Pocha Lamadrid

Lamadrid was born on 17 April 1945. She was a fifth-generation Afro-Argentine, a descendant of African slaves brought over to the Río de la Plata during Spanish colonial rule. Her great-great-grandfather was a freedman who had served for Gregorio Aráoz de Lamadrid, from whom he took his name as it was the custom for freed slaves in early 19th-century Argentina. In the 1950s and 1960s, she formed part of the music group Las Mulatas de Ébano ("the Ebony Mulattas"), founded by her aunt, Tina Lamadrid. The group played music with "Afro influences". Later in life, once she had "grown too old, too fat" for showbusiness, she worked as a housekeeper. == Activism ==

Lamadrid founded the NGO "África Vive" in April 1997, after collaborating with a group of researchers from the Inter-American Development Bank looking into the African roots of Argentine society. According to Miriam Gomes, a fellow Afro-Argentine activist and president of Argentina's Sociedad Caboverdeana, it was "having to go out and work at 11 or 12 years old and seeing what happened to our children, to our elderly" that motivated Lamadrid to become an activist. According to Lamadrid, as of 2002 there were "at least 2 million" Argentines of African descent, but many of them ignore their background due to pervasive racism deeply entrenched in Argentine society. In 2002, she became known nationwide when she was subjected to a racist incident at Ezeiza Airport. When trying to board a flight to Panama to take part in a conference, she was detained by an Argentine customs officer who insisted she could not be "Black and Argentine". Lamadrid's activism contributed to the 2010 Argentine national census including a question on Afro-Argentine background. In 2015, she was named a "distinguished personality" of Buenos Aires by the Buenos Aires City Legislature. == References ==