Oswaldo Bilbao, the Peruvian awarded as global champion against racism by the United States

“Congratulations Mr. Bilbao, you have been chosen by the Department of State as one of the six champions against racism worldwide,” announced the ambassador of USA in Peru, Lisa Kenna, through a Zoom video call. On the other side of the screen, connected from Ecuador, where he had gone to participate in a regional summit, the Afro-Peruvian activist Oswaldo Bilbao Lobatón was not surprised by him.

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The last thing he imagined when his wife, Lilia, told him that he had to connect to a video call, was that he would receive an award of that level. Bilbao also did not know that during the last weeks, Lilia had been responding to requests from the staff of the US embassy in Lima that she wanted to know more about her 30-year career.

Still stunned, he just thanked for the recognition, agreed to send the documents requested and closed the video call. He wanted to explode with joy, call his mother, Lilia and her two children, Sandro and Renato, to tell them what had happened. But the request to keep the subject under wraps limited him to just telling his wife.

“I called my mom when she was already in the United States, to tell her what day she could go to the embassy to see the ceremony. And my children found out a day before the award ceremony”, reminds Trade sitting in his office at the Center for Ethnic Development (CEDET), in the heart of Breña.

But suddenly, joy became a huge weight on her shoulders. “You begin to reflect on what you have done, but also to look at the responsibility that the award implies. It is both political and representational. I do not represent the Afro-Peruvian people, I am not the ambassador of the Afro-Peruvians, I am just a member of the community that is fighting. This recognition is for all Afro-Peruvian activists who have been carrying out actions for the good of their community. So, on the one hand, you feel that there are many people who deserve it more than you, but on the other, you’re also glad you didn’t throw in the towel.”, he confesses.

While Bilbao contemplated the closed laptop on his desk, the story of his life began to pass through his mind. Step by Step. He remembered the small house made of mats where he lived as a child, in the San Gabriel neighborhood, in Villa María del Triunfo. He also remembered the Nuevo Horizonte Group, that initiative that he had at the age of 14 together with 15 friends his age and in which they organized sporting and cultural events to prevent other young people in the neighborhood from being seduced by terrorism. .

He could not forget how after finishing his studies he had to work as a field worker in the Ministry of Agriculture. “I remember that a few days after I arrived they took me to an office and I started working as head of personnel, most of them were indigenous and poor people. I felt very identified with them. I worked there for almost 14 years, but I never broke away from racial activism”, he narrates.

In 1991, when a state restructuring led him to leave the ministry, he went in search of the Francisco Congo Black Movement (MNFC), the first Afro-Peruvian political organization and in which Bilbao decided that his life would be totally dedicated to activism.

The following year he was in charge of organizing the first meeting of black communities, which brought together more than 100 representatives from all over Peru.

Over time, it has become a member of the International Coalition for the Defense, Conservation, Protection of Territories, Environment, Land Use and Climate Change of Afro-descendant Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean; a specialist in social development for Afro-descendant populations, he founded the Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants of the Americas and the Caribbean; and became executive director of CEDET.

To date, Bilbao continues its tireless struggle, promoting the political participation of the Afro-Peruvian community and ensuring its rights. “Since the world is world there are problems. If it is your turn to face them, you must do so and not be afraid of them. If one does not fight, we will continue to live in a world of inequities, of people who feel superior to others.”, he assures.

Bilbao has dedicated more than 30 years of his life to racial activism. The fight for rights and the interest in the well-being of his community have been a priority since he was a child, he assures him. (MARIO ZAPATA / COMMERCE /)

Together with Bilbao, the State Department chose Kari Guajajara from Brazil, Rani Yan Yan from Bengali, Saadia Mosbah from Tunisia, Sarswati Nepal from Nepal and Victorina Luca from Moldova as global champions.

The election, as they explained to Bilbao, consisted of each US embassy in the world sending a candidate from the country in which it was located, the profile went through a filter in the State Department itself and subsequently six stories were chosen. It is the first time that the United States Government makes this award, the same one that is framed in “an ambitious plan” to promote racial equity, according to the US Secretary of State himself, Antony Blinken.

Once the documents were sent and the program protocols were complied with, Bilbao traveled to Washington the first week of August. “The State Department is awesome. The night before the awards, when we did the rehearsal, I was shocked to meet the other champions. Also, he was super nervous. The good thing is that they make everything easy for you“, remember.

Finally, August 9 was the day of the award ceremony. From Lima, Oswaldo’s family watched the broadcast on a monitor installed by the embassy at its diplomatic headquarters. In Washington, the Peruvian was filled with nerves before going on stage. “I had calmed down in the previous meeting. But when it’s your turn to go out, the adrenaline rises again. On top of that I had to go out first. It was very emotional. I only thought that my family was watching me on television. When Secretary Blinken calls you, he congratulates you and shakes your hand, everything you have in mind falls to the ground. It was spectacular, it filled me with satisfaction both for me and for my family and for all those who came before me”, he assures.

The week after the award ceremony, Bilbao and the rest of the champions had a full schedule of meetings with different officials and civil organizations.

Bilbao’s happiness at having received the recognition contrasted with the feeling of responsibility that an award of this level entails. (MARIO ZAPATA / COMMERCE /)

In a 1971 interview with the BBC, boxing legend Muhammad Ali told journalist Michael Parkinson of the time when, after winning a gold medal for the United States at the 1960 Rome Olympics, he returned to his native Louisville and was prevented from eating at a restaurant because he was black.

“Something like this has not happened to me, but that is because Peru is a hypocritical recontra. They don’t tell you not to go in but they look at you as if to say why you’re going in. And sometimes that hurts more. Sometimes you go to a shopping center and you have someone behind you, following you because they think you are going to steal“, the Mint.

For him, the solution to this problem depends on a keyword: visibility. “The Afro-Peruvian collective is not seen as a dynamic collective, it is only seen as a cultural one that dances and sings, but there is a political one that develops actions to defend human rights, to fight against racism. On the other hand, we must stop talking about Peru as a mestizo state because that way you dilute the identity. We must see it as a multiethnic and multicultural State, and start making specific policies“, Explain.

Source: Elcomercio