scrambled eggs, cracks <\/span><\/em>and<\/span> puchuncos<\/span><\/em>racialization, identity and miscegenation in a town of the costa chica of guerrero<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nThis article presents an ethnographic discussion around the processes of racialization, miscegenation and the construction of identity\/otherness in Punta Maldonado (El Faro), on the Costa Chica of the state of Guerrero. In the first place, it examines the concepts of race and racialization in order to understand how physical attributes have been used to highlight differences and order them into a hierarchy. Next, it explores the meanings of some locally used categories that show the way in which the physical aspect, and the way to wear one's hair in particular, is socially perceived and interpreted in El Faro. Finally, it analyzes how the idea of mixtures is viewed and incorporated into the collective identity narratives in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keywords: identity, alterity, race, racialization, miscegenation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nIntroduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Punta Maldonado is a town of fishermen and farmers belonging to the municipality of Cuajinicuilapa, in the state of Guerrero, in the so-called Costa Chica. This region extends from the urban pole of Acapulco (Guerrero) to that of Huatulco (Oaxaca); its physical landscape includes coastal plains, mountainous areas of the foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur and lacustrine areas (Campos, 1999; Lara, 2017; Widmer, 1990). As is the case in other localities in the region, this town has been marked by historical processes of miscegenation and cultural exchange between Afro-descendants -whose presence dates back to enslaved people of African origin who arrived in the region during the colonial period- and indigenous people -especially, the groups \u00f1uu savi<\/em> and nn'anncue \u00f1omndaa-.<\/em>2<\/a> In local jargon, the former are usually referred to as morenos - and, to a lesser extent, as negros - while the latter are labeled as indios. Thus, indigenous (or indios) and Afro-descendants (or morenos-negros),3<\/a> have been protagonists of the past and present of Punta Maldonado, a place better known by its nickname: El Faro (The Lighthouse).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n ![](\"https:\/\/archive.org\/download\/enc-8-multimedia\/castillo-revueltos-map-1.jpg\")
\n <\/i>\n <\/a>\n <\/figure> <\/div> \n <\/div>\n Map 1: Punta Maldonado (El Faro) and its neighboring localities. Source: INEGI, with modifications made by the author. Date of preparation: June 6, 2019.<\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\nAccording to Gloria Lara (2017), in the Costa Chica it is difficult to sharply separate Afro-descendants from indigenous people, as if they were two distinct groups that have maintained fixed ethnic boundaries throughout history; on the contrary, the dynamics of miscegenation and cultural exchange have diluted such boundaries, forging porous alterities that make it necessary to study how \"the black\", \"the brown\" or \"the Indian\" has been specifically constructed in local spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the case of El Faro, there are several ways in which Morenos and Indians mark their differences: from the language and the way they speak Spanish to the way they speak Spanish.4<\/a> to marriage customs.5<\/a> However, one element that has great relevance in everyday narratives of otherness is physical appearance or, in the words of Elisabeth Cunin, \"racial appearance\", that is, the \"set of physical features -skin color but also hair, nose, body, etc.- to which a meaning is attributed within a socially determined framework\" (2003: 19). In this sense, the fare\u00f1os -a self-denominative term coined by people born or living in Punta Maldonado- use categories such as puchuncos<\/em>, grijos <\/em>or lacias<\/em>. The first alludes to men and women with very curly hair, while the other two denote, respectively, men with short, spiky hair and women with long, straight hair.6<\/a> These words draw individual and collective differentiations based on a particular physical criterion -hair texture-, because if dark-skinned men and women are associated to lo<\/em> puchunco<\/em>the Indians are associated with lo<\/em> grijo<\/em> or with lo<\/em> straight<\/em>depending on whether they are men or women.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, reality is much more complex than the categories with which we sometimes try to capture and classify it. Even though El Faro discursively sets out an opposition between the Indian people<\/em> and the brown people <\/em>-hair is used as one of the many differentiating criteria, in practice there are people who puchuncas<\/em> that are not assumed brunettes<\/em> and men grijos<\/em> or women lacias<\/em> that do not call themselves Indians<\/em>either because they highlight other physical criteria -for example, a light skin tone- or sociocultural criteria -dressing and speaking in a certain way- which in turn would link them to other labels; or because they highlight a mixed genealogy that leads them to define themselves in another way: scrambled eggs<\/em>, mestizos<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow can we analyze categories that appeal to physical attributes in the marking of differences? What are the meanings given to terms such as puchunco<\/em> or grijo<\/em> What role does mestizaje play in the redefinition of these denominations and in the configuration of other identifications? These questions are the basis for reflection. The first question leads me to the concepts of race and racialization, usually associated with the interpretation and classification of physical differences; to that extent, in the first part of this article I will review these terms. This leads me to the second question, concerning the meanings of the words grijo<\/em> and puchunco<\/em> in El Faro, two racializing categories related to the marking of otherness and identity in this place. in situ <\/em>between 2013 and 2016. Finally, the third question introduces the concept of mestizaje, which further complexifies the discussion on racialization and identification; specifically, I will explore the Faroese notion of the messy <\/em>or mestizo<\/em>,7<\/a> which alludes to a crossbreeding black-Indian<\/em> that dilutes but does not eliminate the contrasts marked from the opposition between puchuncos<\/em> and grijos<\/em>and forges unstable, ambiguous, flexible identifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRace and racialization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Currently, in the field of anthropology and social sciences there seems to be a consensus: race is not a biological and immutable fact that determines the moral and intellectual qualities of human beings but, rather, a sociohistorical category from which inequalities have been legitimized on the basis of physical traits, especially skin color (Arias and Restrepo, 2010; Gall, 2004; Hoffmann, 2008; Stolcke, 2000; Vel\u00e1zquez and Iturralde, 2016; Wade, 2000, 2014; Wieviorka, 2009). It is essentially an ideological construct whose meaning has varied over time and according to specific historical and political contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Verena Stolcke traces the origins of this category back to the xiii<\/span>In the Iberian Peninsula, when the Catholic doctrine of \"purity of blood\" sought to separate, after several centuries of coexistence, Christians from Muslims and Jews; following the medieval physiological theory according to which the \"essence\" of a person was transmitted by the mother's blood, someone considered \"pure\" could only be begotten by a Christian woman. The term race, which still had an isolated use, was linked to a theological-moral principle in which the phenotype was absent, since the crucial element in the differentiation of groups was religion (Stolcke, 2000: 43-44). At the same time, the idea of lineage was important, that is, descent and belonging to a given family; thus, race also referred to the genealogical bond that united a certain group of individuals around a common ancestor (Wade, 2000: 12-13).<\/p>\n\n\n\nTowards the end of the xvii<\/span>When European naturalists began to systematically study the physical and cultural differences between humans, the phenotype began to take on greater relevance. The first typologies associating physical traits with moral and intellectual aspects were then elaborated and developed in the 20th century. xviii<\/span> and, above all, during the xix<\/span>with the emergence of the so-called \"scientific racism\" (Vel\u00e1zquez and Iturralde, 2016: 77-83; Vergara, 2018: 20). Thus occurred an important development in the notion of race, which now did begin to see physical differences (relying for this purpose on sciences such as biology, craniometry and comparative anatomy), which were tied to differences in morality, intelligence and degree of \"civilization\". This new conception germinated in an environment marked by industrial capitalism, European imperialism and modern science, which together explained and justified social inequalities based on supposedly innate and immutable physical types; from such an optic, races were transmitted from generation to generation and were ordered in a hierarchical scale in which \"whites\" occupied the first rank while \"blacks\", \"yellows\" and \"Indians\" were left behind because of their \"inferior qualities\" (Stolcke, 2000: 44-45; Wade, 2014: 42-43; Wieviorka, 2009: 22-30).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe sense of race as a link between physical characteristics on the one hand, and social, moral and psychological inequality on the other, persisted in political and scientific discourse until the middle of the century. xx<\/span>The Nazi ideology, which took scientific racism to its ultimate consequences, was repudiated worldwide at the end of the Second World War (Wieviorka, 2009: 31). In this scenario, also marked by the struggle waged by African Americans against legal racial segregation in the United States, race underwent another conceptual twist that made it lose validity as a notion to understand human diversity. It ceased to be seen as a natural fact and began to be understood as an ideological category used to legitimize social asymmetries.