{"id":389684,"date":"2010-03-04T10:45:39","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T15:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12167"},"modified":"2010-03-09T13:51:31","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T18:51:31","slug":"census-watch-masking-identities-or-counting-the-indigenous-among-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/389684","title":{"rendered":"CENSUS WATCH: Masking identities or counting the indigenous among us?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"migration_routes.png\"<\/a><\/span>By Robert Dr. Cintli Rodriguez, New America Media<\/i><\/p>\n

It was when I first stood atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan,
\nMexico in 1976 that I was finally able to grasp something my parents
\nfirst communicated to me when I was five years old; that my roots on
\nthis continent are not simply Mexican, but both ancient and Indigenous.<\/p>\n

My red-brown face should have been enough to teach me this. However,
\nthat was not the message I received in school at the time, nor is it
\nthe message little red-brown kids receive today.<\/p>\n

I experienced a similar kind of reaffirmation this past month when I
\nstood in front of the world-renowned, ancient Mayan observatory at
\nChichen Itza, on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.<\/p>\n

Upon my return to the United States, I received a message from a
\ncolleague regarding the U.S. Census Bureau. My mouth soured; another
\ndecade and another story about how the bureau paradoxically insists
\nthat Mexicans are Caucasian. I will have to explain to them again that
\nMexicans are the descendants of those who built the pyramids at
\nTeotihuacan and Chichen Itza — that it was not Caucasians who built
\nthem.<\/p>\n

The genesis of this nonsensical “misconception” goes back to the era
\nwhen the United States militarily took half of Mexico in 1848. At that
\ntime, the Mexican government attempted to protect its former citizens
\nby insisting that the U.S. government treat them legally as “white,” so
\nthey would not be enslaved or subjected to legal segregation. That
\nstrategy only partially worked, because most Mexicans in this country
\nhave never been treated as “white,” or as full human beings with full
\nhuman rights.<\/p>\n

That era is long over, yet the fear, shame, denial, and semi-legal
\nfiction of being “white” remains, perpetrated primarily by government
\nbureaucrats.<\/p>\n

Despite the bureau policy of racial categorization, the Indigenous
\nCultures Institute<\/a> in Texas, a Census 2010 partner, has advanced an
\nalternative: It asserts that Hispanics, Mexican Americans, and
\nIndigenous people of Mexico are native or American Indian. After
\nanswering Question 8, regarding whether one is Hispanic or not, the
\ninstitute suggests: “If you are a descendant of native people, you can
\nidentify yourself (in Question 9) as an American Indian in the 2010
\nCensus… If you don’t know your tribe, enter ‘unknown’ or ‘detribalized
\nnative.’ If tribe or identity is known, fill it in, i.e., Macehual,
\nMaya, Quechua, etc.”<\/p>\n

This may not be the best option, but the bureau has never made it easy
\nto recognize the indigenous roots of “Mexican Americans\/Chicanos” or “Latinos\/Hispanics.” The long and sordid history of the census has been
\nto direct or redirect them into the white category, even —  and
\nespecially– when they have asserted their indigenous roots or when they
\nhave checked the “other” race category. (Since 1980, about half of
\nHispanics\/Latinos have checked the “other” race category and are
\nvirtually the only group that chooses this category.) This has been a
\nstandard practice of the bureau since the second half of the twentieth
\ncentury. Coincidentally, this is also when government bureaucrats
\nimposed the term “Hispanic,” a tag that generally masks the existence
\nof indigenous and\/or African roots in many peoples of the Americas.<\/p>\n

In 2000, the Census Bureau finally recognized a Latin American Indian
\ncategory, but it did not create an educational campaign to go with it.
\nThe bureau now recognizes peoples who are traditionally viewed (using
\narbitrary criteria) as indigenous in Mexico, Central and South America,
\nbut it does not recognize those who are considered “mestizo” — peoples
\nwho are at least part, if not primarily, native. The mestizo category,
\nborne of a dehumanizing racial caste system in the Americas, is also a
\ntroublesome category, yet it is how most people of Mexican and Central
\nAmerican descent identify, comprising approximately 75 percent of all “Latinos\/Hispanics.”<\/p>\n

The Indigenous Institute promotes its idea as a means by which Mexican
\nAmericans or Latinos\/Hispanics can honor their indigenous ancestry. If
\nthis option is widely embraced, it remains to be seen how the bureau
\nwill count this information. The same question arises if people choose
\nthe American Indian category and write in “mestizo.”<\/p>\n

Traditionally, the bureau has taken a narrow view of who is indigenous,
\nbecause the “American Indian” category was designed not to ascertain
\nthe indigenous, but to count “U.S. Indians.” If a more expansive view
\nis embraced widely — as advocated by the institute — it would result
\nin an increase from 5 million (the 2009 census estimate) to perhaps 30
\nto 40 million people. (Not all of the nation’s close to 50 million
\nHispanics\/Latinos can or would claim indigenous ancestry.)<\/p>\n

If done correctly, the institute’s suggestion need not negatively
\naffect the allocation of resources to specific tribes. Neither should
\nthe way people identify be subject to government approval. Yet, the
\nramifications of exercising such an option should indeed be studied.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at XColumn@gmail.com<\/i>.<\/p>\n

(Map from edmaps.com.)<\/i><\/font> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robert Dr. Cintli Rodriguez, New America Media It was when I first stood atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico in 1976 that I was finally able to grasp something my parents first communicated to me when I was five years old; that my roots on this continent are not simply Mexican, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}