The Problems with Mestizaje
*Welcome to another edition of the #Nerdflow Newsletter!*
I recently finished reading The Mestizo Augustine: A Theologian Between Two Cultures by historian and theologian Justo González. It’s a remarkable portrait of St. Augustine that highlights overlooked aspects of his identity and culturally mixed world. The book also reminded me of the problems with the mestizaje discourse that is popular within some Latinx intellectual circles. Us mixed people will not save the world from injustice, I’m sorry to say.
First, I’ll start with the good in this book. González is a serious scholar and the godfather of Hispanic/Latinx theology. He can communicate to regular people as well as academics—I grew up in a Latino immigrant church on Long Island where his books were essential to the educational curriculum. All these strengths are expressed in The Mestizo Augustine. González reveals an Augustine who is both Roman and African in his thought and sensibilities. Even Augustine’s North African context is further complicated by the presence of distinct Berber and Punic cultures. Ultimately, Augustine is deemed a mestizo: someone who belong to two realities and at the same time doesn’t fully belong to either. González suggests that it was Augustine’s own mestizaje that allowed him to relativize the Roman Empire during its decline, write a work like The City of God, and serve as a bridge between a Greco-Roman past and an uncertain future.
The Mestizo Augustine is on to something. And I strongly agree with González’s point about history and cultural purity:
Whether we realize it or not, all cultures and civilizations have arisen out of various forms of mestizaje—the Greco-Roman mestizaje, [the Hebrew-Gentile mestizaje], the Latin-Germanic mestizaje, the Saxon-Norman mestizaje, the Iberian-Amerindian mestizaje. Throughout history there have always been many who seemed to believe that mestizaje is an obstacle to progress, and that a civilization’s task is preserve its purity.
Yet, the decision to call Augustine a “mestizo” instead of, say, a “mulatto,” and to emphasize mestizaje instead of mulatez, seems to only confirm the the suspicion of critics who detect a deep anti-blackness within mestizaje discourse.
What makes all this potentially more confusing is that mestizaje can be defined and used in two different ways: as a descriptor and as an ideal. Derived from mestizo, a term the Spanish used to categorize the offspring of a Spanish father and Indigenous mother, mestizaje has been used in Latin America and by Latinxs in the U.S. to describe not only the mixing of peoples, but the mixing of cultures. But beyond being a descriptor, mestizaje can also be trumpeted as an ideal. For example, José Vasconcelos, an influential Mexican leader in the early 20th century, wrote about mestizaje as an ideal that created a new “cosmic race.” On the one hand, Vasconcelos pushed back against the race science of his time that promoted Anglo-Saxon superiority. On the other, his vision reduced Indigenous and African peoples to steppingstones on the way to a higher racial fusion.
All civilizations are culturally mixed. Purity doesn’t exist. I don’t have a problem with this emphasis within mestizaje discourse which does, in fact, undercut the anti-miscegenation logic of many white supremacist fantasies. The mulatto is not tragic. But I would add: the mestizo is not inherently heroic either. We can’t just all fuck and caramelize our way beyond racism. The triumphalist and romantic ideal of mestizaje reinforces its own version of racism.
Vasconcelos dreamt of “the definitive race, the synthetic race, the integral race, made up of the genius and the blood of all peoples” that would break down barriers “for the redemption of all men.” At the same time, he could turn around and say: “The Indian has no other door to the future but the door of modern culture, nor any other road but the road already cleared by Latin civilization.”
In The Mestizo Augustine, Justo González positively mentions José Vasconcelos and his influence on other Hispanic theologians such as Virgilio Elizondo who wrote a book called The Future is Mestizo. Augustine becomes a mestizo of late antiquity who can bridge worlds. And when he falls short, displaying a lack of compassion in conflicts with another religious group called Donatists in North Africa, it’s because he turns away from the redemptive nature of his mixed identity. As González puts it, “Augustine himself, even though he was a mestizo, had suppressed within himself most of his Libyan roots…”
People caught between multiple cultures can develop unique insights and express a larger human solidarity. But just because they can, doesn’t mean they always will. Mestizaje is not the salvific process that some want it to be.
Flashback
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Last year, I wrote an essay about this event and the idea of the barbarians at the gate.
Whether barbarians are turned into the villains or the heroes, modern racists have found multiple uses for them in stories that are only loosely connected to historical facts. The attack on the U.S. Capitol is now its own symbol.
Read the full essay here.
Song I Love
Chega de Saudade – SFJAZZ Collective
This is one of my favorite versions of the Antônio Carlos Jobim classic. Bossa nova with salsa inflection, and an epic xylophone/piano duet to start us off.
Cultural fusions can still produce beautiful things.