Afro Argentine - Africa Vive

Africa Vive

Recently, there has been a growing interest into Argentina’s African heritage, as well as their African descended community. A group of Afro-Argentineans called “Africa Vive” (Africa lives), led by Maria Lamadrid, have emerged on a mission to fight discrimination, as well as raise awareness of the plight of the Afro Argentinean community and their place in Argentina’s history. Maria Lamadrid, who founded Africa Vive in the late 90’s, has helped to bring the racism and discrimination in Argentina to the forefront. She struggled in her youth to receive an education since she was both black and poor. For this reason, she ended up cleaning other people’s houses to make a living, like other poor women in Argentina do. Maria has seen the racism up close and personal there every day. In fact, a few years ago when Maria wanted to travel to Panama, she went to the immigration counter with her new Argentine passport, when the immigration officer saw the passport, the officer began to scream that “it is a fake”, and then this officer detained her. The only reason they could give for detaining her is that “there aren’t any blacks in Argentina.”

Although Maria encounters racism as well as discrimination on a daily basis in her country, it has done nothing but inspire her, as well as her Africa Vive foundation to push forward towards equality. In fact, in 1999, Africa Vive organized a very well publicized conference against discrimination at the University of Buenos Aires. Africa Vive also was invited to attend the Durban UN Conference on Racism. At this conference, they made a presentation about the socio-economic situation of the Afro-Argentines, such as the high amount of unemployment in the Afro Argentine community, as well as the problem with naturalization that blacks receive because of racist immigration policies.

Argentina has been a country that not only denies having an Afro-descended community, but has done everything to erase Africa from its past. The Afro-Argentine community currently faces issues of high unemployment, racist immigration policies, as well as denial about their existence; however, there is hope for this country’ black people. In 2001, Afro-descended groups like “Grupo Cultural Afro”, "SOS Racismo", and of course "Africa Vive" came together to convince a national deputy to organize a ceremony in memory of the black soldiers who died fighting (as a “cannon fodder” in many cases) for Argentina’s independence. In this ceremony, the national deputy spoke in honor of the great fallen soldiers, in addition to awarding degrees to the heads of several black organizations. For Argentina to have an event that not only acknowledges the African contributions to the country, but also puts the Afro-Argentines in the spotlight, is truly a very remarkable thing. This event was certainly a huge step for Afro-Argentines toward reaching their goal for equality, however, they still have many more miles to walk, but there is certainly more hope for the Afro-Argentine Community to reach this goal than there has been in a very long time.