>
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS REPORDUCED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHORS.

>Chronicle Features
>Release: On or after May 26

                >Indians and Mestizos in the Americas
                >by Patrisia Gonzales & Roberto Rodriguez
>
>Alfonso Perez Espindola Tenoch, a holy man of the Lakota nation spiritual
>tradition who lives in Laredo, Texas, languishes in a Mexican jail. His
>"crime" was having helped lead a "Peace and Dignity" prayer run across the
>Americas in 1992.
>
>On Oct. 11 of that year, thousands of runners from hundreds of Indian nations
>from North and South America met in the ancient pyramid city of Teotihuacan
>Mexico to promote indigenous consciousness. They denounced 500 years of
>abuses against the indigenous (otherwise known as Indian) peoples of the
>Americas.
>
>A year later, Perez was arrested in Michoacan, Mexico, for possessing peyote
>that he was taking to ceremonies with Huichol Indians. He was accused of
>possessing and trafficking drugs authorized only for use in  religious
>ceremonies by Native Americans.
>
>The government ceded that indigenous people have the right to perform peyote
>ceremonies, but determined that the Mexican-born Perez was not "indigenous,
>and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
>
>Many governments define "Indians" as people who live in native communities
>and speak only a native tongue. When an Indian moves to a city and learns
>Spanish or another language, he or she is no longer considered "indigenous,
>but "mestizo."
>
>Government sources estimate that there are 40 million Indians in North and
>South America. Non-governmental sources put the figure at closer to 100
>million. The discrepancy in numbers is attributed to the large amount of
>"mestizos," or racially mixed people, who consider themselves or can be
 >considered Indian, yet are not recognized as such by their governments.
>
>While human rights groups throughout the Americas call for Perez's release,
>the issue of who is and who isn't "Indian" remains a familiar topic to
>Chicanos and other Latinos.
>
>Tupac Enrique, a Chicano from Phoenix, who is part of an international
>alliance fighting for Perez's release, says that governments can determine
>who is a citizen, but cannot determine people's identities.
>
>Enrique, who is of the Mexica spiritual tradition, says that people around
>the world determine identity differently from Western governments. For many
>he says, "It's not racial. We, not government, have been keeping indigenous
>identity alive for 500 years."
>
>Most Chicanos and Latinos are at least part Native American and descend from
>such nations as Mexica, Nahua, Chichimeca,  Tarahumara, Pueblo, Kikapu,
>Tarascan, Tlaxcalan, Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, Quechua, Mapuche or any one of
>hundreds of other Indian peoples.
>
Many of our own friends can trace their ancestry. Jose Barreiro, born in Cuba
>and editor of the Native American journal "Akwe:kon Press" at Cornell
>University, is Guajiro. Although Cuba and other Caribbean governments claim
>that there are  no Indians in their countries, Barreiro says they do in fact
>live in the countryside, where Taino traditions are upheld by Guajiros--the
>rural population.
>
>Vivian Lopez, a counselor in Las Cruces, NM, who is originally from Tucson,
>is both Yaqui and Apache, and considers herself Chicana. "To be Chicana is
>be indigenous," she says, adding that she was raised among people who, as a
>form of cultural resistance, took pride in not being registered as Indians
>with the government. "I don't need to be on a Federal (Bureau of Indian
>Affairs) list to know who I am."
>
>And El Paso, Texas-born Arturo Flores, a high-school vice principal in
>Washington, D.C., is Huichol. His sense of identity was not forged simply by
>his physical features, but by ancient traditions which his family has upheld
>"I've been nurtured by the same food my ancestors were nurtured by for
>thousands of years."
>
>Like us, other friends can trace some, but not all of their ancestry. The
>reason, in part, is the role the Catholic church and missions played during
>the colonial era in "reducing," or culturally obliterating the Indian. The
>objective was to create a "Christian," and that meant to spiritually and
>culturally stamp out the Indian.
>
>One result was that Indians and mestizos developed a hatred towards all
>things Indian--thus a hatred of themselves, which led to a denial of their
>ancestry. In this atmosphere, "Hispanicized Indians" became "mestizos" and
>mestizos became "Spanish." If you could claim one drop of European blood, y
>did. To this day, many Latinos or Hispanics claim they are "pure" white.
>
>Many Latino college students, aware of their history, have long identified
>with their indigenous roots. Chicano students at St. Cloud State University
>in Minnesota, for example, recently staged a hunger strike. They demanded
>that the university eliminate the "Hispanic" classification. The term, they
>maintain, is a negation of their indigenous ancestry.
>
>As Barreiro says, "Every mestizo is one less Indian--or one more Indian
>waiting to reemerge."
 >
>Copyright Chronicle Features
>
>Gonzales & Rodriguez can be reached at: XROBERTO@AOL.COM
>