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

acceptance of mestizaje, or mixed, culture, Afro-Latin American music and tradition became a national identifier as something formed and perfected in Latin America, and therefore something to take pride in. The study of “expressive culture” can reveal the road to acceptance and citizenship for Afro-Latin Americans and their contributions to national identities and culture throughout Latin America.
In Cuba, the expressive culture of Afro-Cubans took a long road to acceptance.

“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

inferior.
A major turning point for Son was in May 1925 when President Machado asked Sonora Matancera, a Son band, to play at his birthday party. At the same time, a public Son festival took place and Machado’s administration made a public statement in support of son music. This acceptance of African traditions was in line with larger currents in Western Europe and the United States, and son music spread across Latin America and throughout the world. Intellectuals were well aware of international trends, and the fashionableness of Africa was likely important to its initial acceptance, but soon son took on an identity that was all its own. “By the late 1930s these same intellectuals had become fearful of the power of North American culture and the oppressiveness of the Cuban dictatorship, and they recognized the Afro-Cuban population and its cultural forms as the best defense of Cuban national culture.” Afro-Cuban tradition and culture were no longer relegated to the fringes of society, and were now the backbone of a uniquely Cuban national identity.
In Brazil, Afro-Cuban “expressive culture” took a similar path from the fringes of society to national culture. Initially, “Foreign travelers and Brazilian authorities and elites looked upon black and mixed-race musicians with a mix of fear and fascination.” This quickly changed with the rise in national identity and the desire to create a mestizo society based on race mixture. A major Afro-Brazilian style of music is known as samba, and samba was the style that first gained acceptance in national culture. Mestizo societies, known as racial-democracies, no longer held up whiteness as the national ideal and instead looked to browness as a national identity. African derived music and dance was now seen as the most authentic form of national identity, and because of samba’s, as well as son’s, crossover style, they were able to gain wide acceptance outside of Latin America.
In Brazil and Cuba, the populist regimes used expressive culture outside of musical forms to fashion a national identity.

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

celebrated.
Governments had found something that was formed within their nation, and in the hopes of creating a national identity, used cultural artifacts that were formed within their borders with influences from all over the world. Although their culture was now a part of the national identity, Afro-Cubans and Afro-Brazilians still faced paternalistic attitudes from the upper classes, who hoped to ‘civilize’ or appropriate their music and their traditions. By studying the “expressive culture” of Afro-Latin Americans, we can trace their history from marginalization to acceptance, but we are also able to see the continuity of white and elite dominated societies. Though they may have accepted African musical and cultural artifacts, they were not willing to release their stranglehold on society and on Afro-Latin American’s social mobility.