The article analyzes African-descendants in Mexico, especially in the region of Costa Chica, by following their historical tracks and mapping out related key intellectual debates. It also introduces the academic contribution of Afro-Mexican studies in terms of exposing their political and economic marginality. The study reveals that diverse discourses formulating national ideologies such as Mexicanness, mestizaje and racial democracy have traditionally worked to exclude and erase blackness. In addition, it seeks to locate Afro-Mexican immigrants in the U.S. in the broad context of the Afro-diasporic movement as an epistemological and racial bridge between blackness and “mexicanidad”. Ultimately, it argues that the visibility of this population serves to reveal how the national racial ideology of mestizaje and the alleged “post-racial” politics shape racial disavowal in spite of persistent racism.