IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 9 ENGLISH | Page 84

marched; Perón appeared in Plaza de Mayo
to deliver a speech more substantial than
the previous one a week ago (Rapoport,
2010: 137-138). This rally against antiPeronism proved that the establishment was
no longer in power.
Peronism, poverty and Blackness
Thusly,
the
unprecedented
mass
demonstration on October 17, 1945, gave
birth to Peronism. A new and decisive stage
in the history of Argentina was open by the
founding pact between the leader and the
people. From there, all massive popular
concentration
had
a
plebiscitary
legitimizing effect for the nascent regime

(Torre, 2002: 33).
Peronism was born as a warning to those
who described the rally as a gesture of
barbarism, in which thousands of sansculottes from various parts of Greater
Buenos Aires came to Plaza de Mayo
bearing the brand of Peronist identity
marked by drums and popular songs
(Solomianski, 2003: 256). The enemies of
this budding movement did not see a
popular feast, but a portrait of barbarism
against the status quo. And the word black
surfaced in this context to name these
popular sectors that became very visible in
the City of Buenos Aires.

The demonstration on October 17, 1945, culminated at Plaza de Mayo and the
demonstrators cooled themselves at the fountain.
The historical study of the working
class in twenty-century Argentina
omitted the dimension of skin color,
while the elite building the nation
claimed the indisputable Whiteness and
Europeanism of the people. Thus, the
disappearance of the Africans or, at
most, their minimal presence without
specific weight in society, was raised
since the late nineteenth century to
cement the idea of no legacy in the
present. The melting pot theory
explained how the perfectly white
Argentina was created, but about 5% of
its population is of African

descent.
Being colloquially branded as black and
having a dark skin are interpreted as
signs of non-European origin, but they
are also indicators of a rather low social
status, marginalization, and negative
consideration (Adamovsky, 2013: 8789; Frigerio, 2008: 63, 66-67; Picotti,
1998: 42, 79; Solomianski, 2003: 16).
As Yrigoyen´s years ago, Perón's
followers were dismissed as blacks
associated with an alleged barbarity.
The purpose was to justify their innate
inability to exercise their

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