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn short, the notion of race has had several meanings over time. First it was associated with the idea of lineage or lineage, in a clear moral-theological connotation that hierarchized social groups according to the religion professed. Then it came to be seen as a natural fact inscribed in the skin, skull and facial attributes, expressing inequalities in the intellect, values and social development of various human groups. Today, in academic language, the term is understood as a historical category used for two related purposes: 1) to interpret and classify human diversity and 2) to legitimize social asymmetries. In this sense, race is not an objective reality but a historically determined ideological construct (Wade, 2000: 21-22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the term \"race\" gradually disappeared from academic language (replaced by words such as \"ethnicity\" or \"culture\"), this did not mean that racism as an ideological structure legitimizing subordination and exclusion disappeared. On the contrary, racializing conceptions of difference persist, from which stigmatization is based on skin color or facial features, whether in family and everyday environments (Moreno, 2010), regional community dynamics (Quecha, 2017), or within institutions such as schools (Masferrer, 2017), to mention just a few scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brief exploration of the concept of race allows us to arrive at two intertwined points. First, it is a socio-historical category whose uses and meanings have varied over time, due to specific political, economic and ideological contexts. Second, it is a polysemic category that hides and overlaps several meanings, not necessarily consistent with each other, in languages ranging from the scientific-academic to the vernacular-popular. Thus, an analytical task is to investigate, historically and ethnographically, when and how the notion of race develops in a given scenario, what meanings it denotes, who uses it and for what purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point, it is appropriate to bring to the scene the concept of racialization, coined from academia to refer to certain processes of hierarchical marking of differences that emerged in modernity (Arias and Restrepo, 2010). According to these authors, the term in question implies three interrelated aspects. First, the definition of the human based on the distinction and opposition of two entities: the physical-material and the mental-moral. Second, the centrality given to the physical or external dimension, from which the moral or internal dimension is defined and encompassed. Third, the apprehension of this physical-material entity in biological terms, associated with the emergence of expert knowledge since the second half of the twentieth century. xviii<\/span>The process ultimately results in the creation of taxonomies (\"black\", \"Indian\", \"white\", \"mestizo\", etc.) that classify, qualify and hierarchize people into a hierarchy (\"black\", \"Indian\", \"white\", \"mestizo\", etc.), which classify, qualify and hierarchize people into a hierarchy. Ultimately, the process results in the creation of taxonomies (\"black\", \"Indian\", \"white\", \"mestizo\", etc.) that classify, qualify and hierarchize differences, based on physical-external-biological aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRacialization responds to local, national and international conceptual geopolitics, in such a way that there is no homogeneous or linear process of racial classification, but rather multiple and specific ways of hierarchization according to the context. For example, the racialization that emanates from the elites is not equivalent to that which is configured among subalternized sectors, although both can maintain relations of coexistence, tension and articulation (Arias and Restrepo, 2010: 60-61). Following the proposal of these authors, a task to develop would be \"to establish genealogies and concrete ethnographies of how the different racial articulations (or racialization) emerge, unfold and disperse at different levels of a given social formation\" (2010: 62).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the terms race and racialization go hand in hand. If the former is a sociohistorical and polysemic category that has been used to legitimize inequalities, the latter is an analytical tool through which we seek to understand how the idea of race has been implemented in specific sociohistorical scenarios, how it has been conceived and used, from what conceptual assumptions and for what purposes. In this order of ideas, I will now explore two categories that show processes of racialization in El Faro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morenos puchuncos, grijos Indians<\/em>Race and racialization in Punta Maldonado<\/h2>\n\n\n\nIf race is a category whose meaning varies according to the particular contexts in which it is deployed, what do Fare\u00f1os understand it to mean? On the one hand, as in popular Mexican language, the word has the generic sense of \"people\", it is used to refer to a group of people to which one may or may not belong, and it is usually associated in discourse with place of origin, nationality, ways of speaking, behaving, dressing, etc. During my ethnographic experience I recorded comments where the term was used in several situations: \"Toda esta raza de por ac\u00e1 nom\u00e1s es el puro cotorreo\" (September 18, 2013), in order to emphasize the jovial character in the fare\u00f1os; or \"T\u00fa tienes raza, de all\u00e1 de tu tierra, \u00bfC\u00f3mo se llama?... Aqu\u00ed nuestra raza es la mexicana, y la tuya?\" (April 5, 2016), to remark a differentiation around nationality. In these excerpts, the term was used to refer to a certain group of people and differentiate it from another group, based on elements that did not always stick to physical appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the word race is also often associated with categories such as moreno<\/em> or Indian<\/em>and in fact it is usual to hear in El Faro expressions such as black race<\/em>, white race<\/em>, brown race<\/em> or Indian race<\/em>The use of stereotypes, which tend to exalt physical traits such as complexion color, hair shape or size -although without ignoring other stereotypes related to temperament, values or customs-. Along these lines, in some everyday discourses there are traces of language alluding both to \"purity of blood\" and to the stigmatization of certain physical characteristics, such that a \"race\" would be \"worsened\" or \"improved\" depending on the person with whom a sexual-marital union is made. In general, the union with those who have been marked as \"pure blood brunettes<\/em> or black<\/em> is often viewed as pernicious, especially by those who do not recognize themselves in the same way: \"These black<\/em> from around here are going to look for the indias<\/em> from beyond the hills pa'<\/em> they want to improve the race, the blood... they want to improve their color, their blood\" (November 30, 2016); \"If my granddaughter leaves, she shouldn't even think about coming back because she has already decided to leave with her husband. That's right, what the hell, she wanted to make the race worse. How did the little boy come out! [She points to a black car]... like that car over there!\" (August 10, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe first comment was recorded in an informal conversation with two local men about the recent wedding between a young man and a young woman. moreno<\/em> and a young woman india<\/em> in the neighboring town of Tejas Crudas. In that context, one of the men explained the apparent predilection of the black<\/em> by the indias<\/em> because of the desire to \"improve\" the blood -read descent-, implicitly suggesting that in them there is a certain discomfort with their own pigmentation. The presence of the \"old\" senses of the word \"race\" can be appreciated in the discourse: both the connotation of a lineage susceptible of \"improving\" or \"worsening\", as well as the positive or negative qualification of aspects such as complexion color.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe second comment was made by a man with a fair complexion and blond hair - physical traits that are often associated with the designation \"white\". g\u00fcero<\/em>- about the definitive departure of his granddaughter, a young woman brunette<\/em> that she had decided to move in with the father of her child, also moreno<\/em>in the town of Tecoyame (Oaxaca). The man g\u00fcero<\/em> expressed to a group of relatives and neighbors her annoyance at the decision of the granddaughter, who would have \"spoiled\" the \"race\" -read the lineage- by having procreated a son with a man who is even more moreno<\/em> than her. In this particular situation, black skin is negatively valued and the offspring is conceived as \"worsened\" because a person whose complexion was a stigmatized color was involved in a link in the family group. Paradoxically, in spite of the man's regrets g\u00fcero<\/em> his own wife was a black-skinned, black-haired woman with a black hair and a black skin. puchunco<\/em> with whom he had procreated four males and four females, each with light to dark pigmentations, and in his extended family there were also people black<\/em> and puchuncas<\/em>. As mentioned above, miscegenation has been constant in the region, so that racializing discourses that denigrate certain physical attributes -black skin, frizzy hair- do not necessarily translate into practices that de facto exclude sexual unions with those who have such characteristics. I will return to these discursive contradictions and ambiguities later.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn short, \"race\" in El Faro implies different but not conflicting meanings: on the one hand, a broad idea of \"people\", defined above all by socio-cultural criteria -origin, customs, nationality-; on the other hand, an idea that, associated with words such as \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\". negro<\/em> or Indian<\/em>This second sense is the one I am interested in delving into, since among the Fare\u00f1os there are notions that appeal to physical appearance in the construction of differences and individual and collective identifications. This second sense is the one I am interested in deepening, since among the fare\u00f1os there are notions that appeal to physical appearance in the construction of differences and individual and collective identifications. I refer to the terms puchunco<\/em> and grijo<\/em>related at a general discursive level with the terms negro<\/em> and Indian<\/em>respectively. Let's look at the following excerpt from a conversation with two young men, Moro and Julio:<\/p>\n\n\n\nMoro: The grijos<\/em>. Ah, but those are the ones with the hair, those are the ones with the hair, those are the ones with the hair. Indians<\/em>.
