"La Negrita"

Recently in the United States, the popular “Aunt Jemima” syrup changed its brand name to “The Pearl Milling Company”. This controversial change was due to the racist stereotype from which this original brand name came from. While many saw Aunt Jemima as a friendly, homely African American woman of the past, in reality there was no Aunt Jemima. Instead, the name was appropriated from a blackface character, and is based on the “Mammy” stereotype. In reality, the recipe comes from a woman named Nancy Green, who never received credit for her contributions. I think in America, we see “cancel-culture” as predominantly American, so I was surprised to learn that Perú was going through a similar crisis.

A brand of vanilla, originally called “La Negrita”, has recently rebranded in order to become more inclusive and conscientious. In Pisac, Professor Falconí pointed this out  at the store within the hotel we stayed at. There, we were able to see both types of vanilla. The original, “La Negrita” had an image of a black woman on it, similar to the image of “Aunt Jemima”. This change caused reactions of all kinds, as the vanilla has been around for 60 years and is a staple across Peruvian households. For some, the original branding cast a positive light on black culture across Perú. For others, this was a necessary change to combat systemic racism and stereotypes across Perú. Personally, I think this change was an important proactive step for Perú. Oftentimes in the United States, just like with Aunt Jemima, we wait until people call out racism and then take steps to fix it, rather than taking responsibility proactively. These sort of changes to me feel fake, and as if companies only pretend to care but in reality only want to escape public criticism. Altering this name prior to real backlash feels more authentic, as if the company genuinely cares about combating racism. I find it very interesting to compare these cultural phenomena between Perú and the United States, and hope to see more in the next couple weeks!