The year is 2015, and across Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean there are social movements demanding racial justice as political parties jockey to incorporate candidates of African and indigenous descent. Textbooks are being rewritten to highlight the contributions and unique experiences of indigenous and black Latin Americans and affirmative action programs are being debated and implemented. W. E. B. DuBois's famous line, “The problem of the twentieth century will be the problem of the color line,” applies to Latin America in the twenty-first century.¹

What led us to this moment? And what tools does political science have to explain it?

Many would be surprised at the scenario outlined above, for scholars have traditionally focused more on the dearth of racial activism in Latin America than on the centrality of race in its politics. Until the late 1980s and 1990s, scholars tended to view Latin American societies as racial democracies, arguing that the lack of Jim Crow–style segregation and a tradition of interracial marriage rendered racial boundaries more fluid than in the United States.²

There was, in this view, very little real racial discrimination in Latin America. However, in the 1980s and 1990s scholars and activists began to challenge this narrative, uncovering inequalities in all aspects of Latin American life and revealing deep racial inequalities beneath a veneer of racial inclusion and racial mixing, or mestizaje. Economic inequalities, educational and health disparities, and racial language that valorized whiteness and denigrated blackness or indigenous identity all pointed in the same direction: there are no racial democracies in Latin America.

International institutions and domestic political elites reinforced this new view. The 2001 World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, brought the issue of racism to the fore.³

Countries like Brazil, which sought to enhance their international prestige, recognized racial problems; Brazil's President Henriqué Cardoso, in his drive for a seat on the UN Security Council, implemented affirmative action in selected ministries.⁴ He also formally recognized the festival of Zumbi, a leader of maroons who fought against slavery in Brazil. This brought the legacy of racial inequality into clear focus.⁵ Presidents ranging from Hugo Chávez in Brazil, on the left, to Alejandro Toledo in Peru, on the right, have all sought to identify with indigenous and black groups and now emphasize the need for their social and political incorporation.⁶

Political activism on racial issues has also increased. Indigenous protest in Bolivia has toppled two presidents. Protests over land rights, privatization of public utilities, economic inequality, cultural recognition, and other issues have stopped traffic and grabbed public attention in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Honduras.

As activists and scholars challenged the idea of an achieved racial democracy, they transformed the concept from an issue frame into a myth. To predict the future transformations, we should consider concepts of transnationalism, interest group theory, and what we know about how events shape racial politics. These concepts can help us understand how the stage has been set for the evolution of racial politics in Latin American and the Spanish Caribbean.⁷

Policies and interests groups. Scholars have argued that countries seeking international prestige and the attention of international organizations should ensure that racial minorities have political opportunities. As Andrea Campbell, for example, argues, policies help to create interest groups: “Public policies can confer resources, motivate interests in government affairs by tying well-being to government action, define groups for mobilization, and even shape the content and meaning of democratic citizenship.”⁸

Thus in places like Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador, recognition of black and indigenous rights claims in constitutions and government policies encourages, rather than suppresses, mobilization. Mala Htun notes that international organizations, such as the Ford Foundation, and now the Brazilian government help to form new black identities by supporting affirmative action and black movements.⁹ Michael Hanchard has argued that difficulty developing an identity tied to a specific “political” rather than cultural project hampered the nascent black movement in Brazil;¹⁰ implementation of affirmative action has solved that problem for the movement by providing a clear set of policies for people to support or oppose and providing incentives for the black and brown majority in Brazil to self-identify racially.

