The Mascogo/Black Seminole Diaspora: The Intertwining Borders of Citizenship, Race, and Ethnicity

Abstract

This article presents the case of Mascogos/Black Seminoles, a group with multiple layers of diasporic belonging which originated from the mixture of Maroons and Seminole Indians who are currently dispersed across the Mexico–United States border. It argues that forms of racism are intensified when two different systems of racial and ethnic classification overlap in people’s everyday lives, resulting in dispossession of economic, social, and political rights. The clearest manifestation of these processes of CLASSification is Mascogos/Black Seminoles’ relations of citizenship. Citizenship has been the relation allowing for the institutionalized exclusion of Mascogos/Black Seminoles in Mexico and in the United States, since they have not benefited from political or other forms of recognition. On the contrary, it seems that the strategy has been to erase them as a group in order to avoid the provision of such rights. This article will discuss alternative forms of diasporic citizenship as a means for framing Mascogos/Black Seminoles’ demands for recognition and access to resources.