He is the rising star in Hollywood, starring in the latest "Black Panther: Wakanda for ever", Marvel Studios' bet brings together the best black actors in positive roles as kings and warriors, filling Africa with pride.
In his native country, Mexico, Tenoch Huerta embodies the fight against racism and the omnipotence of "whiteness" in the cinema, an environment in which the actor intends to use his fame to change the representation of actors of color often reduced to bad roles and delinquents. In the latest "Black Panther", he plays Namor, the prince of the seas who defies Wakanda. Thus, Huerta enters the closed club of Mexican stars.
For the dark-skinned actor, originally from Ecatepec, a suburb of Mexico City, the road to Marvel Studios was full of obstacles: "Like thousands of dark-skinned people, I was called all sorts of names: 'Indian slum', 'negro', 'dead of hunger'...".
I was called all sorts of names: "Indian slum", "negro", "starving".
"Mexico is a racist country that denies it", he confides in his book published before the release of the film, "Orgullo prieto". The forty-year-old attacks the "myth" of "all mestizo", a "process of cultural assimilation": "This is how the cultural and linguistic diversity of all indigenous nations, Afro-descendant communities, Asians are denied". Throughout the pages, the Diego Luna pair in the series "Narcos Mexico" denounces whiteness.
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Before "Black Panther", Huerta was already one of the figures of the association "Poder Prieto", a collective of actors and actresses who feel they are victims of their origins in the distribution of roles in the film industry.
"We are only given characters of delinquents, domestic workers, or poor people. I am very sad to think that there is not one superhero that our children can identify with," laments Christel Klitbo, 40, a dark-skinned actress.
Aware of "the powerful influence of the media in the intimate and social lives of individuals," Huerta and the others insist on the "imperative need to change racist narratives and practices, which have been normalized, reproduced and perpetuated in the audiovisual industry. His appearance in "Black Panther" can contribute to this, he hopes: "The perception changes if we have these actors with dark skin, of clearly indigenous origin, in a position of power and influence, who are kings and great warriors."
Huerta also calls for changing "the habits and customs" within Mexican families, citing in particular that terrible phrase of parents wanting to marry their daughter to a white man to... "improve the race".
In favor of laws against racism, he did not comment on the policies of the left-wing ruling party Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), which claims to "rehabilitate the dignity of indigenous peoples.
"I believe that the demands of the indigenous peoples have not been met. But this is a subject that does not concern me, because I am not indigenous," he replied Friday to AFP at the presentation of his book. "As a simple external observer, I believe that more and better could be done".
"In Mexico, there are 23.2 million people over the age of three who self-identify as indigenous, which represents 19.4% of the total population," according to a statement from the National Statistics Institute (Inegi) dated August 8, 2022.
In total, 20.7% of Mexicans aged 18 and over declared that they had been discriminated against in the year preceding the first national survey on the subject in 2O17. And three-quarters of the indigenous population feel that they are not valued by Mexican society.
"We are a new link in a chain that dates back 500 years. All the struggles have been the same for 500 years," concludes Tenoch Huerta, referring to the conquest of Tenochtitlan-Mexico by the Spanish in 1521.
Post commissioned by the group askip
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