Mestiza Double Consciousness: The Voices of Afro-Peruvian Women on Gendered Racism

In this article, the author proposes a confluence of W. E. B. Du Bois's “double consciousness” (1903/1982) and Gloria Anzaldúa's “mestiza consciousness” (1989) to analyze the experiences of three Afro-Peruvian women. The merging of double and mestiza consciousness is necessary to holistically understand how gendered racism shapes their lives and why they have a desire to forge transnational solidarity with other women in the African Diaspora of the Americas. By gendering double consciousness and expanding mestiza consciousness beyond the United States and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, we can better understand how women's agency plays a role in what the author refers to as mestiza double consciousness.