the white establishment and the middle classes viewed son as unapologetically African, and therefore

This is most clearly seen with their reversal of their position on Carnaval, a celebration preceding Lent. Now legitimate, Carnaval was now allowed on the streets, and “the comparsas and samba schools brought rhythm, color, movement, and alegría back into the streets and neighborhoods of Afro-Latin America.” These Carnavals were state supervised and regulated, but they brought with them an explicit support of African heritage from the state. “The appropriation of black culture by national governments was such an improvement over its previous outlawing that most black cultural practitioners were more than willing to accept ‘nationalization’ as a condition for their being allowed to emerge from the shadows and practice their art openly.” Afro-Latin American culture had its perceived value flipped on its head, and had turned from something marginalized to something