[Previous entry: "Chavez Lashes Out at Free-Trade Pacts"] [Next entry: "Militant attacks cut Nigeria oil output"]

03/22/2006:

"Africans in Mexico: A blunt history"

Unknown even to many Mexicans, Africans helped build their country--toiling in silver mines, fighting alongside Zapata's guerrillas during the 1910 revolution and shaping cultural traditions such as Carnaval, which sprang from African roots.

Africans in Mexico also have suffered some of the same brutality and bias as their kinsmen north of the border.

Now, as Mexicans migrate to Chicago, some find themselves competing with African-Americans for aldermanic seats, factory jobs, even gang turf.

That shared heritage and intertwined future are at the heart of a new exhibition at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, "The African Presence in Mexico," the most ambitious and potentially controversial project ever for the Pilsen institution.
meridainsider.com