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| ¡TEHUATZIN TI MEXICATL! | ||
| There was a time in my life when I was ashamed of being referred to as "Indian" or "Native American". I attribute this to the many years of mis-information from public schools, books, TV, and movies, but mainly due to my own ignorance and not knowing my family history. | ||||
| That was then. | ||||
| It took a group of about 12-15 Native Americans to get me thinking. I had played an outreach concert at Chukawalla State Penitentiary in Southern California during the winter of 1989 when it happened. After our set, a group of inmates walked up to the band and began to thank us for the music. At this point, several of the inmates broke from the main group and approached me: | ||||
| "Hey brother!What tribe are ya?" "I'm not Indian." "You're a skin aren't cha?" "No, I'm not!" "What nation, brother? You Apache, Navaho?" "Na man! I'm Mexican..." "Same thing brother! What tribe?" "I'm not a skin, dude..." "You are, you just don't know it!T here's nothing to be ashamed of. Be proud.." "Well, my grandfather is Yaqui, so I guess I am Yaqui too." "See? That wasn't so hard! Don't be ashamed." |
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| I haven't been ashamed since and I am forever grateful to those inmates, the imprisoned, for helping me escape my own prison of identity. | ||||
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| I am proud to say that I am Yaqui/Tarahumara/Mexican.
The people of Mexico are commonly referred to as "Mexican" (I was born in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico). The true "mexicans" however are the people which are known as the Aztec or Aztecatl (a person from Aztlan, the "place of the herons" or "place of pure white"). The Aztecs never referred to themselves as such, but called themselves "mexicanos" (Pronounced "Meh-she-kah-noh". This is where the word "Chicano" comes from) after the valley of Mexica were present day Mexico City is located. The Mexicas founded Mexico City several hundred years before the invasion of Hernando Cortez and the Spanish into Central Mexico (The thrilling and insightful book "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz Del Castillo, is a first hand account by a conquistador that was actually there, serving under Cortez, at the landing in Mexico in 1520, the "discovery" of Tenochtitlan,and the eventual "fall" of the Aztec Empire). |
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| The Yaqui refer to themselves as "Yoreme/Yoeme" which simply
means "man" or "people". It was the Spanish who began to call
them Yaqui. The word may have come from the Yoeme word "Hiaki".
Yaqui is also the name of the river where the Yaqui people settled in Sonora, Mexico. The Sonoran Desert occupies land in Arizona, New Mexico, and the states of Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico. The language of the Yaqui is based upon the Uto-Aztecan, or Nahuatl, dialect, which is also in the same group of languages spoken by the Pima, Hopi, Shoshone, Kiowas and other tribes. Please visit the Official Site of the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe and the Yaqui Wiki pages listed below to learn more about the wonderful history, customs, and traditions. |
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| I am Yoeme. I am Mexica. Tehuatzin ti Mexicatl!
I am not Hispanic, not Latin. To be Mexican is to be indigenous. Mexicans
are from the American continent, Turtle Island. Our
blood, art, music, food, and life is indigenous to this
continent. Please, note that there is a difference between
Latinos, Hispanics, and Mexicans. We may share a language, but our
customs and history are vastly different. |
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| MESTIZAJE - THE BIG LIE | ||||
| The following article was originally posted to the Azteca.net site... | ||||
| What we have been taught... | ||||
| Most people of Mexican descent have been taught from a young age that Mexico and its people are a product of Spanish and Indigenous heritage. Chicanas point to la Malinche as the Mother of Modern Mexicans, but is that really the truth? Are Mexicans and Chicanos the descendents of a country that is really mixed. This page is to dispel this myth of Mexicans being a Mestizo people. | ||||
| Mexico's people are not mestizo. | ||||
| It is an indigenous nation. The great majority of its people are of indigenous descent. possibly in the 80% range. However, Mexico is also a country with people of European, African, and Asian descent. At least 2% percent of Mexico's population is of African descent. Mexico is home to many Chinese and Japanese people. Also Mexico received some immigration from Spain and other European countries. However, Mexico and its people are predominately Indigenous and not Mestizo. | ||||
| What is a Mestizo in Mexico? | ||||
| I have spent a lifetime
researching the racial breakdown of Mexicans. It has been
difficult because Mexico does not determine a mestizo person by
his racial makeup.
