By Ted Vincent

For 150 years, Mexican schoolchildren have learned that their heritage lies in the marriage of Spanish colonial culture and the conquered races of Native America.

But if ESU assistant professor of Spanish Marco Polo Hernández Cuevas has his way, they’ll also begin to think of themselves as African.

Hernández’s new book “African Mexicans and the Discourse on Modern Nation” published this month by University Press of America exposes how Mexican institutions have systematically erased “Africaness” from national memory. Between 55 and 85 percent of Mexicans can trace their family back to African slaves, but cultural leaders have actively shunned this identity.

“The knowledge of our ancestors has been erased through education,” he said. “Schools have omitted the fact that we had a large African population throughout the Colonial Period which lasted 300 years.”

“It’s estimated that over 300,000 enslaved Africans were brought to Mexico during the colonial period, producing millions of offspring. Many of the major leaguers of the Mexican liberation movement were black themselves. “The last two top commanders of the movement, José María Morelos and Vicente Guerrero, as well as a significant number of other leaders and troops have now been identified as mulattoes pardos.”

Even the Spanish conquistadors brought African heritage with them, as descendants of the Iberians and the Moors of northern Africa who occupied Spain during the medieval era, said Hernández. The modern Spanish language still contains over 4,000 Arabic words.

“We are African on our Spanish side, and African on our African side,” he said. “We are ‘Neo-Africans’ just as much as we are Amerindian or European.”

Hernández finds traces of African culture in many of Mexico’s national traditions – in its food, its music, its cultural icons and its national holidays.

The Black Virgin — a representation of Virgin Mary with dark skin common throughout Spain, France and Mexico – is one example of African cultural influences. Hernández also points out that the battle commemorated by the national holiday of Cinco de Mayo was fought by African Mexican “maroons.”

His book describes how Mexican cultural leaders have rejected this African heritage, choosing instead to “whiten” Mexican literature, film and popular culture from 1920 to 1968, a period Hernández describes as the “cultural phase of the Mexican Revolution.”

Hernández has gotten the attention of leading scholars in the field of African Latino studies. Richard L. Jackson, professor emeritus at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada writes in the book’s foreword that “his work will contribute greatly to the ongoing discussion of race in the Americans and particularly in Mexico where his research largely stands alone.”

“The interdisciplinary approach he takes exemplifies the pervasive nature of the cult of whiteness and racism and their unfortunate byproducts in a nation that is far from white.”

However, Hernández would like to see his academic research influence identity and behavior throughout general society.

“Mexicans, Hispanics, Latinos and African Americans will recognize one another in our common African heritage and bridge the gap that divides us,” he said.

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