Miguel Valerio

Mexico

Miguel is a scholar of the African diaspora in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. He teaches courses in Afro-colonial culture and contemporary Afro-Latin American literature and culture. His research has focused on black Catholic brotherhoods or confraternities and Afro-creole festive practices in colonial Latin America, especially Mexico and Brazil. His research has appeared in various academic journals, including Slavery and Abolition, Colonial Latin American Review, The Americas, and the Journal of Festive Studies. He is the author of Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539-1640 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and a co-editor of Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Colonial Latin America: Negotiating Status through Religious Practices (Amsterdam University Press, 2022).

Contributions

Race Beyond Borders

Black Royalty and Joy in Latin AmericaBlack Royalty and Joy in Latin America

Miguel Valerio, our guest in this episode of Race Beyond Borders, invites us into a journey across Latin America – beginning in the Dominican Republic, all the way to Mexico. He reflects on his experiences of being read and raced differently across the region and becoming aware of who he is as a product of history. An historian of Black royalty in Mexico in the 1600s, Valerio draws connections between historical expressions of Black resistance, sovereignty and joy, and the formation of Mexico. In the episode, he discusses both this rich history and the ongoing struggles for Black political inclusion across Latin America.