Alan Malfavon was notified by Dr. Romeo Cruz Velazquez, Director of the Historical Archive and Library of the port-city of Veracruz, that he is being nominated for this year’s Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán Medal, an award given by the IVEC (Instituto Veracruzano de la Cultura/ Veracruz’s Institute of Culture), the cultural government agency from the State of Veracruz, given to scholars who dedicate their work and research to the study of African heritage and History in Mexico and Veracruz. The medal is named after the pioneer of Afro-Mexican studies in Mexico, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, a Physician and Anthropologist from Tlacotalpan, Veracruz who in 1946 published the first Historical and Anthropological study on Mexico’s African descendants.