Putting Puerto Rico’s best (black) face forward: Ramón Rivero’s “Diplo” and racialized performances of liberation

Abstract

Ramón Rivero was an immensely popular blackface performer in mid-twentieth-century Puerto Rico known for his character-turned-persona, Diplo. This laughter-inducing negrito created a vehicle for Rivero’s political critiques of US imperialism and humanitarianism. For many in Puerto Rico, this blackface persona was an enactment of Puerto Rican liberation that simultaneously “celebrated” and “included” blackness. In this essay, I draw on three recent performative citations of Diplo’s legacy to consider the lasting effects of blackface performance in Puerto Rico and the complicated racial, cultural and national politics that underlie the continued sanctioning of the racist appropriations through which Rivero gained fame and honor. I elucidate how anticolonial nationhood in Puerto Rico has historically been premised on the disembodiment—and thus dehumanization—of blackness, a practice to which performance gives continued life. Examining Diplo’s performative reappearances allows us to think collectively about the many beloved blackface personae today present in Latinx popular culture.