Sandra Chagas (born August 9, 1964 in Montevideo), sometimes , is an Afro-Diasporica dancer negra Candombera and activist. [1]
Her father (Juan Carlos Chagas) and her mother Santa Hilda Techera (aka Pocha) are Afro-Latino. [1] She was born in Montevideo, Uruguay and moved to Argentina at age 14. Chagas self-describes as a "black woman, lesbian, and feminist." [2]
Chagas is a leader in the Afrocultural Movement (Movimiento Cultural Afro) in Argentina. The movement was created on April 20, 1987, in part to honor the memory of José "Dolphin" Acosta Martinez, also known as José "Delfin." [3] The movement attempts to address racism and anti-blackness in Buenos Aires. [4] [5]
On December 13, 1998 the movement sponsored a parade of candombe drums and dancers in front of the Cabildo de Buenos Aires as part of the Kalakán Güé Project Tribute to Memory to draw attention to the losses and disappearances of persons of African descent. Chagas was one of a group of mothers who participated in the event. [3]
Candombe is a style of music and dance that originated in Uruguay among the descendants of liberated African slaves. In 2009, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inscribed candombe in its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata meaning "River of the Silver", also called "Viceroyalty of the River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in southern South America, was the last to be organized and also the shortest-lived of the Viceroyalties of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. The name "Provincias del Río de la Plata" was formally adopted in 1810 during the Cortes of Cádiz to designate the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
"I Am What I Am" is a song originally introduced in the Broadway musical La Cage aux Folles. The song is the finale number of the musical's first act, and performed by the character of Albin Mougeotte, first played by George Hearn. His version appears on the original cast album released in 1983. The song was composed by Jerry Herman.
Mecha Ortiz was a classic Argentine actress who appeared in films between 1937 and 1981, during the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema. At the 1944 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards, Ortiz won the Silver Condor Award for Best Actress for her performance in Safo, historia de una pasión (1943), and won it again in 1946 for her performance in El canto del cisne (1945). She was known as the Argentine Greta Garbo and for playing mysterious characters, who suffered by past misfortunes in love, mental disorders, or forbidden love. Safo, historia de una pasión was the first erotic Argentine film, though there was no nudity. She also played in the first film in which a woman struck a man and the first film with a lesbian romance. In 1981, she was awarded the Grand Prize for actresses from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Laura Ana "Tita" Merello was an Argentine film actress, tango dancer and singer of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). In her six decades in Argentine entertainment, at the time of her death, she had filmed over thirty movies, premiered twenty plays, had nine television appearances, completed three radio series and had had countless appearances in print media. She was one of the singers who emerged in the 1920s along with Azucena Maizani, Libertad Lamarque, Ada Falcón, and Rosita Quiroga, who created the female voices of tango. She was primarily remembered for the songs "Se dice de mí" and "La milonga y yo".
The Federal League, also known as the League of the Free Peoples, was an alliance of provinces in what is now Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil that aimed to establish a confederal organization for the state that was emerging from the May Revolution in the war of independence against the Spanish Empire.
Afro-Argentines are Argentines of primarily Sub-Saharan African descent. The Afro-Argentine population is the result of people being brought over during the transatlantic slave trade during the centuries of Spanish domination in the region and immigration from Africa.
The term travesti is used in Latin America to designate people who were assigned male at birth and develop a feminine gender identity. Other terms have been invented and are used in South America in an attempt to further distinguish it from cross-dressing, drag, and pathologizing connotations. In Spain, the term was used in a similar way during the Franco era, but it was replaced with the advent of the medical model of transsexuality in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in order to rule out negative stereotypes. The arrival of these concepts occurred later in Latin America than in Europe, so the concept of travesti lasted, with various connotations.
Afro-Uruguayans are Uruguayans of predominantly African descent. The majority of Afro-Uruguayans are in Montevideo.
Spain–Uruguay relations are the current and historical relations between Spain and Uruguay. There is community of 67,000 Spanish nationals residing in Uruguay and 33,000 Uruguayan nationals residing in Spain. Both nations are members of the Association of Spanish Language Academies, Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.
