Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Black In Latin America

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Black In Latin America: ...The most important question that this book attempts to explore is this: what does it mean to be 'black' in these countries? Who is considered 'black,' and under what circumstances, and by whom in these societies, the answers to which vary widely across Latin America in ways that will surprise most people in the United States. As my former colleague, the Duke anthropologist Randy Matory, recently put this to me: 'Are words for various shades of African descent in Brazil, such as mulattoes, cafusos, pardos, morenos, pretos, negros, etc., types of 'Black people,' or are pretos and negros just the most African-looking people in a multi-directional cline of skin-color-facial feature-hair texture combinations?' And how does wealth or class enter the picture? Matory asks.