In 2004, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva published an article in which he argued that the US system of race is beginning to resemble that of Latin America. This article is a critical reply to Bonilla-Silva’s Latin Americanization thesis. The author introduces a Latin American perspective.
Christina A. Sue commented on my 2004 article in Ethnic and Racial Studies on the Latin Americanization of racial stratification in the USA. Almost all her observations hinge on the assumption that racial stratification in Latin American countries is fundamentally structured around ‘two racial poles’. I disagree with her and in my reply do three things. First, I address three major claims or issues in her comment. Second, I point out some methodological limitations of American-centered race analysis in Latin America. Third, I conclude by discussing briefly the Obama phenomenon and suggest this event fits in many ways my Latin Americanization thesis.
The article reviews the book "Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé," by J. Lorand Matory. "My extensive use of superlatives throughout this review should make it clear that I find the book to be invaluable and extraordinarily well researched. With that said, Black Atlantic Religion is not for the reader interested in the spiritual and/or practical side of Candomblé (e.g., practices/rituals, theology, internal hierarchy, etc.). In fact, I would argue that by focusing on the humanity of the practitioners (their interests, desires, strategies, and ideologies), Matory depicts Candomblé more as a political organization than a religious one." --Michael Iyanaga
In an effort to push the literature on music and collective identity to examine how the cognitive dimension of collective identity gets constructed, a study shifts away from the customary focus on lyrics, toward an analysis of the everyday discursive contexts of music scenes, such as rehearsals, informal commentary, and training seminars. By examining such contexts within the black gospel music scene in São Paulo, Brazil, the study discovers that a complex ideology of racial identity, infused with ideas drawn from North American history and the Bible, circulates within the scene.
Compares curricular, ceremonial and pedagogical practices with how students and teachers make sense of racial identity and discrimination at the Jaime Hurtado Academy in the city and province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, which is the only region of the nation where Afro-Ecuadorian people comprise a majority of the population. Finds that schooling was structured as a regime of equality, where social science textbooks make invisible the concepts of race and Blackness while school ceremonies enforced membership to the nation. Shows through an examination of how students and teachers make sense of racial identity and discrimination that race was a significant factor shaping teaching and learning at the research site and argue that schooling practices are implicated in this process by attempting to submerge racial and cultural differences.
Study aims to identify the major factors underlying the discrepancy in poverty levels between whites and blacks in Brazil. Results show that the characteristics effect explains a large part of the discrepancy in poverty levels: education and labor variables explain one-half of the gap, and geographic and sociodemographic variables another two-fifths.
