Migration, Racism, and Humor: Stereotypes of the Andean Migrant in the Comic Strips of Oligarchic Peru

Abstract

This thesis studies how stereotypes about the Andean migrant were reproduced and strengthened in the context of mass migration in Lima during the 1950s. To this end, we propose comics as a cultural artifact that allows us to understand the racist discourses of the time. In this sense, we have studied comics during their first ten years of publication, which coincided with oligarchic Peru. We have highlighted—from the concept of ethnicity—those cartoons that express a stereotype based on the intentional distortion of culture. Thus, the cartoon Serrucho conveyed the racist perception of Lima and the stereotypes imposed on the Andean migrant. These distorted their cultural characteristics, such as customs, tastes, habits, behavior, and morals, which led to the creation of an immovable and unalterable image of what a migrant was supposed to be.