In Mexico, a person is only Indigenous if he lives in an Native Community. The moment an Indigenous person leaves their community they are considered Mestizo. Mestizo in Mexico is not your racial makeup but instead it is your culture. If you do not speak a native language and live in an Indigenous community you are not considered Indigenous. This may seem strange to most people and it also seemed strange to me. Mexico takes great pains in avoiding the truth. I went to many seminars regarding the Mexican Identity and I put the question to the experts. I asked them point blank, "We know many Indigenous people died when the Spanish came due to war, maltreatment, and disease. We know there were only so many Indigenous people left after a time and at certain times during Mexico's history, but how many Spanish people came to Mexico?" Never did I ever receive an answer to this question. It does not seem like such a hard question. I was trying to determine the number of non Indigenous people that came to Mexico and any given time to get an idea of the Mestizo mix. The experts never had that number. Seems kind of strange, but I finally figured it out. They did not want to tell me that Mexico never had a great number of immigrants from Europe because the Mestizo Mexico was just a lie. So if Mestizaje was a lie then the next thing I had to figure out was why did they lie? What reason would Mexico have to fabricate its identity? |
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| Mestizaje - A Political Strategy? | ||||
| In the early part of the 20th century, Mexico's most prominent archaeologist, sociologist and advisor to presidents, Manuel Gamio, put forth his doctrine of the mestizaje as a way to unite the country and create a population that was inclusive following the Revolución. | ||||
| It was a carefully constructed world view that had been on the periphery of Mexican consciousness for centuries, i.e., White Spanish males and brown Indian females producing a mixed race. Gamio oversaw that this world view was institutionalized through the mass education (however insubstantial) and definition of national character of the Mexico. | ||||
| His game plan was to see
that Spanish language and culture and religion and governmental
nuance (as filtered through Mexico) would unite the country and,
therefore, dissipate the power of the indigenous people who, in
sheer numbers, vastly out numbered the white population of the
country.
The reward for the Indians was that they could now be White Europeans or at least part White Europeans. In Mexico, everyone knows who the least powerful are no matter how the Aztecs are glorified in the popular culture. Gamio's plan was a way of institutionalizing the Revolución without actual handing over power to the vast majority of the people. |
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| What is really interesting
is the genetic studies that have been done on populations in
Mexico with the result that, overall, at a conservative guess,
80% or more of the population is Native American.
When these studies are done in the American Southwest, Texas and California (albeit smaller samples), the gene pool is, again conservatively, still in the range of 65 - 75% Native American gene pool. Given these numbers, it is obvious that Gamio's political concept of the mestizaje was immensely successful. |
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| LINKS AND RELATED RESOURCES OF INTEREST | ||||
| Some of the following links are provided to help educate people about Native culture, while some, I hope, will help shed light on urgent issues for both Native and non-Native alike. Some of these links will present the alter-Native history that should have been taught in our schools. Some will thrill you, some will open your eyes, some will enrage you, some will fill you with joy, all will leave an impression. | ||||
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| NOVEMBER IS NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN MONTH | ||||
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THE
NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF
MEXICO
"To guide, coordinate, support, promote, monitor and evaluate programs, projects, strategies and actions to achieve the public integrated and sustainable development and the full exercise of the rights of indigenous peoples and communities in accordance with article 2 of the Constitution of the United Mexican States. " |
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| VACHIUM EECHA:PLANTING THE SEEDS | ||||
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| THE YAQUI AT WIKIPEDIA | ||||
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| AZTEC DANCERS | ||||
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| TLOKE NAHUAKE Together and United | ||||
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| *Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians *American Indian Law Alliance *Amnesty International *Assembly of First Nations *Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. *Jackson Browne *The Late Mother Teresa *Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell *Geronimo Ji Pratt *Hurricane Carter *Belgian Parliament *Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama) *Rodney Grant *Sen. Daniel Inouye *The Late Coretta Scott King *Martin Luther King III *Winona LaDuke *Nelson Mandela *Peter Matthiessen *National Congress of American Indians *The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center *U.S. Commission on Civil Rights *The Italian Parliament *Former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson Click here to view petition signatures. *Cypress Hill |
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FREEDOM FOR PELTIER VIDEO RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE Directed by Peter Christopherson. The video combines live performance footage with scenes from documentary Incident At Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story and text from Peter Matthiessen's In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse. |
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| DAKOTA-LAKOTA HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY COALITION | ||||
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| POW WOW RULES OF BEHAVIOUR | ||||
| Ever been to a Pow Wow? Want to know what the Rules of Decorum (behaviour) are? | ||||
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| An excellent article about the president behind "The Trail of Tears". | ||||
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SILENT GENOCIDE:
An
excellent article by Ralph P. Reed
"...silent genocide is the destruction of a people by destroying pride and knowledge in their cultural heritage..." |
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REDSKIN HATE
Warning! This site contains graphic and disturbing images and language! If you can handle it, I highly recommend this reading. An excellent study in America's own "Red Holocaust". The American History they should have taught in school... |
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"We travel. The world changes. All things become new." |
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LISA MITTEN'S NATIVE AMERICAN SITES LINKS "My goal is to facilitate communication among Native peoples and between Indians and non-Indians by providing access to home pages of Native American Nations and organizations, and to other sites that provide solid information about American Indians..." |
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"Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us." |
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Modern Music from Native America |
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The Nations' Leading American Indian News Source |
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