# Afro-Mexicans/African-Mexicans  
The small number of Mexican scholars who have written about the presence of Afrodescendent people in Mexico insist on referring to them as Afro-mestizo. This is a term which clearly signals resistance to any real consideration or acceptance of the true Africanness of the communities. Tellingly, Ben Vinson and Bobby Vaughn assert that  
Mexico is the only Latin American country where some scholars still refer to black people as Afro-mestizo. Although this term would seem to identify a special characteristic of the Mexican "mixing" in the Costa Chica, individuals recognized  
today as blacks do not show more particularities of "mixing" than the rest of the black of the African diaspora. In fact, the tonalities of the skin colour as well as a wide range of phenotypes are the norm amongst African descendants. Therefore, Mexico is not the exception (Vinson III and Vaughn, 2004, p. 257).  
In this discussion the terms Afro-Mexican and African-Mexican are used interchangeably, as a counter to Afro-mestizo, which seeks to advance Mexico's mestizo identity by suggesting that individuals may have black blood, but still do not constitute a separate ethnic Afrodescendent group. Afro-mestizo represents a 'watering down' of the fact that these groups of persons have survived and have not been made more 'Indigenous' than 'Black' due to miscegenation, as official Mexican discourse holds. As an ideological signifier, this term operates within the framework of Indigenismo, the political agenda of favouring indigenous groups in Latin America. In Mexico, as David Carrasco (2001) has argued, official policies and ideologies work to emphasize the importance of Mexico's heritage, even though the policies were intended to improve the conditions of impoverished people. In fact, it has been said that while 'Indigenous groups have received national as well as international attention and support, Afro-Mexican voices have largely gone unheard' (Muhammad, 1995, p. 178).