Blacks in Argentina — officially a few, but maybe a million (San Francisco Choronicle)

Ruthie Ackerman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Buenos Aires — Maria Lamadrid, an Afro-Argentine, vividly recalls the day when her country’s immigration authorities prevented her from boarding a plane for Panama, demanding she present them with a “real passport.”

“They told me, ‘This can’t be your passport. There are no blacks in Argentina,’ ” she said of the 2001 incident.

The authorities at Ezeiza International Airport had no idea that the woman they detained for six hours is the president of Africa Vive, or “Africa Lives,” a prominent black rights group in Buenos Aires.

Lamadrid, who is in her mid-50s, founded the organization in 1996 to combat poverty, lobby for jobs and educational opportunities in the black community and raise awareness of African culture and history in South America’s “whitest” nation. About 97 percent of Argentina’s 39 million inhabitants describe themselves as white. (more…)

Extras:

Here is a brief history of the Afro-Argentine press and the African presence in Argentina.

Yahoo Group: AfroArgentine Club

Documentary: AfroArgentines