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This piece is great in that exists at all, but it is disappointingly self-centered and light.

Comments about the heat abound, while the writer neglects any meaningful external dialogue. If there was research into this town's history, where is it in the article? We are left to wonder what happened here-- there is no detail as to the town's history, and therefore, no hints as to why its Blackness disappeared. Why not travel to nearby communities to where afrodescendants moved when non-blacks began to capitalize off of post-liberated Yanga's newly exposed population/market? Why not share that the town's original geographic location changed soon after its liberation?

Traveling by taxi alone is itself a class marker that distinguishes the writer from the very people she is discussing here. That tone turns this piece into a sort of safari, despite any positive intent. What was this writer looking for and why? To simply sell an article about the racial dilemna in Mexico? Or to attempt to deconstruct her own preconceptions about Blackness, Mexico, and the reality of racism?

There is no inspiration or analysis here, only a diletant's posturing. No presence, only nostalgia. Did the Economist's editor's fall asleep on this?

There is a history here that remains out of sight and untapped, when the purpose of this article should have been to shed light on the complexity of that history. In order to do that, one must be willing to look at the scenario with fresh eyes. Mexico is unlike most of it's neighbors in the hemisphere when it comes to the dynamics of race. We must learn to look at this place with greater intensity.

Disappointing. The writer seems more interested in herself and her own feelings than the supposed subject of the story. The fact that a story about black Mexicans only includes one single-word quote from a black Mexican gives you a clue to her priorities. I'd have liked to have heard what the Afro-Mexicans of Yanga had to say, but they remain hidden...

The fact is that mexican's government didn't release information about history of Afro-Mexican population because race is not an issue there. If Afro-Mexican were apparteid the population of African descendents would be bigger. I belief most Afro-Mexican are already mixed, and pass as Mexican not as Afro-Mexican. This African community stay there because they want to be recognized as a race. I remember when I was in the school there. I learned that mulattos, indigenous, and meztizos fought for the independance of Mexico. Yes! history talks about black Mexicans, but they were not discrinated because slavery in Mexico was condenm since the independence from Spain. Our second Mexican president was African descendent.

First black people must remember they are here because of the western need for labor. The land always belong to some one else and always will. No matter how much time has pass no one wants to go back to africa to live. I find this to be a double-sided coin. Claim how much you have done for someone else homeland no matter how long you have been there, it is still someone else homeland. A few leaders in Africa have offerd Blacks in parts of the Americans to return to Africa. Have not been that many takers. No matter how long Blacks have been here or other groups for the matter NA or people that lived in this part of the world have always been here a lot longer. And nothing can change that. It will always will be their homeland and not so much as others . Just look at the Jews they have lived in parts of the world from 3000 to 2500 years yet groups that were there a lot longer never saw them as being part of the larger picture and in the long run were run off or worse. Stop looking for places to be a part of. Maybe Africa will hold some of the things that you looking for. Or just stop trying to look at all. Yanga was after all from Africa and not Mexico.

I can't believe I'm reading a piece on Intelligent Life and people are discussing black mens' penis sizes. In 2010.
Exactly what does that have to do with this article?

As the son of an expat couple, I was born and grew up in Mexico. I lived there until my twenties. I believe the writer's understanding is affected by her American perspective.

The reaction the writer got from the townspeople was undoubtedly more because she was a black American than because she was black. Just like Americans have trouble imagining non-brown Mexicans, Mexicans have trouble imagining non-Nordic Americans. There are relatively few blacks in Mexico because the natives there did much of the manual labor (as opposed to the US, in which Native Americans were not widely used as labor). Still, blacks are not so rare that they would turn heads, and besides, everybody is one shade of dark or the other.

It is indeed true that there is no racial awareness in Mexico. There has been too much intermixing, with 80% of the population considered "mestizo," which practically speaking means just about any combination of racial influences. It could almost be translated as "mutt." To put it in American terms, skin color in Mexico is more like hair color in the US. Sure, you have your blonde jokes and stereotypes about redheads, but clearly we are not hyper-aware of hair color as we are of skin color.

