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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2j9GleS:
I forgot to even address this whole part of those asks:
The tension within the Central American countries between their indigenous populations and their non-indigenous populations is impossible to overstate.
Some enormous proportion of the populations of Central and South America is of mixed indigenous heritage, but a much smaller proportion still identifies as indigenous, still has access to those cultures and speaks those languages. Within my lifetime, and in many cases in an ongoing fashion, those populations are under extreme pressure, up to and including active extermination policies. That was the context in which Rigoberta Menchu was writing in the work I quoted earlier: a widespread and devastating campaign of active genocide against the Maya population as part of the civil war in Guatemala in the early 80s. (The role of the US and the CIA in this war are… a whole other story, to be sure, but certainly part of the story.)
Maya and Mexico are not completely overlapping circles on a Venn diagram, in more than one way.
“Leaving Mexico to the Mexicans” is a completely misguided way to address this situation.
I forgot to even address this whole part of those asks:
The tension within the Central American countries between their indigenous populations and their non-indigenous populations is impossible to overstate.
Some enormous proportion of the populations of Central and South America is of mixed indigenous heritage, but a much smaller proportion still identifies as indigenous, still has access to those cultures and speaks those languages. Within my lifetime, and in many cases in an ongoing fashion, those populations are under extreme pressure, up to and including active extermination policies. That was the context in which Rigoberta Menchu was writing in the work I quoted earlier: a widespread and devastating campaign of active genocide against the Maya population as part of the civil war in Guatemala in the early 80s. (The role of the US and the CIA in this war are… a whole other story, to be sure, but certainly part of the story.)
Maya and Mexico are not completely overlapping circles on a Venn diagram, in more than one way.
“Leaving Mexico to the Mexicans” is a completely misguided way to address this situation.
