Uruguay As Race and Nation
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George Reid Andrews. Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. xiii + 241 pp. $22.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8078-7158-4. Reviewed by Matthew F. Rarey Published on H-AfrArts (August, 2011) Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti (Clark Univeristy) As the landscape of cultural studies scholar‐ foregrounding of primary sources. Blackness in ship increasingly favors transnational, translocal, the White Nation flls a major gap in Spanish- and and global analytical frameworks, George Reid English-language scholarship in the history of Andrews’s Blackness in the White Nation: A Histo‐ Latin America and the African diaspora, and ry of Afro-Uruguay, offers a refreshingly nuanced should be of interest to scholars in felds as di‐ and successful statement on the continuing im‐ verse as sociology and performance studies. An‐ portance of nation-specific analyses in the study drews’s work should also prove useful to ad‐ of blackness and black history. Andrews contrasts vanced undergraduates and graduate students as Uruguayan social and cultural histories with well as to specialists in social and cultural history, those of other American nations, particularly in music, dance, and performance, gender and wom‐ terms of black consciousness and racial en’s studies, and those interested in the continu‐ (in)equality. At the same time, his careful research ing validity of national frameworks for working and use of primary sources hold the reader frmly through African diasporic histories. inside Uruguay for the entire book. Andrews of‐ Andrews begins by tracing the difficulties of fers a wide range of case studies that speak to the studying black history in a country that, for much roles played by political, social, and labor move‐ of its existence, has disregarded racial difference ments; sexuality; music; gender; race and min‐ as a factor in political or social life. Indeed, on the strelsy; and carnivalesque performance in the for‐ centenary of Uruguayan independence, El Libro mation of Uruguayan national understandings of del Centenario del Uruguay went so far as to ex‐ blackness, whiteness, and the conception of racial plicitly deny cultural influence from any group democracy. What emerges is a complex yet highly outside of Europe. No racial census data was tak‐ accessible work, characterized by even-handed en for nearly two centuries, and Uruguay’s black conclusions drawn from careful research and the population has been consistently marginalized H-Net Reviews under this national ideology. Yet Andrews is able In the nineteenth century, candombe was still to trace a clear history of black social organiza‐ a powerful mode of collective expression for in‐ tions, political parties, and newspapers at least dentured African laborers. “As an alternative to from the early and mid twentieth century. In the oppressive, painful, dehumanizing move‐ chapter 5, Andrews goes on to quantitatively and ments of coerced labor, the candombes offered qualitatively analyze post-World War II barriers the deeply pleasurable, healing movements of to education and employment, and responses to dance--and dance, furthermore, performed collec‐ this discrimination through the present day. Sur‐ tively, in concert, with friends and countrymen prisingly, Andrews concludes that the social from one’s homeland” (p. 27). Beginning with the democracy experiment has worked well in Montevideo carnival of 1876, large performing Uruguay. Afro-Uruguayans overall have greater groups of sociedades de negros emerged, fre‐ political, economic, and educational opportunities quently calling themselves esclavos as a commen‐ than their black counterparts elsewhere in the tary on labor conditions, and singing the praises Americas, even though in Uruguay educational of an African homeland. Ironically, the perform‐ opportunities for blacks remain roughly half ers in these groups were rarely black, giving rise those of their white counterparts. Andrews sug‐ to the powerful tradition of the negro lubolo--the gests that one cause is the Uruguayan govern‐ blackface performer of candombe. For Andrews, ment’s stance on race, a longtime insistence on “So strong was the blackface and Afro-Uruguayan 100 percent social inclusion that has left the gov‐ presence in Carnival that, to a very high degree, to ernment and society as a whole blind to the social celebrate Carnival was to come listen to and realities of cultural difference and institutional watch the candombe/tangos of the African-based racism. groups” (p. 62). It is here that Andrews’s history The irony of such blindness is what Andrews takes a fascinating turn, for throughout most of spends the other half of the book discussing--the the twentieth century, the history of Afro- longtime Uruguayan (read: white) obsession with Uruguayan cultural expression through can‐ African music and dance that continues to this dombe cannot be separated from the negros lubo‐ day in the national cultural expression of can‐ los. Racial