Race and Class through the Visual Culture of Peronism

EZEQUIEL ADAMOVSKY

Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina

Cambridge University Press

Año: 2016; p. 155 - 183

?Raceand Class through the Visual Culture of Peronism?, en Shades of the Nation: Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina, ed. por EduardoElena y Paulina Alberto, Cambridge University Press, 2016. ISBN978-1-107-10763-2, pp. 155-183 (Publicacióncon referato)Discriminationon ?racial? grounds in the job market and in the political arena can indeed befound throughout Argentina´s history. People of dark complexion and mestizo phenotype tended to profit fromthe worst opportunities, while political movements in which the lower classeshad some presence ?from Federalism of the 19th century to Yrigoyenismand Peronism in the 20th? were discredited as being the expressionof the ?negros?. Despite this reality, lower class politics did not organizeitself along racial differentials or with ethnic demands; on the contrary, thelanguage of resistance was overwhelmingly one of class. Indeed, for most of the20th century demands for racial equality and/or criticism of racismrarely appeared explicitly in the public sphere, which in turn led mosthistorians to consider that there was no ?racial issue? at all in Argentina. Itis the contention of this article that such an issue not only existed but alsoplayed a significant role in lower class identities. Due to the pressure ofhegemonic discourses of the ?white? nation, but also for the constrains oforganizing in a multi-ethnic context, the racial dimension to class differencesremained ?silent?, but nevertheless present in lower class identities. Untilthe late 20th, it manifested itself in rather indirect ways, throughthe use of certain keys and symbols that alluded to the negro/mestizomark. Visual culture was one of the main realms in which this became evident.This article explores the way in which the Argentine people and the lowerclasses were represented through images during the Peronist years. By usingiconic means --from emblems, clothing and placards in demonstrations, tophotographs and illustrations in popular magazines--sometimes combined with thetraditional criollista discourse,peronists managed to allude to the racial issue without having to launch an opendebate against the official discourses of the nation (something that some ofthem only started to do after the coup that ousted Perón in 1955).