BlackMexico

I call Paul Strand the stranger because he arrived in Ghana and Mexico as an outsider. He photographed the people of Ghana and Mexico with a simple premise, that the similarities between all humans outweighed any differences. It was this humanism that allowed Paul Strand to capture images that transcended cultural spheres and contributed to lasting impact on the craft of modern photography.

Redes (1936) was a feature film photographed by Paul Stand. It was released as The Wave in the United States to great praise. The film followed a young fisherman forced to organize his townsmen agains the exploitation by wealth hacienda owners and entrenched political interests.

Paul Strand was in Mexico and Ghana at pivotal moments in each nation's history. Strand visited Mexico in the years following the Mexican Revolution, often journeying to parts still in active combat with the State. In Ghana, Strand arrived at the request of President Kwame Nkrumah during the euphoric post independence years. 

I started the BlackMexico blog to create a public space where I could explore and collaborate on the  topic of race and culture in Mexico. I wanted to focus on answering the question of how did the encounter between the people of Mexico and Black diaspora influence the development of the Mexican culture we see today? It was a topic that sparked my interest ever since my senior year of undergraduate study at Cornell University. Now that I created the BlackMexico blog, I have been wrestling with how to engage the material and how to present it on the web. My question is broad and the resources available to me scarce.

(Portrait of young Paul Strand by Alfred Stieglitz)

Throughout South America, the descendants of the millions of slaves brought to the New World by the Spanish and Portuguese still pay homage to the pantheon of their African ancestors, often, albeit, under the identities of Christian saints. This album features their vibrant worship music, drawn from recordings made in Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Musicologist David Lewiston recalls his travels through South America to record this music: