Over at the Thorn Tree a poster asked about neighborhoods around the University of Buenos Aires. I posted this reply:

UBA has separate “campuses” all over the city. On the edge of Recoleta are the medical and business schools. This area is called Facultad de Medicina. There´s a subway stop there and the area is very convenient to a wide part of BsAs. I live in this area and walk just about everywhere that I need to go. From here, it´s about a 25 minute brisk walk from here to Plaza de Mayo. It´s a wonderful area to explore on foot and I recommend it as a good area for living since it´s centrally located. The Abasto shopping mall is also within walking distance or a short taxi ride.

Unless you live in La Boca, or go to futbol games, you probably won´t have much need to ever go there after you made the one obligatory visit to see the one small street of colorful bldgs that is in every tourist guide. However, there are buses that criss-cross the city quite effortlessly for 80 centavos though they do get extremely crowded at certain times of day. There are an incredible number of bus lines in the city. Taxis are plentiful. A taxi from Facultad de Medicina to Puerto Matero runs about 7 pesos; the cost to La Boca wouldn´t be much more.

If you don´t already have a teaching job lined up, then it might be difficult. A lot of people are here doing that, though there seems to be enough turnover that people still find jobs teaching ESL. You should plan to come here with enough money that you can live on for your stay rather than depending upon a job here to support you.

Be aware as poster #1 mentioned that UBA is spread all over town. They have a place that teaches ESL on Av de Mayo and the engineering school is in San Telmo. The large UBA campus (sciences, architecture) is in Nuñez, which can be up to 40 minutes by bus from Facultad de Medicina depending upon traffic; no subway to this location. There are still other UBA places tucked around in various corners of the city.

One of the mysteries of Buenos Aires is that one sees so few people of African descent. A native Porteño told me that there were no blacks in Argentina. And from casual observation on the street that does seem to be the case. However, I know that there was once a slave population in Argentina. So, what happened to them all?

An academic study on this topic is The Afro-Argentine in Argentine Culture by Donald S. Castro.

Afro-Argentines played a more dominant role in Argentine history than many modern-day Argentineans seem to realize. One of the great tango songwriters, Gabino Ezeiza (1858-1916) was Afro-Argentine.

More importantly, the first president of Argentina, Bernardino Rivadavia, was of African descent. That bit of news still come as quite a shock to a lot of Argentines today. Indeed, the paintings of him do not look like someone of African descent but I suspect that his features were lightened as part of the whitewashing in the official Argentine history.

A documentary film from 2002 examines this topic: Afroargentines.

A posting on the Beautiful Horizons blog refers to this topic and points to an article in the Miami Herald that was picked up from the Washington Post news service.

Couple of months back, Clarin published an article that describes a census that is being conducted to determine the number of Argentineans of African descent. According to the article, in 1810 one in three persons in Buenos Aires was of African descent.

My thinking has been that the noticeable decrease has resulted through intermarriage with people of European descent. The Clarin article indicates that one theory is that a large number of Afro-Argentine males died in military service while fighting battles with Indians, Brazil, and Paraguay in the 19th century. This probably left a large female population widowed and single. And, of course, caucasian males (e.g., Thomas Jefferson) often don´t have a problem with mixed race relationship. :-)

I do have to disagree with one theory cited by the Clarin that a large number of Afro-Argentines died during the Yellow Fever outbreaks in Buenos Aires. Yellow Fever epidemics of the 19th century were one of my former research topics in years past. As I recall, people of African descent succumbed to the disease in much smaller numbers due to a type of genetic near-immunity that evolved from exposure to similar diseases in Africa.

Anyway, perhaps the search for the mythical Afro-Argentine is coming to an end.

Update: In late 2006 I’ve started to see more and more people of African descent in certain parts of Buenos Aires. The numbers are not a lot but there are quite a few more, particularly around the southern neighborhoods. From listening to them speak, a few are clearly from Brazil but not all. I wonder if there has been an increase of immigration to Buenos Aires from Africa recently.

I’ve also recently learned of two additional academic studies relating to this topic, both by University of Pittsburgh history professor George Reid Andrews: Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000 and The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900.

There’s a really good blog about a newcomer’s experiences in Argentina over at Expat Argentina. I’ve added it to my Bloglines.