Julio: Those are the Indians<\/em>.
Researcher: How is that?
Moro: They have hair puntudo<\/em>...
Julio: They have hair like this puntudito<\/em> up.
Researcher: \u00bf?Bookmark<\/em>?
Julio: Aha, so you you are Chinese<\/em> [frizzy] and instead of Chinese<\/em> if you had it up like this, like a hedgehog's, do you know it? That's how their hair is, like this, pointed, that doesn't go down to their heads. That is grijo<\/em>.
Moro: And hence the puchunco<\/em>also.
Researcher: Which one is it?
July: ...More tight<\/em> yet.
Moro: More tight<\/em> that not even water can get into it.
Julio: It's a hair Chinese<\/em>, Chinese<\/em>, Chinese<\/em>but super Chinese<\/em>like this, like this, like this.
Researcher: But that is also with the Indians<\/em>?
Julio: No, no, there are almost no Indians<\/em>.
Moro: Those are already people black<\/em>. These are puchuncos<\/em>.
Researcher: That's what they call them...
Moro: Puchunco<\/em>.
Researcher: Is that what they call it here?
Moro: He looks at one that has the head: \"there is a puchunco<\/em>\" [Laughter].
Researcher: Why is that? What does that word mean?
Moro: Who has hair like this...
Julio: Who has big hair and it's all tangled, like this. All chando<\/em> [ugly] [Laughter].
Moro: There are many women who do not grow their hair long, so they always have it like this. puchunco<\/em>It does not give them, it does not grow.
Julio: Aha. It's just that it's too Chinese<\/em> that no, it does not grow downwards like that... (April 26, 2015).8<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAs is evident from this conversation, one particular physical trait-hair-is associated with the terms Indian<\/em> and negro<\/em>depending on its shape or texture: whether it is puntudo<\/em>is related to the first one, but if it is kinky and tight<\/em> is linked to the second. This association, it must be said, is very common among the settlers when describing those who are called Indians<\/em> -regardless of their ethno-linguistic origin - and also to those who have black<\/em>–brunettes<\/em>. It could well be argued that in this case a process of racialization is at work as a physical attribute used not only to define otherness but also to (mis)qualify it. This can be seen in the words of Moro and Julio, who mocked and made derogatory remarks about the hairs grijo<\/em> and puchunco<\/em>The mockery that, by extension, was applied to subjects bearing such features: the Indians<\/em> and the black<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThus, hair is a diacritical marker that underlies a racializing hierarchy that undervalues, at least in the aesthetic sphere, those who are assigned physical forms considered \"laughable\", \"dirty\" or \"ugly\". Hence the jocular equations between the grijos<\/em> and the hedgehogs, or the description of the puchuncos<\/em> such as people whose hair \"is so tight that not even water can get in\". These are comments that provoke mockery in the face of characteristics that are negatively valued and conceived as models far from the physical ideal of beauty. What is this positively valued aesthetic standard? In several daily conversations I recorded that the \"aesthetic ideal\" corresponded to that of the g\u00fcero<\/em>defined by his fair complexion, light-colored eyes and hair. broken<\/em> or Chinese<\/em> -that is, slightly curly, moldable and manageable. This ideal model of beauty is also found in other places in the region such as El Ciruelo, Oaxaca (Correa, 2013: 130-131).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAt this point, I must say that neither Julius nor Moor fit the physical pattern of the g\u00fcero, <\/em>because her skin was not white and her eyes were not light: neither of them fit the \"aesthetic ideal\". However, even though her mother recognized herself -and was recognized- as india<\/em> and his father considered himself - and was considered - to be negro<\/em>none of them was assumed to be negro<\/em> or as Indian<\/em>. Although their skin color may be close to the category of \"white\", they may be moreno<\/em> or from negro<\/em>The texture of their hair - neither straight nor too curly - was a factor that, in his opinion, set them apart from the label of \"the best in the business\". puchuncos<\/em> and of the grijos <\/em>-and, therefore, of the black<\/em> and Indians<\/em>-. In other words, a subjective selection of attributes marked as \"positive\" to the detriment of those perceived as \"negative\" was at work here, along with narratives that shunned semantically loaded terms. Why did the two young men avoid these categories? What was behind the reticence towards the \"positive\" and the \"negative\"? puchunco<\/em> and the grijo<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the first place, the negative valuation - at least at the aesthetic level - of these physical attributes has a correlate in a structural racism which has undervalued Indians<\/em> and to black<\/em>words that in themselves carry a pejorative semantic charge of colonial matrix (Good, 2005; Quijano, 2000; Vel\u00e1zquez, 2016). From this perspective, not only is the mockery or contempt towards physical characteristics considered \"proper\" of historically disqualified subjects understandable, but also the reluctance of such subjects to identify themselves with disdainful labels such as Indian<\/em>, negro<\/em> or moreno<\/em>This is even more so if they do not have any of the traits associated with such terms. That is, to a certain extent, actors can play with racial terminologies, emphasizing in their personal narratives physical aspects socially conceived as \"positive\" -for example, hair broken<\/em>-and ignoring those that are socially perceived as \"negative\" -dark skin-. These processes of \"subjective selection\" of bodily attributes, which authors such as Cunin have called \"mestizo competition\",9<\/a> are inscribed in the broader scope of a racism whose evaluations of what is \"good\" or \"beautiful\" and what is \"bad\" or \"ugly\" are the basis on which racialized subjects elaborate identity narratives that may, as in the case of Moro and Julio, avoid burlesque terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSecondly, the reluctance to label oneself with words such as grijo<\/em> or puchunco<\/em> is explained by the existence of other notions that, on the other hand, are used in everyday discourses of self-identification. In El Faro such notions are those of mestizo<\/em> or scrambled<\/em>What are the meanings of these designations and how do they relate to the ideas of lo puchunco<\/em> and of the grijo<\/em>, of the black<\/em> and of Indian<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\nMixed, mestizos, crossbreeds, crossbreeds<\/em>Mestizaje, racialization and identity in El Faro<\/h2>\n\n\n\nMoro and Julio are the result of a union between a woman and a man. india<\/em> and a man negro<\/em>and for this reason they found it more appropriate to call themselves scrambled eggs<\/em>, crusaders<\/em>, campechanos<\/em> or mestizos<\/em>The terms alluded to the mixture of their origins. From their logic, they were no longer black<\/em> ni Indians<\/em>but subjects differentiated from their predecessors by virtue of their \"mixed\" quality. The mixture appears here as an element that configures new identity narratives; in this sense, it is worth mentioning the words of Don Evaristo, father of Julio and Moro:<\/p>\n\n\n\nJust pretend, I got together with her. I am black and she is Indian. Now my children, they are neither black nor Indian but... how do you call them... that has a name... mestizo I think they are called. They are already mestizos because they have black and Indian crossbreeding (April 5, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The narrative of don Evaristo and his children appears in other accounts of collective identification that also emphasize the experience of miscegenation, mainly among agents that have been socially classified as Indians<\/em> and how blacks<\/em>Here we are more mixed up, that is to say that the race is more mixed up. We are<\/em> negros, g\u00fceros, inditos, you see everything here\" (Cusuco, October 3, 2013); \"The race is already campechana. All mixed up, then. Black with Indian, Indian with black... All mixed up\" (Gerardo, December 12, 2016). As can be seen, there is an emphasis on the terms. scrambled<\/em>, wallow <\/em>or countryman<\/em>which emphasize mixtures in collective narratives of identity and in theory minimize the importance of \"racial\" appearance: it would no longer matter whether someone is Indian<\/em> or black<\/em>, brown<\/em> or white,<\/em> because at the end of the day \"we are all scrambled\".