Lucía, Bartola, y Rosa: Voice, memory, and contributions of three Afro-Peruvian women

Abstract

In October 2020, the arts division of the Ministry of Culture of Peru invited me to give a lecture, webinar style, on the role of Afro-Peruvian women in the development of criollo music. This event was framed within the national celebration of El día de la música criolla (Creole [or Peruvian coastal] Music Day). What a challenge. There is little published research on this topic. This, of course, does not mean that Afro-Peruvian women did not have a role in the development of Peruvian criollo music. On the contrary, there is clear evidence that Afro-Peruvian women have always been present in the artistic scene of Lima, in many roles and even before the development of criollo music. Afro-Peruvian women have contributed to Peruvian society and Peru as a nation historically, in the present, and in many capacities despite their significant absence in the national narrative and scholarly literature. In the convergence of patriarchy, racism, and classism, all values at the core of the colonial project in Latin America, Black and Indigenous women are relegated to the lowest strata of society. Black women are negatively stereotyped and subjected to accumulated racism and machismo, but they also embody resistance and potentiality (Gonzalez 1988). As Peruvians prepare for the bicentennial commemoration of Peruvian independence from Spain (1821), the legacy of colonialism is ever present. We are faced with national debates that question whether Negrita, a food brand that has been popular in Peru for over 60 years, should change its name. Alicorp, the Peruvian consumer goods company that owns the brand, has begun to realize that ‘Negrita’ is inappropriate, while some Peruvians do not understand why or how this beloved and widely used nickname is problematic. The iconic representation of the Afro-Peruvian woman in the broad Peruvian food industry wears a red-and-white polka dot dress, bandana, and apron. This character is a popular Peruvian equivalent of the U.S. American ‘mammy,’ very much alive in the Peruvian national imagination of black women today. This and other folklorized, commercialized, essentialized, and negatively stereotyped images of Afro-Peruvian women