Paper short abstract:

We aim to explore Latin-American anti-Semitism through history and discourse. We will bring forward some defining features of this kind of racism in Mexico, so to explore the national and regional resistances that prevent to recognize this particular type of ethnico-racial discrimination

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to explore Latin-American anti-Semitism through history and discourse. Focusing on the Mexican case and its specific exposure to the state's Mestizophile ideology and its refusal to acknowledge racism, we will bring forward some defining features of this kind of racism, anti-Semitism, invested with a notorious historical density (Wieviorka 2005). Anti-Semitism displays violence without being closely related to social class or a structuring logic. Twentieth-century anti-Semitism in Mexico is connected with local migratory policies vis-à-vis Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime (Gleizer 2011). It has seemed to us that hate speech bridges ideological differences from extreme right nationalism in the 1930's and left-wing anti-Zionism in recent decades. Even though physical violence erupts only in few cases, anti-Semitism in Latin America has been used a discourse device to legitimize prejudices, even with state's support as is the case today in Venezuela.

From this perspective, our paper tries to answer some questions raised at this panel: What are the national and regional resistances that prevent to recognize this particular type of ethnico-racial discrimination? How are political strategies limited when it comes to fight racial injustice?