<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn this way, Punta Maldonado recreates the idea of a We scrambled<\/em> which highlights the mixture between subjects defined as Indians<\/em> and how blacks<\/em>but not excluding agents designated as g\u00fceros\/as<\/em>. It is, moreover, a narrative in which physical features seem to lose relevance, because if everyone recognizes each other mestizos<\/em> And if \"the breed is country\", what importance could things like skin color or hair texture have? Two important questions to develop arise from this. First, how is this subject characterized scrambled<\/em> or mestizo<\/em> and how it differs from the Indian <\/em>and in front of the negro<\/em>? Second, how fixed or how mobile is this denomination, to what extent does it suppress racializing labels such as grijo<\/em> and puchunco<\/em>To what extent does it deviate or not from the processes of racialization?<\/p>\n\n\n\nFirst of all, contrary to what might be believed, the idea of subject scrambled<\/em> is not dissociated from descriptions that appeal to bodily attributes; in this case, the characterization distances itself from the images commonly associated with both the negro<\/em> as with the Indian<\/em>. Moro, in one of our talks, pointed out: \"Already we [the mestizos-revueltos<\/em>We don't have tight hair like the blacks. If you see, my hair is more wavy, and the skin is not so dark, it is lighter\" (September 12, 2013). In other words, for Moro there were notable differences between the categories. black<\/em> and half-caste<\/em>The same was evident in the texture of the hair and skin tone. In a similar vein, Julio emphasized: \"As a ora<\/em>My hair is normal, or do you just look at it standing up like a hedgehog or tight as a microphone? Neither Chinese<\/em> ni grijo<\/em>normal\" (April 26, 2015). Certainly, for Julio and his brother a \"normal\" hair did not take on the forms cracks<\/em> and puchuncas<\/em> of racialized subjects such as the Indians<\/em> and the black<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut the characterization of the subject mestizo<\/em> or scrambled<\/em> is not reduced to hair or pigmentation. As Odile Hoffmann (2007) and Citlali Quecha (2017) rightly argue, in Costa Chica the boundaries of otherness and identity go far beyond appearance and range from idiomatic aspects to oral tradition, religious beliefs or spatial practices. In a similar direction, Amaranta Castillo (2003) shows how stereotypes account for behavioral aspects that ethnic actors project on themselves and others, so that the characterization of selfhood and otherness transcends the corporeal sphere. As for Punta Maldonado, everyday discourses also allude to features of social life which, in general, point to more \"civilized\" qualities in the mestizos<\/em> and more \"backward\" or \"rustic\" in the Indians<\/em> and in the black<\/em>. For example, the inhabitants of Tecoyame are classified by the Fare\u00f1os as black<\/em>On a couple of occasions I heard the following comments: \"They're in the jungle, these guys. vatos<\/em>. They see a car and they are surprised, as if they didn't know civilization\" (Cusuco, September 9, 2013). \"In other words, we are more civilized than they are... In other words, they live in those old houses, you don't see them anymore, big straw houses\" (Felipe, September 14, 2013). Despite the fact that Felipe and Cusuco said to each other. scrambled eggs<\/em>their complexion could very well make them pass for brunettes<\/em> and yet they still considered the black<\/em> of Tecoyame as people \"who did not know civilization\" or who lived in an \"ancient way\". I recorded similar notes about settlers from other localities considered to be \"uncivilized\". black<\/em> regarding the way of speaking: \"Those from La Culebra, worse. They speak even more rustic; 'Mi a-m\u00e1', 'Mi a-p\u00e1'. They go to high school... and they keep talking like that. Here we speak differently\" (Ramona, April 29, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\nNegative appraisals are equally present in the case of those who are labeled with the label of \"poor\". Indians<\/em>. In many cases, the Fare\u00f1os used derogatory terms such as Indian<\/em> (infantilizing diminutive) or guanco<\/em>\/to<\/em> (which alludes to a supposedly \"untamed\", \"dirty\" and \"backward\" condition), which is why they were often used as an insult. Even when the comments were not offensive -in fact, on many occasions they praised aspects such as the industriousness, curiosity or temperament in agricultural work of the so-called \"untamed\", \"dirty\" and \"backward\" people- they were often used as an insult. Indians<\/em>-They did express condescension and emphasized their \"closed\" or \"uncivilized\" character, in contrast to the \"open\" and completely \"civilized\" character of the \"open\" and \"civilized\" ones. mestizos<\/em>. Let us look at Do\u00f1a Cirina's perceptions of the Amuzgo municipality of Xochistlahuaca, being a woman of Amuzgo origin with more than 30 years of residence in El Faro:<\/p>\n\n\n\nThere it is pure indigenous people. But the people were closed before. They didn't speak Spanish, just their own language. But now they don't, now that there are schools there, they teach them Spanish... Some still wear huipil but others wear regular clothes. Especially the younger ones are the ones who already speak more Spanish than Amuzgo... Yes, there is more civilization, then (Cirina, July 19, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In summary, the definition of the subject mestizo<\/em> in the local discourse as something in principle opposed to the subject. negro<\/em> and the subject Indian<\/em>It is conceived as superior to both in the physical-bodily and behavioral-social spheres. With regard to the first area, the mestizos<\/em> are projected as bodies lacking the attributes that have been considered aesthetically inferior: they would no longer have \"tight\" or \"bristly\" hair and their skin color would no longer be as dark, as Moro and Julio argued. However, there are those who say scrambled<\/em> even though its appearance would fit in with the idea of lo moreno<\/em> -as in the cases of Felipe and Cusuco-, or of Indian<\/em> -as in the case of Cirina. At this point, the social dimension comes into play, in which the mestizos<\/em> are considered \"civilized\" people who speak better Spanish or have an \"advanced\" lifestyle, evident in the houses they live in, the clothes they wear or the education they receive; from this logic, Felipe, Cusuco or Cirina move away from the racializing labels that their appearance implies at first, and then they are framed within the notion of \"civilization\".
