Jorge Medina Barra (; 24 April 1968 – 23 November 2022) was a Bolivian civil rights activist and politician who served as a member of the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

from

La Paz La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the third-most populous city in Bol ...

, representing its special indigenous circumscription from 2010 to 2015. Raised in the Afro-Bolivian community of the tropical Yungas region, Medina became active in the Afro civil rights movement after moving to the city of

. He was a founding member of the Afro-Bolivian Saya Cultural Movement and co-founded the Afro-Bolivian Center for Integral and Community Development, two organizations dedicated to promoting public and state recognition of Afro cultural identity. Having succeeded in securing the inclusion of Afro-Bolivians in the 2009 Constitution, Medina was later elected to represent La Paz's minority indigenous peoples in the Chamber of Deputies, becoming the first Afro-Bolivian to serve in either chamber of the Bolivian legislature.

Early life and career

Jorge Medina was born on 24 April 1968 to Paulino Medina and Sergia Barra, an Afro-Bolivian family from the rural community of Chijchipa in the La Paz Department's agricultural Nor Yungas Province. Medina completed his primary schooling in the nearby town of Tocaña before moving with his parents to

Caranavi Caranavi is the capital of the Caranavi Province in the Yungas region of Bolivia. On 23 December 2009, part of the province was detached from the municipality of Caranavi to become the municipality of Alto Beni.Alto Beni, where he attended the city's Martín Cárdenas School. After graduating in 1988, Medina moved to the city of

to pursue college education; he studied

business administration Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...

at the Higher University of San Andrés and took courses in

systems engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinki ...

at the University of Aquinas. In the ensuing years, Medina worked a number of odd jobs, spending six years as a chauffeur for the Golden Eagle Mining Company before being employed as a mechanic at a local workshop and later as a laborer for a nearby paper company. He also spent short stints as an employee at

YPFB Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) is a Bolivian state-owned enterprise dedicated to the exploration, exploitation, refining, industrialization, distribution and commercialization of oil, natural gas and derived products. It ...

and the

Ministry of Labor The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...

Activism and organizational leadership

Medina's entry into the Afro-Bolivian civil rights movement was precipitated by his early experiences residing in La Paz, a city "devoid of Afro-Bolivians...

here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a ...

it was not uncommon for other Bolivians to be oblivious to the existence of black people". Recognition of the Afro-Bolivian population was niche, limited in academia to Western scholars studying the

African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were ...

. Their presence in public often promoted

racial discrimination Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...

, including physical harassment, due to the superstitious belief that pinching a black person would bring good luck. "It was 'lucky negro'; they surrounded us... and fought among themselves over who saw us first", Medina recalled. Starting from the late 1980s, Medina became active in promoting the '' saya'', a style of Afro-Bolivian folk songs mixed with drums, which the Afro movement had begun using to generate cultural visibility. During this time, Medina also distinguished himself as a popular ''saya'' composer and performer in his own right, writing the songs "Flor de Alelí", "Ser Líder de un Grupo", and "Guarachera de Cuba", among others. Along with other activists, Medina founded the (MOCUSABOL) in 1988, which became one of the country's leading Afro-Bolivian civil rights and awareness organizations. He served as vice president and later president of the body for five years between 1999 and 2004. Despite MOCUSABOL's successes in spreading the ''saya'' popularity, Medina soon grew frustrated with the growing perception that Afro-Bolivians were just "the negros who dance". "That made me angry because we are not only good at dancing we can do other things", he stated. In 2006, together with

Marfa Inofuentes Marfa Inofuentes Pérez (1969–2015) was an Afro-Bolivian activist involved in the Constitutional reform movement to recognize black Bolivians as an ethnic minority in the country. After achieving the goal for Afro-Bolivians to be protected und ...

, Medina founded the Afro-Bolivian Center for Integral and Community Development (CADIC), of which he served as executive director. The organization actively worked to advance Afro-Bolivian

civil and political rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...

, taking a leading role in attaining state recognition of the Afro community during the 2006–2007 Constituent Assembly, which was then redrafting the

Bolivian constitution The current Constitution of Bolivia ( es, Constitución Política del Estado; literally, the ''Political Constitution of the State'') came into effect on 7 February 2009 when it was promulgated by President Evo Morales, after being approved in ...

. By the end of the process, CADIC was successful in securing the same

minority rights Minority rights are the normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities, and also the collective rights accorded to any minority group. Civil-rights movements ...

for Afro-Bolivians as those granted to the country's indigenous peoples.