Instead of racism, you encounter classism in Mexico. It is a much less egalitarian society than ours, and that is the source of discrimination, not race. Here in the US, a black member of Congress might encounter racism when dealing with someone who doesn't recognize him, but a black man with class would never get hassled in Mexico. It's the same situation with people with a lot of Indian blood in them. A poor Indian suffers from discrimination, but a well-to-do Indian is treated like a peer by well-to-do non-Indians.

The writer broods about the fact that "skin colour is clearly a symbol of status," but that has nothing to do with Mexico. The reality is that there is not a society known to us in which, generally speaking, darker skin was held in higher regard than lighter skin. For the past 5,000 years, from Japan to Sweden to Africa, lighter-colored humans have filled the higher classes, and never the other way around. That's a topic worthy of investigation, but it has nothing to do with Mexico or people of African descent. If anything, Mexico is one of the few places on Earth where, regardless of how light or dark you are, you simply don't stand out because of the color of your skin.

Mexicans as well as other races were not Disallowed to marry Slaves, that was awesome so actually Blacks could have dignity as any other human being and do the right thing instead of having a buncha mixed babies with no commitment..At least some people legally showed their love for Africans

My comment is in reference to Victor who says that discrimination is not based on race but on class. I've been to five Latin-American countries where people say the same thing. If race is not the issue, Victor, then why is a disproportionate number of black people on the bottom rung of society finding it difficult to get a decent job?

Even I, a working-class black American, who can afford to travel, experienced some of the disrespect that blacks in their respective countries experienced; even in Mexico.

I think we all need to listen to Heal the World by Michael Jackson to ease some of this hatred and anger.

The comment above says that the Mayans were the ones doing the manual labor and that the managers are usually lighter. This also has to do with your financial status. If you visited a place like Cancun or the surrounding area, what people fail to realize is that Cancun is a new city, only started being built up since around the 70's. Most of the people that live in Cancun are people who have moved there from all over Mexico, in hopes of finding jobs. The lighter or more mixed Mexicans, probably are better educated with degrees and such, coming from other cities. The majority of the Mayan people that are doing the manual labor are people who come from the small rural areas surrounding the city. This goes for all of the touristy places around Yucatan, and Quintana Roo. Most of the Mayans doing those jobs speak Spanish as a second language, speaking their Mayan dialect first, and usually do not hold high level of education, and this is why they are usually the ones doing the manual labor.

Getting back on the Afro-Mexican, topic. I do not agree with the way that this article was written. I am from Veracruz, and I have people in my family who look Afro-mexican as well as some who look completely European. The reason why I say "look" instead of "are" is because the mixture has been going on so long that someone who looks Afro-mexican may have a sibling who looks Native American, or European. This is how it is in my family.

The way that this person describes her experience, is only according to her. I think that her experience was seen in a different light having experienced racism in the US as a child. Where I am from you do not see racism like this. I do agree that the majority of the lighter people do have a higher status, and this is a cycle that hasn't been broken since the early days of Mexico, but I see poor lighter skinned Mexicans doing the same jobs and living the same way as other darker Mexicans. It is usually what you are born into and a cycle that has been hard to break.

My husband is African American. He went to Veracruz with me to visit a couple of years ago. He said that he did feel like people were staring at him, but never in a bad way. They were just intrigued, and people do tend to stare a little harder. There were people who spoke some English that were eager to speak to my husband as soon as they heard him speak English. We went to eat at a place where the lady making the food looked at my husband and told him that he reminded her of her son, and my husband thought that she looked like his African American mother. Racism in Mexico is not as bad as this article describes, but that's just my perspective. From my husband's perspective, he felt welcomed, didn't feel like he was being discriminated against, he was intrigued at the African presence in the people's faces, and every place we went everyone spoke to him in a friendly manner.

I don't agree with the tone that this article is written. It sounds bitter and generalizing a whole country because of one person's experience is not fair!