Did you know that Afro-Caribbean roots run deep in Veracruz?

A new book reframes long-held assumptions about the denial of Black identity in the Mexican port city of Veracruz.

When cultural anthropologist Karma Frierson traveled to the port city of Veracruz to conduct research, she intended to study Black people in Mexico. Instead, her research became an exploration of a city with people who may not necessarily identify as Afro-Mexican, but who were nonetheless knowledgeable and, in some instances, deeply connected to Mexican Blackness.

Frierson’s book Local Color: Reckoning with Blackness in the Port City of Veracruz (University of California Press, 2025) is the culmination of two years of research. Prior to joining the University of Rochester’s Black studies faculty in 2024, she spent nearly a decade visiting and living in Veracruz, located on the coast of east-central Mexico.

The book examines how Veracruzanos—natives or residents of the city—reckon with the Afro-Caribbean roots of their history, traditions, and culture. The Afro-Mexican population, which has struggled for recognition, was added as a category in the Mexican census for the first time in 2020.

“Local color is an homage to the people who have been on the receiving end of a new-to-them narrative about Mexico’s Blackness and what they did with that narrative,” says Frierson.

Click here to read the complete, original article by Sheila Rayam for the University of Rochester

Source: University of Rochester

Veracruz Daily Post