It's not easy to find information about Mexican blacks: The census does not classify them, the constitution makes no reference to them, and for decades they received only the briefest mention in the nation's history books.

Geography does not do Afro-Mexicans any favours either: Most live along a stretch of the Pacific coast that ranks among the nation's poorest and most isolated regions. Today, many Mexicans are unaware that their black compatriots even exist. Despite this, it did not take long for Fr Glyn Jemmott to find them after arriving in Mexico years ago.

"It was some kind of homing instinct," said the 61-year-old native of Trinidad on a recent Sunday as he manoeuvred his truck over a rutted, dirt road near his adopted hometown in Oaxaca state.

After 13 years in the seminary and studying in Trinidad and Rome, Fr Jemmott came to Mexico in the early 1980s. He worked for a year in the Mexico City neighbourhood of San Angel, with "women coming to church in chauffer-driven cars and wearing white gloves."

He quickly realised that this was not the community he had come to Mexico to serve. He transferred to an indigenous area of Oaxaca, where he heard about pockets of Afro-Mexicans, the descendents of the estimated 200,000 slaves who were brought to Mexico by the Spanish during the colonial era.

Fr Jemmott set out to find these communities. In the process, he also found his life's calling.

In 1984, he began working in Pinotepa Nacional, the largest town on the 250 miles of coast between the resorts of Acapulco and Puerto Escondido. He later moved to El Ciruelo, a nearby village of dusty dirt roads and cinder-block houses and the largest Afro-Mexican community in the area.

For the last 23 years, he has fought for better educational opportunities in the region, where there are virtually no universities or colleges. Even high schools are few and far between.

He has also sought to create awareness of Afro-Mexican heritage, in the hope that black communities can organise and push their needs onto the national agenda, as some indigenous groups have done.

“Africa is palpitating, it is alive in Mexico,” Fr Jemmott told Catholic News Service in an interview in his pastoral residence that doubles as a church while the town's chapel is being rebuilt. His living quarters are accented with African-style art and stocked with dozens of English- and Spanish-language books on black history and culture.

Recent government-funded studies have found that most Mexicans have some African genes -- the genetic footprint of the blacks who blended into the population over centuries.

But while Mexico's national identity is largely founded on the concept of the "cosmic race" of mestizos -- a mix of Spanish and American Indian -- the African contribution has always been downplayed or cut from the equation.

"I think Mexico has tried to convince itself that ... true Mexicans are mestizos, or white-mestizo," Fr Jemmott said. "The Indians are considered Mexicans because, well, they were here first, but Africans are not Mexicans, and many Mexicans believe that."

In addition to the lack of recognition, some Afro-Mexicans say they face discrimination from police who think they are undocumented migrants, or from managers who prefer to hire lighter-skinned employees.

Tirso Salinas, a farmer and musician from El Ciruelo, said he has had to produce his government-issued identification card to prove he is Mexican. He added that he is "black from head to toe" and proud of his colour, and he credits Fr Jemmott with spearheading efforts to promote Afro-Mexican identity.

His neighbour, Adan Banos, a cattle rancher, said he had never thought much about his skin colour until Fr Jemmott came and co-founded, with other regional leaders, an organisation called "Mexico Negro," or Black Mexico.

"At first I was interested, and I wanted to get involved, but my situation doesn't allow it," Banos said while tending to his small herd of dairy cows under the blazing sun. "I can't get too involved because life is too hard."

Relatively speaking, Banos is well off. He earns about $800 monthly for his family and owns a tractor, a truck and an ample plot of grazing land. Most of his neighbours live in far more difficult conditions, working other people's land with a machete for $11 a day. This strenuous work is seasonal and irregular; some families say that at times they survive on little more than tortillas for weeks.

When asked about the area's poverty, some Afro-Mexicans echo the beliefs of the area's non-black residents -- that most blacks are simply lazy and indifferent.

Fr Jemmott named these pervasive views as his most stubborn obstacles, attributing them to centuries of neglect and discrimination.

"If you tell people loud enough and long enough that they're second-rate, part of it becomes internalised," he said.

He added that the road to empowering the community has been rocky.
"When you try to open a window, you find so many doors closed," he said. For instance, he waged an unsuccessful campaign to bring a high school to El Ciruelo.

But perhaps the most difficult moment came in 2005 after a local student beat the odds and earned a scholarship to study at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Fr Jemmott had helped visiting faculty from the college to contact the student, Asuncion Castro Vargas, who wanted to study biology. On Aug 2, 2005, he was heading to Mexico City to interview for his student visa at the US Embassy, but he never arrived; he was killed in an accident on the highway.

"For me that was one of the hardest deaths that I've had to go through, and I've lost close people to me in my life," said Keith Hollingsworth, the Morehouse professor who visited Castro and helped prepare him for school in the United States, including travelling hours away to Acapulco with him to buy suitable clothes. "That was just such a waste, it was just truly a tragedy. He was so excited, it was such a dream of his."

Fr Jemmott is trying to put together a scholarship fund and works on a diocesan commission that promotes "the discovery of Christ in black history and cultural identity." "The Afro-Mexican population does not have -- so far -- leaders who are able to project the voice of the tribe," he said.

But, quietly, the seeds of their identity have been sown. Fr Jemmott recalled recent efforts to get a statue of Our Lady of the Rosary that would reflect the appearance of his community. He ended up getting a European-looking Mary and contacting a local artist to "give this lady a more coastal complexion."

"I took it (to a local chapel) and installed it, and it was interesting to see how certain people liked it in a silent sort of way," he said. "They never asked me, but I felt that they knew she'd been given a bit of makeup." (CNS)