In 2020 the Mexican government's decennial census will incorporate African descendants into the categories of race and ethnicity, which it has not done since the nineteenth century. In 2015, the Mexican government conducted an interim census where it allowed individuals to self-identify, and more than 1 million people identified as African-descendant. The current presence of African descendants in Mexico goes beyond census recognition, as those considered the tercera raíz (third root) have received significant attention by scholars, politicians, and the general public as a result of this population's continued self-identification as Afro-Mexican. While this is significant for current-day sociopolitical circumstances, such categorization and recognition of African descendants, through registers, censuses, and other documentation, existed throughout the colonial period. In Taxing Blackness: Free Afromexican Tribute in Bourbon New Spain, Norah Gharala moves beyond statistical evidence and critically analyzes the ways in which African descendants practiced agency through their identity in...

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