3 - “Not Only a Question of Humanity”

Summary

Chapter 3 focuses on several initiatives undertaken in the first half of the 1950s to assist the mixed-race children, showing the important role played by ecclesiastical actors in this field, and how one of these actors, who operated in close contact with the Christian Democratic government, envisaged a plan to transfer the children to a South American country once they had received an adequate education. The plan was allegedly motivated by a desire to help the children by moving them to countries where they would not stand out due to the color of their skin. In fact, the priest shared widely held prejudices about the “innate character” of the children. In the end, a newly created quasi-state agency was entrusted with supervising the assistance to the mixed-race children, while trying to distance itself from the racialized discourse about them.