Portraits of San Felix

Afro-Argentine Intangible Heritage

Abstract

In this essay, I try to highlight images and memories of some residents of San Félix, a small village located in the province of Santiago del Estero, in northern Argentina. Currently, the locality has a population of about 200 inhabitants, distributed in 45 families and is characterized by being the only village where all, men and women, are of African descent. There are many gaps when telling the history of this place. In fact, little was told and a lot was hidden, it was part of the whitening process, whose discourse was one of denial and invisibility. There remains as testimony testimonies of oral history, an old record and the tombstones in the cemetery. In 2020, San Félix was declared a Historical, Cultural, Educational and Tourist Heritage of the Nation by UNESCO, after a long struggle in search of recognition. This short essay, far from showing the cultural richness, seeks to build narratives different from the hegemonic account of the Argentine white Euro identity by making visible some inhabitants and their community.