Oaxaca's Afro-Mexican Communities Get a Festival of Their Own

Twelve delegations brought music, masked dancers and coastal traditions to Oaxaca’s first Afro Guelaguetza on Monday, giving Afro-Mexican communities a festival of their own instead of just a place within the state’s broader celebration. Officials said those communities had long lacked recognition. Called La Rejunjuneada, the event took place in Chacahua Isla, a Pacific coast community with a predominantly Afro-descendant population.

A Stage of Their Own

La Rejunjuneada means loosely “the get-together.” It unfolded in the Costa Chica, the coastal region spanning Oaxaca and Guerrero, a historic heartland of Afro-Mexican culture. Before the performances, a procession moved along the lagoon and through local streets. Then delegations took the stage beside Chacahua Lagoon.

The festival marked Oaxaca’s Afro-Mexican People’s Day, an Oct. 19 observance established in 2013. Its dedicated platform matters alongside the better-known July Guelaguetza, which features traditions from across the state. Afro-Mexican communities already take part in that festival, but La Rejunjuneada placed their traditions at the center of a separate celebration.

Collantes, an Afro-Mexican town on Oaxaca’s coast, sent its Dance of the Devils delegation to July’s festival. At La Rejunjuneada, two communities presented interpretations of the Dance of the Devils, described as a highly representative expression of Afro-Mexican culture. Dancers wore horned masks. They stomped and leapt to the music. The host delegation opened with the Fandango de Varitas, while another community performed the Turtle Dance.

Recognition, Then Rights

Oaxaca Gov. Salomón Jara Cruz said recognition of communities’ histories must also translate into rights, justice and opportunities. That statement takes the question beyond official visibility: a stage can recognize a community’s culture, while rights and opportunities remain the measure the governor himself named.

Villa de Tututepec Mayor Eder Muñoz Peña described the municipality’s Chatino, Mixtec and Afro-Mexican roots, saying the celebration represented historical justice as well as cultural pride. The municipality’s layered roots were part of the account of the festival, not a claim that one community’s history stands alone.

Enid Azucena Torres Agustiniano also took part. This summer, she became the first Afro-Mexican woman chosen as Goddess Centéotl, the main Guelaguetza’s cultural ambassador. Her role connects the new event to the larger statewide festival, where Afro-Mexican traditions have had a place but, until now, haven’t had their own dedicated Guelaguetza.

Who Gets Counted

Mexico’s 2020 census found that 8.6% of Guerrero residents and 4.7% of Oaxaca residents identified as Afro-Mexican or Afro-descendant, compared with 2% nationwide, according to figures from Conapred, the federal anti-discrimination agency. Those figures show the scale of the communities represented at the festival and the official acknowledgment that they had long lacked recognition.

The account describes a procession, community delegations and performances; it doesn’t report mutual-aid efforts, a grassroots organizing campaign, or a legislative or electoral proposal. Nor does it describe services delivered by an NGO. What it records is a cultural gathering organized around Afro-Mexican traditions, alongside officials’ statements about historical justice, rights and opportunities. The festival gives those traditions their own stage. The demands named by Oaxaca’s governor reach beyond it.