Tenoch Huerta Mejía is soaring. Since starring in the superhero epic Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the Mexican actor has been trending for dancing with Lupita Nyong'o and going viral for his critique of Latine representation in media. “In Latin America, especially Mexico, we have a lack of representation. If you turn on the TV, all the people are white. Mexico looks on the TV like a Scandinavian country," he said in an interview with NBC News — and he’s not wrong.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS.
Portrayals of Latines — both in Latin America and in the United States — are overwhelmingly (and violently!) white. This is by design. For generations, entertainment media has invisibilized and/or stereotyped Black and Indigenous people with origins across Latin America, just as its Spanish and mestizo white supremacist leaders have done in this region throughout history. This is why seeing the brown-skinned Huerta playing a Maya-inspired antihero is so powerful — and it’s also why it’s not surprising to me that it took U.S. Black entertainment, not Latine media, to tell dignified stories of Indigeneity in a major motion picture.
"It’s not surprising to me that it took U.S. Black entertainment, not Latine media, to tell dignified stories of Indigeneity in a major motion picture." -Dash Harris
In the Marvel film, Huerta plays the feathered serpent God K’uk’ulkan, or Namor “to his enemies,” a character with both Maya and Aztec influences. His underwater kingdom, Talokan, came into existence after Spanish-invading colonizers decimated the Yucatán peninsula with disease. For the actor, the role isn’t important because it’s a representation of Latinidad but rather because it reflects the people, lands, and cultures that the colonization and hegemony that created Latinidad tried to eradicate. “To give this background to Namor, the Mesoamerican culture, especially Maya culture, they nailed it,” he said.
As a historian and educator, I can see how this superhero tale reflects real life. In a history class that I teach with Javier Wallace through AfroLatinx Travel called “Mexico and Texas Entanglements,” we go over Mexico’s white supremacist racial goals in collaboration with the U.S. We cite the casta wars that cut the Indigenous population of the Yucatán peninsula by half, left Indigenous Maya and Yaqui people landless and enslaved by the white and mestizo ruling classes, and jailed or deported Maya people to Cuba and Puerto Rico to labor in sugarcane fields. Like these Indigenous communities, hundreds of thousands of African people were also on the Yucatán peninsula during this time, outnumbering the Spanish. Namor’s rage in Wakanda Forever hearkened to the real past of Spanish subjugation of African and Indigenous peoples that informs the present and the long-ongoing resistance to it.
It’s clear that Huerta knows this history, too. Throughout his career, he has spoken about the race and color hierarchy that exists in Latin America. In his forthcoming book, “Orgullo Prieto,” Huerta describes himself as a “prieto resentido,” a resentful dark one. It is a play on a phrase that Latin Americans who benefit from racism say to minimize the grievances of subordinated Black and Indigenous communities, yet it took other so-called “prietos” to open up space for Indigeneity to be seen on the Marvel big screen.
"The role isn’t important because it’s a representation of Latinidad but rather because it reflects the people, lands, and cultures that the colonization and hegemony that created Latinidad tried to eradicate."
When Black Panther premiered in 2018, many non-Black Latines bemoaned, “when will Latinos get their superhero?” But for Black Latines like myself, Black Panther was the superhero film that “Latines were waiting for” — Black Latines. In both the U.S. and in Latin America, Black people dressed up, lined up, and showed out for the movie. It was a chance to see ourselves in ways unbinded to normalized anti-Black tropes. And now, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has given way to Indigenous world-making.
We chatted with Black and Indigenous Latin Americans and Latines about how they felt after watching Wakanda Forever and why they believe Black entertainment accomplished what Latine media has failed — and refused — to do: represent Indigenous communities in Latin America with nuance, care, and veracity.
"It took a Black writer with a social justice lens to integrate this character of Namor and humanize their stance." -Evelyn Alvarez
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