“Pareces que tienes el nopal en la frente y el elote entre los dientes — Looks like you have a cactus on your forehead and corn stuck between your teeth.”
I first heard this common Mexican expression or dicho from a Maya friend of mine many years ago. The expression is usually told to people who are undeniably native, but usually claim to be Spanish/European. This is usually aimed at peoples whose origins are from Mexico/Central America or other peoples generally from the Andean regions of South America where there is undeniable mixture, but where the Indigenous ancestry or blood still greatly predominates. Despite this, many are accustomed to seeing themselves as “mestizos” or racially mixed.
In academic jargon, this denial of Indigenous ancestry translates to: colonized and/or de-Indigenized. Probably an even better term is: “reduced” for these primarily Indigenous-based peoples (The history and reality of African peoples in these same regions is both similar and different post-1492 and the subject of a future column).
Sure, it is ancient history, though directly relevant to today, especially when the many millions of “mestizos” attempt to fill out the census. And in this case, the time of the US 2020 Census is now upon us.
During the Spanish colonial era (1500s-1800s) the policy of “reducciones” was imposed upon the original peoples of the Americas. This policy included the mission system. [Indigenous] Peoples from the region were generally and forcibly corralled into missions. This system accomplished two things: 1) missionization, or Christianization, in which their original cultures were demonized and erased, and 2) in the process of being corralled, their lands were taken (land theft). Actually there was a third component: slavery.
The first part of that dehumanizing process was akin to the 1800s-1900s US-boarding schools, with virtually the same objective: “Kill the Indian; save the Man.” In the reducciones, the objective was to kill the Indian and create a Christian. And re: land theft, and slavery, yes, that was the whole continent.
All of that was accomplished via demonization; the backward missionaries believed that everything about the original peoples came from the devil. Incidentally, those ideas still exist on this continent. The legacy of those policies was leaving the people both landless and hyper-exploited, minus their original cultures and identities.
The “reducciones” also instilled within them a deep shame of themselves. And yet this process was not simply racial and exploitive per se, but also religious; the belief that everything Indigenous was demonic. Aside from hating themselves and denying who they actually were, they were even inculcated to turn in their parents if they returned to their “old ways,” which often resulted in torture or death.
That legacy and that fear is still with us to this day, even the belief that if they return to their original cultures/teachings etc., that they will be eternally damned and go straight to Hell.
In my research on this topic, I do not believe that the self-denial of Indigeneity amongst “mestizos” comes strictly from a racial denial. The failure to understand this religious component helps to explain why peoples who are clearly native, who have been trained to think of themselves as not native, run away from all things native, including during census time in this country.
This phenomenon also manifests itself on birth certificates … and death certificates. These peoples in question are native, often de-Indigenized, but native nonetheless, and the government imposes this contrived white identity upon them even after death. And it doesn’t end there. For example, the other day, a nurse at my doctor’s office tried to write “white” into my medical records. A firm “no” was my reply. I was on the verge of using that dicho on her. This chocolate man – this hombre de maiz (man of maiz) is not colonized. LOL.
So now the 2020 census is upon us. I firmly believe in self-Identity. Whatever and however people choose to identify, that’s their business. I know I have never identified as Hispanic/Latino, nor white. Virtually in every form I have had to fill out since I was perhaps 18, I have rejected those government impositions. My parents taught me who I was, always reminding that “we didn’t swim across the ocean to get here.” Despite this, at every step of the way, some government bureaucrat has always attempted to change or redirect my answer when I have checked the native box or even “other” when I have written in my answer.
To be sure, akin to DNA tests, one does not and cannot “tribally enroll” via the census, and no, the census does not deny monies [to jurisdictions] if people affirm their original or Indigenous identities. That only happens when people ignore the census altogether.
The government’s business should be to count people; not impose foreign identities upon them.
The 2020 Census forms are arriving between March 12-20 and are due April 1.
Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez is an associate professor at the University of Arizona and is the author of several books including “Our Sacred Maiz is Our Mother” (2014) and “Yolqui: A Warrior Summoned from the Spirit World” (2019). Email XColumn@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2020
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