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Afro-Argentines of Colonial Origin: Afro-Argentine Culture Thus, if the correct use of this term marks difference, it is emphasizing not that they are in Argentina, but rather than they are from Argentina. In other words, they are attempting to explain that theirs is a preexisting population in the country and they are a constitutive part of it, beyond any existence of immigrants, e.g., Black Africans or African Americans (in the broad of sense of ‘American’), such as Senegalese, Nigerians, Cape Verdeans, AfroUruguayans, etc.). This population may have “come off the boats,” and come from Africa, but the slave traders who brought blacks to Argentina brought kidnapped humans, not immigrants.2 Given the general lack of knowledge about our negritude, we must first understand what we mean by the term ‘Afro-Argentine’ and what we are talking about when we reference AfroArgentine music, before launching into any discussion of the music, per se. The ‘Colonial Origin Afro-Argentine’ category is the result of a process of ethno-genetic process initiated by the Misibamba Association, in 2008. It began as a series of objections to the terminology that was employed with reference to this population over a long period of time, since it was obsolete, due to its pejorative semantic load, the result of a historical, separatist rhetoric based on castes (black, mulatto, etc.). The terminology being used had also either fallen into disuse or referenced an outdated class, legal and symbolic status (black, slave, etc.). The terms were vague with regard to what they actually meant, and were historically and culturally inaccurate when considering the process of the African Diaspora in the Americas (e.g., Afro-descendant, Afro, etc.). Statistically, very little is known about this population. The last census that took it into account took place in 1887. Yet, there was a recent effort to obtain approximate figures, through the AfroDescendants Pilot Study that was done between April 6-13, 2005, in the Montserrat (Buenos Aires) and Santa Rosa de Lima (Santa Fe) neighborhoods. The Tres de Febrero National University administered the pilot, with technical support from the National Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC), guidance from African and Afro-Descendant organization in Argentina, and financing from the World Bank. The results showed that 35 of those surveyed considered themselves Afro-descendants (Stubbs & Reyes 2006). The figure was corroborated by a genetic study by a group of biological researchers from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) While focusing on the prefix ‘Afro-‘ to unequivocally signal their origin, the term ‘Argentine’ was added to denote geopolitical location. This was not done without affective purpose given the fact the term would counter new attempts to make them ‘foreign,’ because it forces one to speak of ‘Afro-Argentines.’ This acknowledges the socio-historic, colonial origin of their ancestors. 112