The Latin American Identity and the African Diaspora: Ethnogenesi ...

defense of denial or preclusion becomes the national modus operandi. In other words, one hopes to be accepted as white based on appearances and not on a supposed African-related bloodline. Such an approach is confirmed by a statement that the black Peruvian singer Susana Baca gave to the San Francisco Chronicle on September 24, 1997: “Peruvian radio is dominated by foreign music…I was surrounded by black music, but I never heard it on the radio, and I could find no mention of Afro-Peruvians in the history books.” Her rendition of “Zamba Malató,” with phrases and vocabulary in an African language, appears to pay homage to ancestry and in-group tradition. As the liner notes for the album indicate:

It is the oral tradition, in most countries, that perpetuates the connection to Africa that distance and chronology tend to mitigate or that the dominant society had hoped to eradicate by a policy of silence and/or denial.

The publication identified at the beginning of this essay, África late en la mexicanidad, forces us to consider whether Latin America's connection to Africa is mere supposition or if the disquisition its author offers supports the proposed imagery in the title. Perhaps one of the most commented upon volumes concerning the presence of African populations in the Americas has been Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran's La Población negra de México [The Black Population of Mexico]. If the concept of Hernández Cuevas is coalesced with the research of Aguirre Beltran, one can better understand, for example, how a term such as “Bamba” in Richie Valens’ popular hit, with the line “para bailar la bamba se necesita una poca de gracia…” [“to dance the bamba you’ve got to have a little bit of grace”], can be accepted as the vestige of an African legacy that Mexico received from the presence of African slaves on its soil. This legacy continues to pulsate through the veins of the Mexican identity. Legend has it that “La Bamba” is a traditional folk song and