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Caribbean Negritos

Ramón Rivero, Blackface, and "Black" Voice in Puerto Rico

Indiana University-Bloomington, yrivero{at}indiana.edu

This article focuses on Ramón Rivero (Diplo), the most famous blackface and "black"-voice actor in Puerto Rico. Through an examination of Cuba’s Bufo theatre tradition, Ramón Rivero’s appropriation of Bufo’s negrito catedráticotype, and a textual analysis of his radio show El tremendo hotel (1948-1956), the article contextualizes the ways in which Rivero’s popularity as a blackface and black-voice performer operated within three intertwined discursive spaces: the translation of Bufo’s negrito catedráticoas a symbol of anticolonialism, the actor’s left-wing nationalist persona and social activism, and the rearticulation of la gran familia puertorriqueña (the wide Puerto Rican family) hegemonic discourse. The article argues that after Rivero’s death, subsequent televisual representations of "Caribbean" negritos during the 1950s and 1960s became racialized figures that reaffirmed the hegemonic "whiteness" not only of the Puerto Rican nation but also of the emerging post-1959 Cuban migrant community in Puerto Rico.

Key Words: blackface • black voice • Bufo theatre • Puerto Rico • Cuba • colonialism

Television & New Media, Vol. 5, No. 4, 315-337 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1527476404268424


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