\n <\/i>\n <\/a>\n <\/figure> <\/div> \n <\/div>\n According to Gloria Lara (2017), in the Costa Chica it is difficult to sharply separate Afro-descendants from indigenous people, as if they were two distinct groups that have maintained fixed ethnic boundaries throughout history; on the contrary, the dynamics of miscegenation and cultural exchange have diluted such boundaries, forging porous alterities that make it necessary to study how \"the black\", \"the brown\" or \"the Indian\" has been specifically constructed in local spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the case of El Faro, there are several ways in which Morenos and Indians mark their differences: from the language and the way they speak Spanish to the way they speak Spanish.4<\/a> to marriage customs.5<\/a> However, one element that has great relevance in everyday narratives of otherness is physical appearance or, in the words of Elisabeth Cunin, \"racial appearance\", that is, the \"set of physical features -skin color but also hair, nose, body, etc.- to which a meaning is attributed within a socially determined framework\" (2003: 19). In this sense, the fare\u00f1os -a self-denominative term coined by people born or living in Punta Maldonado- use categories such as puchuncos<\/em>, grijos <\/em>or lacias<\/em>. The first alludes to men and women with very curly hair, while the other two denote, respectively, men with short, spiky hair and women with long, straight hair.6<\/a> These words draw individual and collective differentiations based on a particular physical criterion -hair texture-, because if dark-skinned men and women are associated to lo<\/em> puchunco<\/em>the Indians are associated with lo<\/em> grijo<\/em> or with lo<\/em> straight<\/em>depending on whether they are men or women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, reality is much more complex than the categories with which we sometimes try to capture and classify it. Even though El Faro discursively sets out an opposition between the Indian people<\/em> and the brown people <\/em>-hair is used as one of the many differentiating criteria, in practice there are people who puchuncas<\/em> that are not assumed brunettes<\/em> and men grijos<\/em> or women lacias<\/em> that do not call themselves Indians<\/em>either because they highlight other physical criteria -for example, a light skin tone- or sociocultural criteria -dressing and speaking in a certain way- which in turn would link them to other labels; or because they highlight a mixed genealogy that leads them to define themselves in another way: scrambled eggs<\/em>, mestizos<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How can we analyze categories that appeal to physical attributes in the marking of differences? What are the meanings given to terms such as puchunco<\/em> or grijo<\/em> What role does mestizaje play in the redefinition of these denominations and in the configuration of other identifications? These questions are the basis for reflection. The first question leads me to the concepts of race and racialization, usually associated with the interpretation and classification of physical differences; to that extent, in the first part of this article I will review these terms. This leads me to the second question, concerning the meanings of the words grijo<\/em> and puchunco<\/em> in El Faro, two racializing categories related to the marking of otherness and identity in this place. in situ <\/em>between 2013 and 2016. Finally, the third question introduces the concept of mestizaje, which further complexifies the discussion on racialization and identification; specifically, I will explore the Faroese notion of the messy <\/em>or mestizo<\/em>,7<\/a> which alludes to a crossbreeding black-Indian<\/em> that dilutes but does not eliminate the contrasts marked from the opposition between puchuncos<\/em> and grijos<\/em>and forges unstable, ambiguous, flexible identifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, in the field of anthropology and social sciences there seems to be a consensus: race is not a biological and immutable fact that determines the moral and intellectual qualities of human beings but, rather, a sociohistorical category from which inequalities have been legitimized on the basis of physical traits, especially skin color (Arias and Restrepo, 2010; Gall, 2004; Hoffmann, 2008; Stolcke, 2000; Vel\u00e1zquez and Iturralde, 2016; Wade, 2000, 2014; Wieviorka, 2009). It is essentially an ideological construct whose meaning has varied over time and according to specific historical and political contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Verena Stolcke traces the origins of this category back to the xiii<\/span>In the Iberian Peninsula, when the Catholic doctrine of \"purity of blood\" sought to separate, after several centuries of coexistence, Christians from Muslims and Jews; following the medieval physiological theory according to which the \"essence\" of a person was transmitted by the mother's blood, someone considered \"pure\" could only be begotten by a Christian woman. The term race, which still had an isolated use, was linked to a theological-moral principle in which the phenotype was absent, since the crucial element in the differentiation of groups was religion (Stolcke, 2000: 43-44). At the same time, the idea of lineage was important, that is, descent and belonging to a given family; thus, race also referred to the genealogical bond that united a certain group of individuals around a common ancestor (Wade, 2000: 12-13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Towards the end of the xvii<\/span>When European naturalists began to systematically study the physical and cultural differences between humans, the phenotype began to take on greater relevance. The first typologies associating physical traits with moral and intellectual aspects were then elaborated and developed in the 20th century. xviii<\/span> and, above all, during the xix<\/span>with the emergence of the so-called \"scientific racism\" (Vel\u00e1zquez and Iturralde, 2016: 77-83; Vergara, 2018: 20). Thus occurred an important development in the notion of race, which now did begin to see physical differences (relying for this purpose on sciences such as biology, craniometry and comparative anatomy), which were tied to differences in morality, intelligence and degree of \"civilization\". This new conception germinated in an environment marked by industrial capitalism, European imperialism and modern science, which together explained and justified social inequalities based on supposedly innate and immutable physical types; from such an optic, races were transmitted from generation to generation and were ordered in a hierarchical scale in which \"whites\" occupied the first rank while \"blacks\", \"yellows\" and \"Indians\" were left behind because of their \"inferior qualities\" (Stolcke, 2000: 44-45; Wade, 2014: 42-43; Wieviorka, 2009: 22-30).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sense of race as a link between physical characteristics on the one hand, and social, moral and psychological inequality on the other, persisted in political and scientific discourse until the middle of the century. xx<\/span>The Nazi ideology, which took scientific racism to its ultimate consequences, was repudiated worldwide at the end of the Second World War (Wieviorka, 2009: 31). In this scenario, also marked by the struggle waged by African Americans against legal racial segregation in the United States, race underwent another conceptual twist that made it lose validity as a notion to understand human diversity. It ceased to be seen as a natural fact and began to be understood as an ideological category used to legitimize social asymmetries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, the notion of race has had several meanings over time. First it was associated with the idea of lineage or lineage, in a clear moral-theological connotation that hierarchized social groups according to the religion professed. Then it came to be seen as a natural fact inscribed in the skin, skull and facial attributes, expressing inequalities in the intellect, values and social development of various human groups. Today, in academic language, the term is understood as a historical category used for two related purposes: 1) to interpret and classify human diversity and 2) to legitimize social asymmetries. In this sense, race is not an objective reality but a historically determined ideological construct (Wade, 2000: 21-22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the term \"race\" gradually