Virginia Bolten (1870–1960) was an Argentine journalist and anarchist feminist activist. An anarchist agitator from an early age, she became a leading figure among the working women of Rosario, organising for the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA) and leading the first women's strike in the country's history. After being recruited into the anarchist movement in Buenos Aires by the Italian anarchist Pietro Gori, she joined some of the country's first anarchist women's organisations and established one of the world's first anarchist feminist periodicals: La Voz de la Mujer.
Alba Roballo was a Uruguayan lawyer, poet, and politician, who served three consecutive terms from 1958 to 1971 in the Senate of Uruguay and a fourth term in the early 1990s. After graduating with a law degree from the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, she began to write. In 1942, her first book, Se levanta el sol, won first prize from the Ministry of Education. Later she founded two journals, Mujer Batllista and El Pregón. In 1954 she became the first woman to sit on the Montevideo Departmental Council and was elected Senator for the Colorado Party. A prominent Afro-Uruguayan, she was the first woman in South America to serve as a cabinet minister, appointed in 1968; she resigned this post following authoritarian actions by the government. She was a founder of the Frente Amplio in 1971 and though she ran for re-election, that year she was defeated.
Olinda Bozán was an Argentine film actress and comedian of the Golden Age of Argentine Cinema (1940–1960). Born into a circus family, she acted on the vaudeville circuit, and performed in silent and sound movies. She was trained by the Podestá brothers, one of whom she married, who have one of the most prestigious Argentine acting awards named for them. Bozán' appeared in 75 films and was considered one of the best comic actors of Argentine cinema in the 20th century.
Rita Lucía Montero was an Argentine theatre, cinema and television actress and singer.
LGBT in Argentina refers to the diversity of practices, militancies and cultural assessments on sexual diversity that were historically deployed in the territory that is currently the Argentine Republic. It is particularly difficult to find information on the incidence of homosexuality in societies from Hispanic America as a result of the anti-homosexual taboo derived from Christian morality, so most of the historical sources of its existence are found in acts of repression and punishment. One of the main conflicts encountered by LGBT history researchers is the use of modern concepts that were non-existent to people from the past, such as "homosexual", "transgender" and "travesti", falling into an anachronism. Non-heterosexuality was historically characterized as a public enemy: when power was exercised by the Catholic Church, it was regarded as a sin; during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was in the hands of positivist thought, it was viewed as a disease; and later, with the advent of civil society, it became a crime.
Isa Soares is a Brazilian-born Argentine dancer and activist involved in creating awareness of the African traditions of Argentina and fighting racism against Afro-Argentine peoples. She was one of the pioneers in developing African dance interpretation and instruction in Argentina.
Mujer contra mujer is the second and final studio album by the pop duo formed by Argentine singers Sandra Mihanovich and Celeste Carballo, released by RCA Records and Sony BMG in October 1990. Mihanovich and Carballo had already developed successful solo careers before joining as a duo. After collaborating on a successful show in the summer of 1987, they decided to record together and released their first studio album as a duo, Somos mucho más que dos, in 1988. Around this time, Mihanovich and Carballo became romantically involved, although not publicly. Their songs included subtle references to lesbian love, and the nature of their relationship caused much speculation in the media. Before forming the duo, Mihanovich already had two popular gay anthems in her repertoire: her 1981 breakthrough single "Puerto Pollensa", and "Soy lo que soy", her 1984 Spanish-language cover of "I Am What I Am".
Lila Guerrero was a Jewish poet, translator, essayist, playwright and literary critic famous for translating numerous Russian and Soviet modern poetry into Spanish.
Felipa Larrea de Larrea was an Afro-Argentine woman, widely considered to be the last surviving African slave from the colonial period in Argentina.
María Magdalena "Pocha" Lamadrid was an Afro-Argentine activist and campaigner. She was the founder of the NGO África Vive, and was a pioneer activist of the Afro-Argentine community.