minstrelsy thus forms the foundation dombe. Indeed, the beauty of Blackness in the for articulations of racial identity, as the perfor‐ White Nation lies in the compelling history of can‐ mance of the negros lubolos are, for Andrews dombe that Andrews gives, and in particular the (quoting Eric Lott), replete with “the dialectical way he uses candombe to signify the relationship flickering of racial insult and racial envy, mo‐ between blackness and national consciousness in ments of domination and moments of liberation” Uruguay and throughout the Americas compara‐ (p. 56). The lubolos of Montevideo carnival, tively. Candombe emerges as a metaphor for the through minstrel performance, led to the contin‐ cultural complexities of understanding and defin‐ ued production and maintenance of racial differ‐ ing Afro-Uruguayan cultural practices and their ence. troubled and difficult histories. Particularly inter‐ In Andrews’s account, such minstrelsy effec‐ esting, and especially useful for art, music, and tively illustrates the interplay between sexual de‐ performance historians, are Andrews’s careful ac‐ sire, racial ambivalence, and carnivalesque per‐ counts of candombe’sinterplay of racial minstrel‐ formance. Uruguayan blackface was frequently sy and gendered performance in defining racial paired with potent sexual connotations of attrac‐ subjectivity. tion to and fear of black men, underscored by song lyrics where allusions to gender barriers be‐ tween black men and white women stand in for 2 H-Net Reviews racial barriers. Particularly noteworthy is An‐ 167), a proposal supported by a chorus of Afro- drews’s tracing of the cultural histories of mama Uruguayan artists and political activists. For An‐ vieja and vedette, two important female charac‐ drews, candombe can never be a cultural vehicle ters in Uruguayan carnival. Andrews reads the to highlight the African origins of Uruguayan cul‐ cultural development of both characters against tural expression because it “is a thoroughly multi‐ evolving social ideas of the sexual role and identi‐ cultural musical form, generally expressive of the ty of black women, particularly as black female Uruguayan nation and its beliefs in racial differ‐ sexuality was characterized as present and acces‐ ence” (p. 171). Nor can candombe be a symbol of sible, while white women were distant and un‐ racial equality, as Andrews effectively demon‐ touchable. Emerging out of negros lubolos groups strates throughout the book, for “the message that in the early 1900s, mama vieja is a fgure symbolic candombe conveys is ... of basic, essential differ‐ of maternal, domestic sexual power that necessar‐ ences between whites and blacks” (p. 171). ily carries with it deep class implications. Though Though negros lubolos may remove their black this character--a servile, aged, maternal black face paint at the end of the day, “Afro-Uruguayans woman--was frequently performed by white men do not have that option” (p. 172). Despite his in the early twentieth century, Andrews does not doubts of candombe’s use as a vehicle of racial fully explore its queer and transgendered implica‐ equality, Andrews maintains a belief in the possi‐ tions. Andrews contrasts “her” to the vedette, the bility of a racially egalitarian Uruguay. Blackness overtly sexualized female fgure of contemporary in the White Nation ends with a deeply personal carnival. recollection of the Iemanjá festival on a Montev‐ Having traced the history of candombe in ideo beach, (the frst mention of Umbanda in the both racial and gendered minstrel terms, An‐ book, and an indication of arenas of greater com‐ drews extends his analysis to his own participa‐ plexity and depth in terms of Afro-Uruguayan tion in a candombe comparsa as a white male, heritage), and with it a hope for a future racial looking at it in explicitly racial and sexual terms. democracy for all. It was only in the late twentieth century that can‐ dombe emerged as part of Uruguayan national historians of consciousness, and today, more whites than ever in before take part, a fact Andrews attributes to the increased economic and social resources avail‐ B able to white as opposed to black Uruguayans. The white influx into comparsas is now pushing down wages for black drummers (except for the very best), as white performers can afford to par‐ ticipate for free. It is refreshing to read Andrews’s forthright expression of his own feelings towards the powerful drum beats with their primal, sexual quality, characteristics frequently used in popular discourse to link them with the unrestrained sex‐ uality of the vedette in carnival. Andrews’s fnal chapter critiques a 2006 pro‐ posal to establish a “National Day of Candombe, Afro-Uruguayan Culture, and Racial Equality” (p. 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-afrarts Citation: Matthew F. Rarey. Review of Andrews, George Reid. Blackness in the White Nation: A History of Afro-Uruguay. H-AfrArts, H-Net Reviews. August, 2011. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31323 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.