disappeared from academic language (replaced by words such as \"ethnicity\" or \"culture\"), this did not mean that racism as an ideological structure legitimizing subordination and exclusion disappeared. On the contrary, racializing conceptions of difference persist, from which stigmatization is based on skin color or facial features, whether in family and everyday environments (Moreno, 2010), regional community dynamics (Quecha, 2017), or within institutions such as schools (Masferrer, 2017), to mention just a few scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brief exploration of the concept of race allows us to arrive at two intertwined points. First, it is a socio-historical category whose uses and meanings have varied over time, due to specific political, economic and ideological contexts. Second, it is a polysemic category that hides and overlaps several meanings, not necessarily consistent with each other, in languages ranging from the scientific-academic to the vernacular-popular. Thus, an analytical task is to investigate, historically and ethnographically, when and how the notion of race develops in a given scenario, what meanings it denotes, who uses it and for what purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point, it is appropriate to bring to the scene the concept of racialization, coined from academia to refer to certain processes of hierarchical marking of differences that emerged in modernity (Arias and Restrepo, 2010). According to these authors, the term in question implies three interrelated aspects. First, the definition of the human based on the distinction and opposition of two entities: the physical-material and the mental-moral. Second, the centrality given to the physical or external dimension, from which the moral or internal dimension is defined and encompassed. Third, the apprehension of this physical-material entity in biological terms, associated with the emergence of expert knowledge since the second half of the twentieth century. xviii<\/span>The process ultimately results in the creation of taxonomies (\"black\", \"Indian\", \"white\", \"mestizo\", etc.) that classify, qualify and hierarchize people into a hierarchy (\"black\", \"Indian\", \"white\", \"mestizo\", etc.), which classify, qualify and hierarchize people into a hierarchy. Ultimately, the process results in the creation of taxonomies (\"black\", \"Indian\", \"white\", \"mestizo\", etc.) that classify, qualify and hierarchize differences, based on physical-external-biological aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Racialization responds to local, national and international conceptual geopolitics, in such a way that there is no homogeneous or linear process of racial classification, but rather multiple and specific ways of hierarchization according to the context. For example, the racialization that emanates from the elites is not equivalent to that which is configured among subalternized sectors, although both can maintain relations of coexistence, tension and articulation (Arias and Restrepo, 2010: 60-61). Following the proposal of these authors, a task to develop would be \"to establish genealogies and concrete ethnographies of how the different racial articulations (or racialization) emerge, unfold and disperse at different levels of a given social formation\" (2010: 62).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the terms race and racialization go hand in hand. If the former is a sociohistorical and polysemic category that has been used to legitimize inequalities, the latter is an analytical tool through which we seek to understand how the idea of race has been implemented in specific sociohistorical scenarios, how it has been conceived and used, from what conceptual assumptions and for what purposes. In this order of ideas, I will now explore two categories that show processes of racialization in El Faro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If race is a category whose meaning varies according to the particular contexts in which it is deployed, what do Fare\u00f1os understand it to mean? On the one hand, as in popular Mexican language, the word has the generic sense of \"people\", it is used to refer to a group of people to which one may or may not belong, and it is usually associated in discourse with place of origin, nationality, ways of speaking, behaving, dressing, etc. During my ethnographic experience I recorded comments where the term was used in several situations: \"Toda esta raza de por ac\u00e1 nom\u00e1s es el puro cotorreo\" (September 18, 2013), in order to emphasize the jovial character in the fare\u00f1os; or \"T\u00fa tienes raza, de all\u00e1 de tu tierra, \u00bfC\u00f3mo se llama?... Aqu\u00ed nuestra raza es la mexicana, y la tuya?\" (April 5, 2016), to remark a differentiation around nationality. In these excerpts, the term was used to refer to a certain group of people and differentiate it from another group, based on elements that did not always stick to physical appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the word race is also often associated with categories such as moreno<\/em> or Indian<\/em>and in fact it is usual to hear in El Faro expressions such as black race<\/em>, white race<\/em>, brown race<\/em> or Indian race<\/em>The use of stereotypes, which tend to exalt physical traits such as complexion color, hair shape or size -although without ignoring other stereotypes related to temperament, values or customs-. Along these lines, in some everyday discourses there are traces of language alluding both to \"purity of blood\" and to the stigmatization of certain physical characteristics, such that a \"race\" would be \"worsened\" or \"improved\" depending on the person with whom a sexual-marital union is made. In general, the union with those who have been marked as \"pure blood brunettes<\/em> or black<\/em> is often viewed as pernicious, especially by those who do not recognize themselves in the same way: \"These black<\/em> from around here are going to look for the indias<\/em> from beyond the hills pa'<\/em> they want to improve the race, the blood... they want to improve their color, their blood\" (November 30, 2016); \"If my granddaughter leaves, she shouldn't even think about coming back because she has already decided to leave with her husband. That's right, what the hell, she wanted to make the race worse. How did the little boy come out! [She points to a black car]... like that car over there!\" (August 10, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first comment was recorded in an informal conversation with two local men about the recent wedding between a young man and a young woman. moreno<\/em> and a young woman india<\/em> in the neighboring town of Tejas Crudas. In that context, one of the men explained the apparent predilection of the black<\/em> by the indias<\/em> because of the desire to \"improve\" the blood -read descent-, implicitly suggesting that in them there is a certain discomfort with their own pigmentation. The presence of the \"old\" senses of the word \"race\" can be appreciated in the discourse: both the connotation of a lineage susceptible of \"improving\" or \"worsening\", as well as the positive or negative qualification of aspects such as complexion color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second comment was made by a man with a fair complexion and blond hair - physical traits that are often associated with the designation \"white\". g\u00fcero<\/em>- about the definitive departure of his granddaughter, a young woman brunette<\/em> that she had decided to move in with the father of her child, also moreno<\/em>in the town of Tecoyame (Oaxaca). The man g\u00fcero<\/em> expressed to a group of relatives and neighbors her annoyance at the decision of the granddaughter, who would have \"spoiled\" the \"race\" -read the lineage- by having procreated a son with a man who is even more moreno<\/em> than her. In this particular situation, black skin is negatively valued and the offspring is conceived as \"worsened\" because a person whose complexion was a stigmatized color was involved in a link in the family group. Paradoxically, in spite of the man's regrets g\u00fcero<\/em> his own wife was a black-skinned, black-haired woman with a black hair and a black skin. puchunco<\/em> with whom he had procreated four males and four females, each with light to dark pigmentations, and in his extended family there were also people black<\/em> and puchuncas<\/em>. As mentioned above, miscegenation has been constant in the region, so that racializing discourses that denigrate certain