Similarly, the construction of a politics around indigenous and black land rights in places like Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Honduras has provided a basis for African-descended and indigenous movements to organize around race issues. These movements are finding organizations on the international stage that support their activities. As these movements grow, their gains and policy innovations have the potential for diffusion across Latin America. Furthermore, democracy provides opportunities for protest and challenges to power.¹¹

Democracy and markets. The ongoing march of democracy across Latin America will embolden social movements. In the past, authoritarian regimes either violently suppressed racial social movements or co-opted groups into corporatist relationships using the levers of the state. With more open civil societies and electoral competition, organized racial groups become interests that cannot be ignored. Indeed, race can become a central campaign issue or powerful political symbol. For example, Alejandro Toledo in his electoral campaign contrasted himself with Alberto Fujimori, who is of Japanese Peruvian descent, by emphasizing his indigenous heritage, which in this case stood for populism and for national authenticity. In elections in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, race has similarly played a key role in elections.¹²

Hugo Chavez, the controversial president of Venezuela, has used race to his advantage to increase his support among the poor black and indigenous people in Venezuela.¹³ Commenting on the virulence of opposition to Chavez, Richart Gott asserts that “[o]nly a racism that dates back five centuries—of the European settlers towards their African slaves and the country's indigenous inhabitants—can adequately explain the degree of hatred aroused. Chavez—who is more black and Indian than white, and makes no secret of his aim to be the president of the poor—is the focus of racist rage.”¹⁴

Other transformations in the landscape will help spur these movements. James Vreeland has highlighted how market “reforms” help decide winners and losers in Latin America.¹⁵

In places as disparate as Cuba, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, the high prices that accompany privatization of electricity and water companies have hurt many poor black and Indian communities. This injury has spurred protest across Latin America. Even in socialist Cuba, whose economy is in part dependent upon foreign tourism and remittances from white émigrés, the unequal flow of remittances has created discontent among Afro-Cubans.¹⁶ The youths' embrace of cultural forms like hip-hop has further racialized debates on the island.¹⁷ President Fidel Castro is aware that the international tide is changing, and, while not offering reparations, he supported the spirit of calls for reparations at the World Conference on Racism in 2001.¹⁸ Castro will not be around forever. Greater openness in the Cuban system—a likely outcome of his passing—along with growing racial inequality, will cast Afro-Cubans as a significant and strong pressure group in the Cuban polity.¹⁹

Migration and globalization. Domestic forces are not the only forces that will shape Latin American racial politics. Globalization has intensified migration across the hemisphere. While transnationalism and immigration are deeply explored phenomena in sociology and anthropology, political scientists are only now catching up.²⁰

The two largest groups currently coming to the United States are Dominicans and Mexicans. Dominicans, who generally reject the idea of themselves as blacks on the island, are socialized into a very different racial system in the United States, where their dark skin and obviously African features mark them as “black.” The continued flows of Dominicans to and from the island and their experience of racialization in the United States have intensified debates about race and racism in the Dominican Republic.

I have argued elsewhere that racial events both domestically and internationally can transform racial politics.²¹

Incidents in the 2004–5 international football season have changed the European dialog on race and have further set in motion the racialization of football players and, in particular, black Brazilian players. In one incident, an Argentine player was caught on tape making racist remarks to a black Brazilian player on the field. After the game, the Argentine player was arrested and charged with racist insults. The insult marked the Brazilian player as black in a country where, traditionally, money and stature has whitened. Attacks against African, Brazilian, and Afro-European players across the entire European Union have become so frequent that Nike launched a campaign against racism in football, issuing interlinked white and black rubber bracelets with the motto “Stand Up, Speak Up.” Rather than conform to the ideal of mestizaje, or “Brazilian race,” as had been the norm in Brazil, they emphasize that for the most part Brazilian players facing racism are black.

Conclusion. While predictions are risky, I am willing to say that race will play an increasingly prominent role in the future of Latin American politics. While students of U.S. and Latin American racial politics have frequently pointed to legal segregation as the catalyst for racial politics, a more global point of view and consideration of the growth of interest group politics through the support of the state and international NGOs demonstrate that there is no reason to state that the United States will have racial politics and interest groups and Latin American will not. In fact, while the United States retreats from policies to promote racial equality, Latin America during the next decade may look like the United States did in the early 1970s. Eventually, scholars in Latin America, as in the United States, will be struggling to understand the transition from “protest to politics” or perhaps studying concepts like “linked fate” among black and indigenous peoples.²²