Move Back
![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__3_]()
In this June 21, 2013 photo, black pallbearers carry a coffin during a burial in Lima, Peru. It is not a profession chosen by Limaâs blacks but is rather thrust upon them by a lack of opportunity, say Afro-Peruvian scholars. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__1_]()
In this May 11, 2013 photo, the reflection of black pallbearers Hertor Fano, center, Victor Rivas, right, and Victor's nephew Alex Rivas, cover the window of a hearse as they work at a funeral in Lima, Peru. Blacks routinely bear the caskets of ex-presidents, mining magnates and bankers to their tombs in Lima. The peculiar tradition exists neither in provicinal Peruvian cities nor in other Latin American countries with significant black populations such as Brazil, Panama and Colombia. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__14_]()
In this July 2, 2013 photo, Hector Fano, the leader of a black pallbearer group, fixes his car that broke down as his team commutes to a job at a funeral in Lima, Peru. It is not a profession chosen by Limas blacks but is rather thrust upon them by a lack of opportunity, say Afro-Peruvian scholars. Beyond the question of racism or prejudice, I think it is simply a question of employment - there are so few options, said Jose Campos, a leading Peruvian black studies scholar and vice rector of the National Education University. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__2_]()
In this May 13, 2013 photo, Ivan Rivas shaves as he prepares for his work as a pallbearer at a funeral in Lima, Peru. Blacks routinely bear the caskets of ex-presidents, mining magnates and bankers to their tombs in Lima. The peculiar tradition exists neither in provicinal Peruvian cities nor in other Latin American countries with significant black populations such as Brazil, Panama and Colombia. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__6_]()
In this May 13, 2013 photo, black pallbearer Ivan Rivas carries a coffin as he works at a funeral in Lima, Peru. Rivas, 60, said he ended up in the job after being laid off from a soft drink factory where he was a cook and then losing a job as a security guard at a school when it went bankrupt and closed. There was nothing left for me than to be a casket carrier. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__7_]()
In this July 2, 2013 photo, black pallbearers, Hector Fano, right, Armando Arguedas, center, and Ivan Rivas, wait to load a coffin at a funeral home in Lima, Peru. For 61-year-old Armando Arguedas, who like his fellow pallbearers never finished elementary school, its simply a job. Some people are friendly, he says of those who employ him. Some dont even say thank you. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__9_]()
In this May 5, 2013 photo, black pallbearer Alex Rivas waits to work at a funeral in Lima, Peru. Alex works alongside two of his uncles on the same group of pallbearers. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__8_]()
In this May 5, 2013 photo, black pallbearers carry a coffin during a funeral in Lima, Peru. The tradition of hiring black pallbearers reflects problems in the entire region with descendants of Africans who have no space in public life or ways of advancing in the economy or politically, said Tanya Hernandez, a professor at Fordham University in the United States and author of the book Racial Subordination in Latin America. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__10_]()
In this June 21, 2013 photo, black pallbearers leave the cemetery after carrying the coffin for a burial in Lima, Peru. In 2009 the government of then-President Alan Garcia issued a public apology to Afro-Peruvians for a racist tradition of colonial slavery - largely in cane fields - for which they never received reparations. A year later, his government suggested Lima funeral homes stop employing blacks exclusively as pallbearers. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__11_]()
In this May 13, 2013 photo, black pallbearer Ivan Rivas peers from behind the door of a hearse after loading a coffin during a funeral in Lima, Peru. Lima has about 50 pallbearers, organized into teams, and each man earns $5 per burial. They are contractors, not funeral home employees. Hired on a per-job basis, they receive no benefits. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__13_]()
In this June 7, 2013 photo, Armando Arguedas dresses before working a funeral in Lima, Peru. Lima has about 50 pallbearers, organized into teams, and each man earns $5 per burial. They are contractors, not funeral home employees. Hired on a per-job basis, they receive no benefits. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__5_]()
In this June 10, 2013 photo, black pallbearer Victor Rivas eats a sandwich before attending to a funeral in Lima, Peru. Blacks routinely bear the caskets of ex-presidents, mining magnates and bankers to their tombs in Lima. The peculiar tradition exists neither in provicinal Peruvian cities nor in other Latin American countries with significant black populations such as Brazil, Panama and Colombia. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru]()
In this June 6, 2013 photo, recently washed white shirts and gloves, worn by black pallbearers, dry in the garden of the leader of a group of pallbearers in Lima, Peru. Blacks are all but absent from Perus business and political elite and although slavery was abolished in 1854. Only about 2 percent of Perus blacks go to college and census-takers dont even count them. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__4_]()
In this July 2, 2013 photo, a group of black pallbearers eat lunch before working at a burial in Lima, Peru. Black pallbearers are a legacy, historians say, of the concentration in Lima of the bulk of Spains colonial nobility in the Americas, a segment of the population that routinely had a sizeable retinue of house slaves. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)![Pallbearers_Lima_Peru__12_]()
In this June 29, 2013 photo, black pallbearers dress before working at a funeral in Lima, Peru. Estimated to account for no more than 10 percent of Perus 29 million people, Afro-Peruvians are consigned largely to manual labor including as field hands in sugar cane plantations along the nations Pacific coast. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)Lima's Pallbearers Predominantly Black
Blacks routinely bear the caskets of ex-presidents, mining magnates and bankers to their tombs in Lima.
Move Forward
- Lima's Pallbearers Predominantly Black