physical attributes -black skin, frizzy hair- do not necessarily translate into practices that de facto exclude sexual unions with those who have such characteristics. I will return to these discursive contradictions and ambiguities later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, \"race\" in El Faro implies different but not conflicting meanings: on the one hand, a broad idea of \"people\", defined above all by socio-cultural criteria -origin, customs, nationality-; on the other hand, an idea that, associated with words such as \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\", \"race\". negro<\/em> or Indian<\/em>This second sense is the one I am interested in delving into, since among the Fare\u00f1os there are notions that appeal to physical appearance in the construction of differences and individual and collective identifications. This second sense is the one I am interested in deepening, since among the fare\u00f1os there are notions that appeal to physical appearance in the construction of differences and individual and collective identifications. I refer to the terms puchunco<\/em> and grijo<\/em>related at a general discursive level with the terms negro<\/em> and Indian<\/em>respectively. Let's look at the following excerpt from a conversation with two young men, Moro and Julio:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moro: The grijos<\/em>. Ah, but those are the ones with the hair, those are the ones with the hair, those are the ones with the hair. Indians<\/em>. As is evident from this conversation, one particular physical trait-hair-is associated with the terms Indian<\/em> and negro<\/em>depending on its shape or texture: whether it is puntudo<\/em>is related to the first one, but if it is kinky and tight<\/em> is linked to the second. This association, it must be said, is very common among the settlers when describing those who are called Indians<\/em> -regardless of their ethno-linguistic origin - and also to those who have black<\/em>–brunettes<\/em>. It could well be argued that in this case a process of racialization is at work as a physical attribute used not only to define otherness but also to (mis)qualify it. This can be seen in the words of Moro and Julio, who mocked and made derogatory remarks about the hairs grijo<\/em> and puchunco<\/em>The mockery that, by extension, was applied to subjects bearing such features: the Indians<\/em> and the black<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, hair is a diacritical marker that underlies a racializing hierarchy that undervalues, at least in the aesthetic sphere, those who are assigned physical forms considered \"laughable\", \"dirty\" or \"ugly\". Hence the jocular equations between the grijos<\/em> and the hedgehogs, or the description of the puchuncos<\/em> such as people whose hair \"is so tight that not even water can get in\". These are comments that provoke mockery in the face of characteristics that are negatively valued and conceived as models far from the physical ideal of beauty. What is this positively valued aesthetic standard? In several daily conversations I recorded that the \"aesthetic ideal\" corresponded to that of the g\u00fcero<\/em>defined by his fair complexion, light-colored eyes and hair. broken<\/em> or Chinese<\/em> -that is, slightly curly, moldable and manageable. This ideal model of beauty is also found in other places in the region such as El Ciruelo, Oaxaca (Correa, 2013: 130-131).<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point, I must say that neither Julius nor Moor fit the physical pattern of the g\u00fcero, <\/em>because her skin was not white and her eyes were not light: neither of them fit the \"aesthetic ideal\". However, even though her mother recognized herself -and was recognized- as india<\/em> and his father considered himself - and was considered - to be negro<\/em>none of them was assumed to be negro<\/em> or as Indian<\/em>. Although their skin color may be close to the category of \"white\", they may be moreno<\/em> or from negro<\/em>The texture of their hair - neither straight nor too curly - was a factor that, in his opinion, set them apart from the label of \"the best in the business\". puchuncos<\/em> and of the grijos <\/em>-and, therefore, of the black<\/em> and Indians<\/em>-. In other words, a subjective selection of attributes marked as \"positive\" to the detriment of those perceived as \"negative\" was at work here, along with narratives that shunned semantically loaded terms. Why did the two young men avoid these categories? What was behind the reticence towards the \"positive\" and the \"negative\"? puchunco<\/em> and the grijo<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first place, the negative valuation - at least at the aesthetic level - of these physical attributes has a correlate in a structural racism which has undervalued Indians<\/em> and to black<\/em>words that in themselves carry a pejorative semantic charge of colonial matrix (Good, 2005; Quijano, 2000; Vel\u00e1zquez, 2016). From this perspective, not only is the mockery or contempt towards physical characteristics considered \"proper\" of historically disqualified subjects understandable, but also the reluctance of such subjects to identify themselves with disdainful labels such as Indian<\/em>, negro<\/em> or moreno<\/em>This is even more so if they do not have any of the traits associated with such terms. That is, to a certain extent, actors can play with racial terminologies, emphasizing in their personal narratives physical aspects socially conceived as \"positive\" -for example, hair broken<\/em>-and ignoring those that are socially perceived as \"negative\" -dark skin-. These processes of \"subjective selection\" of bodily attributes, which authors such as Cunin have called \"mestizo competition\",9<\/a> are inscribed in the broader scope of a racism whose evaluations of what is \"good\" or \"beautiful\" and what is \"bad\" or \"ugly\" are the basis on which racialized subjects elaborate identity narratives that may, as in the case of Moro and Julio, avoid burlesque terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, the reluctance to label oneself with words such as grijo<\/em> or puchunco<\/em> is explained by the existence of other notions that, on the other hand, are used in everyday discourses of self-identification. In El Faro such notions are those of mestizo<\/em> or scrambled<\/em>What are the meanings of these designations and how do they relate to the ideas of lo puchunco<\/em> and of the grijo<\/em>, of the black<\/em> and of Indian<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moro and Julio are the result of a union between a woman and a man. india<\/em> and a man negro<\/em>and for this reason they found it more appropriate to call themselves scrambled eggs<\/em>, crusaders<\/em>, campechanos<\/em> or mestizos<\/em>The terms alluded to the mixture of their origins. From their logic, they were no longer black<\/em> ni Indians<\/em>but subjects differentiated from their predecessors by virtue of their \"mixed\" quality. The mixture appears here as an element that configures new identity narratives; in this sense, it is worth mentioning the words of Don Evaristo, father of Julio and Moro:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just pretend, I got together with her. I am black and she is Indian. Now my children, they are neither black nor Indian but... how do you call them... that has a name... mestizo I think they are called. They are already mestizos because they have black and Indian crossbreeding (April 5, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The narrative of don Evaristo and his children appears in other accounts of collective identification that also emphasize the experience of miscegenation, mainly among agents that have been socially classified as Indians<\/em> and how blacks<\/em>Here we are more mixed up, that is to say that the race is more mixed up. We are<\/em> negros, g\u00fceros, inditos, you see everything here\" (Cusuco, October 3, 2013); \"The race is already campechana. All mixed up, then. Black with Indian, Indian with black... All mixed up\" (Gerardo, December 12, 2016). As can be seen, there is an emphasis on the terms. scrambled<\/em>, wallow <\/em>or countryman<\/em>which emphasize mixtures in collective narratives of identity and in theory minimize the importance of \"racial\" appearance: it would no longer matter whether someone is Indian<\/em> or black<\/em>, brown<\/em> or white,<\/em> because at the end of the day \"we are all scrambled\".