Mexico is a true melting pot. Her people are a fusion of ethnicities, races, and cultures originating from Asia, Europe, and Africa mingling with America’s First Peoples. The Spanish brought slaves from the Philippines and China, while Portuguese traders imported forced labor from Africa to work Mexico’s sugar cane fields and cattle ranches when indigenous people couldn’t survive disease.

A very important, and heretofore unacknowledged part of Mexican history, is the slave experience in Mexico and the development of communities on the Oaxaca-Guerrero coast formed by people who escaped from the Veracruz cane fields. The Museo de las Culturas Afromestizas — the Afro-Mestizo Museum — in Cuajiniculapa, Guerrero, just across the Oaxaca border, gives voice to those who helped shape Mexican identity and honors their historic role.
Read here to learn more about Afro-Mexicans.


Our Oaxaca Coast Textile Study Tour group stops here on our five-hour return trip to Puerto Escondido from Ometepec. Knowing all of Oaxaca and her roots is important to us. We learn about and understand the contributions of Afro-Mexicans to Mexico’s music, dance, dress, and cuisine.
Read New Yorker magazine essay about Afro-Mexican life on the Costa Chica.

Please send me an email if you are interested in traveling here in 2020. I will only offer this study tour if there are 6 people making a $500 reservation deposit to guarantee we will hold the trip. Likely dates are January 10-20, 2020.

Meaning of the Danza de los Diablos.

Read Culture Trip article about Afro-Mexican origins and pride.
We also see through the dioramas and explanation from our museum guide that institutionalized slavery has left its mark on Mexico just as it has in the United States. The colonizers, be they British or Spanish, used forced human labor to advance their economic and social agendas. Hundreds of years later, isolation, poverty, lack of education and health care, has left its mark, making this region among the most impoverished in Mexico.
Enslaved blacks in American South sought freedom in Mexico, perhaps a reason for the Mexican-American War?

There is a movement to give Afro-Mexicans the federal recognition and support they deserve that will help improve quality of life and economic opportunity.
I stepped up onto the hollow wood box to learn the dance of the region. I’m writing from Morelia, Michoacan, left my Costa Chica notebook at home, and will add the name of our thoughtful guide later.


A must-read is Afro-Mexicans Exist, So We Must Stop Referring to Mexico as a Mestizo Nation by Shanna Collins. This offers important insight into how embedded African roots are in Mexican life and culture. Her argument is that the term Mestizo completely ignores how the role of slaves influenced modern Mexico.


The small museum, just off coastal route MEX 200, is a testimony to the history of enslavement and courage. It opens our eyes and hearts, gives us perspective and enriches our travel experience.


Chocolate: What’s Not to Love About It?
Click here for Kathleen’s Chocolate story http://wp.me/pTTp9-1gU
My fellow writer, expat food aficionado and socially/politically/environmentally conscious advocate for responsible living has just written an important article. I encourage you to read it. The slave trade in Africa, a centuries old practice, endures because of the world’s love for chocolate. Kathleen Dobek writes about the chocolate candy makers who don’t and do use fair trade practices, the regulations and compliance issues around chocolate manufacture, and what we can do to ensure that we are not supporting companies that are not adhering to ethical labor practices.
I love chocolate. What’s not to love about it is the enslavement of children who harvest the cacao bean for some of the world’s leading chocolate manufacturers. Kathleen has researched and written a great article. Please read it.
It raises the question for me about Oaxacan chocolate. Where does the cacao bean and chocolate come from that goes into making that delicious, frothy morning cup of hot chocolate. Where does the chocolate come from that is the primary ingredient for mole negro, my absolute favorite mole that covers chicken and rice? If anyone knows the answer, do tell!
This comment just came in to me via email from Silva: the chocolate used in Oaxaca for drinking and mole comes from the Mexican State of Tabasco.
She sent this link to the USDA web site for an explanation of terms regarding organic labeling. http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateA&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOPUnderstandingOrganicLabeling&description=Understanding%20Organic%20Labeling&acct=nopgeninfo
She goes on to say that many people take the “USDA organic” label for granted. If you check USDA, you will find that the term means that up to 5% of the item can be chemicals and non-organic materials. This agreement was made by
pressure from Monsanto, Dole, etc. Many so called USDA organic items at the grocery store are NOT organic, but 95% organic. They can be identical to non-organic products, just cost more money – great profits for companies like Dole. The only items that are organic are those that say “USDA 100%
organic”. I have never seen that label in a store. Just worth keeping in mind when using that term…
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Food & Recipes
Tagged Africa, Chocolate, Cocoa bean, Cooking in Mexico, fair trade, mole negro, Oaxaca, Slavery