Chamber of Deputies

Election

With minority groups increasingly encouraged to participate in politics, Medina was nominated to contest a seat in the

on behalf of the Movement for Socialism. Given the offer, Medina recalled stating, "

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

is president of the United States; why should an Afro not be able to be in parliament here in Bolivia". He ran to represent the La Paz Department's newly-created special rural native indigenous circumscription—an innovation of the 2009 Constitution—a district with constituents comprising the department's Afro-Bolivian, Araona, Kallawaya, Leco, Mosetén, and Tacana peoples. He received one of the highest vote shares of the entire election cycle, winning nearly ninety-two percent of the popular vote, becoming the first Afro-Bolivian in history to serve in either chamber of the Legislative Assembly.

Tenure

As a parliamentarian, Medina was instrumental in drafting what became the Law Against Racism and All Forms of Discrimination. Promulgated by President

Evo Morales Juan Evo Morales Ayma (; born 26 October 1959) is a Bolivian politician, trade union organizer, and former cocalero activist who served as the 65th president of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019. Widely regarded as the country's first president to c ...

in October 2010, the new legislation imposed varying penalties for perpetrators of racism and discrimination, identifying Afro-Bolivians as a particularly vulnerable ethnic minority group. In the years following its enactment, the law faced numerous challenges and shortfalls, including difficulty of enforcement and lack of knowledge from both the general public and the judiciary regarding what exactly constitutes a prosecutable offense. According to analyst Henry Stobart, "newspaper reports from 2014 characterized the law as 'not worth the paper it was written on', arguing that there had been no prosecutions, despite the hundreds of complaints received". On the other hand, Professor Sara Busdiecker pointed out that "despite its flaws and limitations to prevent racism outright,

he law He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

has given people pause to think before acting and speaking in some circumstances", producing a "social 'hesitation' of sorts" because "even if ffendersdo not understand all the details, 'they know there is a law'". For his part, Medina echoed that sentiment, stating that the legislation's intention was never to "fill the prisons with those who discriminate" but rather to promote conciliation. For the duration of his tenure, Medina continuously worked to promote the recognition of the Afro-Bolivian population. He facilitated the passage of numerous symbolic laws recognizing Afro culture, including one declaring 23 September to be the National Day of the Afro-Bolivian People and another establishing the ''saya'' as part of the country's

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soc ...

. The 2012 census was held midway through Medina's term, a notable event, as it was the first time the government had ever tabulated the Afro-Bolivian population in its history. Using this data, Medina put forward the concept of creating a majority Afro-Bolivian municipality to give greater electoral representation to its inhabitants, though the concept never got off the ground. Upon the conclusion of his term in 2015, Medina retired from politics and returned to the direction of CADIC.

Commission assignments

* Rural Native Indigenous Peoples and Nations, Cultures, and Interculturality Commission (President; 2011–2012) ** Rural Native Indigenous Peoples and Nations Committee (2010–2011) * Plural Economy, Production, and Industry Commission ** Industry, Commerce, Transport, and Tourism Committee (2012–2013) * Social Politics Commission ** Social Security and Protection Committee (2013–2014) * Planning, Economic Policy, and Finance Commission ** Financial, Monetary, and Insurance Policy Committee (Secretary; 2014–2015)

Personal life and death

Medina married Miriam Iriondo, an ethnic Afro-Bolivian ''saya'' performer from Chulumani in the Sud Yungas Province. The couple had two children: Adin Dube and Malaika, Swahili names meaning "strength and passion" and "angel", respectively. Outside of his work at MOCUSABOL and CADIC, Medina was also active in radio, hosting the talk show ''Raíces Africanas'', which began airing in 2001. In film, he starred as a supporting actor in 2005's '' American Visa''. Medina died on 23 November 2022, aged 54. His passing was commemorated by various Afro-Bolivian organizations and by the Chamber of Deputies.

Electoral history

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *

External links

Deputies profile
Vice Presidency . {{DEFAULTSORT:Medina, Jorge 1968 births 2022 deaths 21st-century Bolivian male actors 21st-century Bolivian politicians Afro-Bolivian people Bolivian composers Bolivian engineers Bolivian folk musicians Bolivian male film actors Bolivian radio presenters Chauffeurs Civil rights activists Higher University of San Andrés alumni Members of the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies from La Paz Movement for Socialism (Bolivia) politicians People from Nor Yungas Province Systems engineers