<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this way, Punta Maldonado recreates the idea of a We scrambled<\/em> which highlights the mixture between subjects defined as Indians<\/em> and how blacks<\/em>but not excluding agents designated as g\u00fceros\/as<\/em>. It is, moreover, a narrative in which physical features seem to lose relevance, because if everyone recognizes each other mestizos<\/em> And if \"the breed is country\", what importance could things like skin color or hair texture have? Two important questions to develop arise from this. First, how is this subject characterized scrambled<\/em> or mestizo<\/em> and how it differs from the Indian <\/em>and in front of the negro<\/em>? Second, how fixed or how mobile is this denomination, to what extent does it suppress racializing labels such as grijo<\/em> and puchunco<\/em>To what extent does it deviate or not from the processes of racialization?<\/p>\n\n\n\n First of all, contrary to what might be believed, the idea of subject scrambled<\/em> is not dissociated from descriptions that appeal to bodily attributes; in this case, the characterization distances itself from the images commonly associated with both the negro<\/em> as with the Indian<\/em>. Moro, in one of our talks, pointed out: \"Already we [the mestizos-revueltos<\/em>We don't have tight hair like the blacks. If you see, my hair is more wavy, and the skin is not so dark, it is lighter\" (September 12, 2013). In other words, for Moro there were notable differences between the categories. black<\/em> and half-caste<\/em>The same was evident in the texture of the hair and skin tone. In a similar vein, Julio emphasized: \"As a ora<\/em>My hair is normal, or do you just look at it standing up like a hedgehog or tight as a microphone? Neither Chinese<\/em> ni grijo<\/em>normal\" (April 26, 2015). Certainly, for Julio and his brother a \"normal\" hair did not take on the forms cracks<\/em> and puchuncas<\/em> of racialized subjects such as the Indians<\/em> and the black<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the characterization of the subject mestizo<\/em> or scrambled<\/em> is not reduced to hair or pigmentation. As Odile Hoffmann (2007) and Citlali Quecha (2017) rightly argue, in Costa Chica the boundaries of otherness and identity go far beyond appearance and range from idiomatic aspects to oral tradition, religious beliefs or spatial practices. In a similar direction, Amaranta Castillo (2003) shows how stereotypes account for behavioral aspects that ethnic actors project on themselves and others, so that the characterization of selfhood and otherness transcends the corporeal sphere. As for Punta Maldonado, everyday discourses also allude to features of social life which, in general, point to more \"civilized\" qualities in the mestizos<\/em> and more \"backward\" or \"rustic\" in the Indians<\/em> and in the black<\/em>. For example, the inhabitants of Tecoyame are classified by the Fare\u00f1os as black<\/em>On a couple of occasions I heard the following comments: \"They're in the jungle, these guys. vatos<\/em>. They see a car and they are surprised, as if they didn't know civilization\" (Cusuco, September 9, 2013). \"In other words, we are more civilized than they are... In other words, they live in those old houses, you don't see them anymore, big straw houses\" (Felipe, September 14, 2013). Despite the fact that Felipe and Cusuco said to each other. scrambled eggs<\/em>their complexion could very well make them pass for brunettes<\/em> and yet they still considered the black<\/em> of Tecoyame as people \"who did not know civilization\" or who lived in an \"ancient way\". I recorded similar notes about settlers from other localities considered to be \"uncivilized\". black<\/em> regarding the way of speaking: \"Those from La Culebra, worse. They speak even more rustic; 'Mi a-m\u00e1', 'Mi a-p\u00e1'. They go to high school... and they keep talking like that. Here we speak differently\" (Ramona, April 29, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Negative appraisals are equally present in the case of those who are labeled with the label of \"poor\". Indians<\/em>. In many cases, the Fare\u00f1os used derogatory terms such as Indian<\/em> (infantilizing diminutive) or guanco<\/em>\/to<\/em> (which alludes to a supposedly \"untamed\", \"dirty\" and \"backward\" condition), which is why they were often used as an insult. Even when the comments were not offensive -in fact, on many occasions they praised aspects such as the industriousness, curiosity or temperament in agricultural work of the so-called \"untamed\", \"dirty\" and \"backward\" people- they were often used as an insult. Indians<\/em>-They did express condescension and emphasized their \"closed\" or \"uncivilized\" character, in contrast to the \"open\" and completely \"civilized\" character of the \"open\" and \"civilized\" ones. mestizos<\/em>. Let us look at Do\u00f1a Cirina's perceptions of the Amuzgo municipality of Xochistlahuaca, being a woman of Amuzgo origin with more than 30 years of residence in El Faro:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There it is pure indigenous people. But the people were closed before. They didn't speak Spanish, just their own language. But now they don't, now that there are schools there, they teach them Spanish... Some still wear huipil but others wear regular clothes. Especially the younger ones are the ones who already speak more Spanish than Amuzgo... Yes, there is more civilization, then (Cirina, July 19, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In summary, the definition of the subject mestizo<\/em> in the local discourse as something in principle opposed to the subject. negro<\/em> and the subject Indian<\/em>It is conceived as superior to both in the physical-bodily and behavioral-social spheres. With regard to the first area, the mestizos<\/em> are projected as bodies lacking the attributes that have been considered aesthetically inferior: they would no longer have \"tight\" or \"bristly\" hair and their skin color would no longer be as dark, as Moro and Julio argued. However, there are those who say scrambled<\/em> even though its appearance would fit in with the idea of lo moreno<\/em> -as in the cases of Felipe and Cusuco-, or of Indian<\/em> -as in the case of Cirina. At this point, the social dimension comes into play, in which the mestizos<\/em> are considered \"civilized\" people who speak better Spanish or have an \"advanced\" lifestyle, evident in the houses they live in, the clothes they wear or the education they receive; from this logic, Felipe, Cusuco or Cirina move away from the racializing labels that their appearance implies at first, and then they are framed within the notion of \"civilization\". Race and racialization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Morenos puchuncos, grijos Indians<\/em>Race and racialization in Punta Maldonado<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Julio: Those are the Indians<\/em>.
Researcher: How is that?
Moro: They have hair puntudo<\/em>...
Julio: They have hair like this puntudito<\/em> up.
Researcher: \u00bf?Bookmark<\/em>?
Julio: Aha, so you you are Chinese<\/em> [frizzy] and instead of Chinese<\/em> if you had it up like this, like a hedgehog's, do you know it? That's how their hair is, like this, pointed, that doesn't go down to their heads. That is grijo<\/em>.
Moro: And hence the puchunco<\/em>also.
Researcher: Which one is it?
July: ...More tight<\/em> yet.
Moro: More tight<\/em> that not even water can get into it.
Julio: It's a hair Chinese<\/em>, Chinese<\/em>, Chinese<\/em>but super Chinese<\/em>like this, like this, like this.
Researcher: But that is also with the Indians<\/em>?
Julio: No, no, there are almost no Indians<\/em>.
Moro: Those are already people black<\/em>. These are puchuncos<\/em>.
Researcher: That's what they call them...
Moro: Puchunco<\/em>.
Researcher: Is that what they call it here?
Moro: He looks at one that has the head: \"there is a puchunco<\/em>\" [Laughter].
Researcher: Why is that? What does that word mean?
Moro: Who has hair like this...
Julio: Who has big hair and it's all tangled, like this. All chando<\/em> [ugly] [Laughter].
Moro: There are many women who do not grow their hair long, so they always have it like this. puchunco<\/em>It does not give them, it does not grow.
Julio: Aha. It's just that it's too Chinese<\/em> that no, it does not grow downwards like that... (April 26, 2015).8<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nMixed, mestizos, crossbreeds, crossbreeds<\/em>Mestizaje, racialization and identity in El Faro<\/h2>\n\n\n\n