indigenous

As federal agencies prepare to deregulate transgenic chestnuts, Indigenous nations are asserting their rights to access and care for them.

This story was co-published with Native News Online

When Neil Patterson Jr. was about 7 or 8 years old, he saw a painting called “Gathering Chestnuts,” by Tonawanda Seneca artist Ernest Smith. Patterson didn’t realize that the painting showed a grove of American chestnuts, a tree that had been all but extinct since his great-grandparents’ time. Instead, what struck Patterson was the family in the foreground: As a man throws a wooden club to knock chestnuts from the branches above, a child shells the nuts and a woman gathers them in a basket. Even the dog seems engrossed in the process, watching with head cocked as the club sails through the air.

Patterson grew up on the Tuscarora Nation Reservation just south of Lake Ontario near Niagara Falls. The painting reminded him of his elders teaching him to harvest black walnuts and hickories.

“I think, for me, it wasn’t about the tree, it was about a way of life,” said Patterson, who today is in his 40s, with silver-flecked dark hair and kids of his own. He sounded wistful.

The American chestnut tree, or číhtkęr in Tuscarora, once grew across what is currently the eastern United States, from Mississippi to Georgia, and into southeastern Canada. The beloved and ecologically important species was harvested by Indigenous peoples for millennia and once numbered in the billions, providing food and habitat to countless birds, insects, and mammals of eastern forests, before being wiped out by rampant logging and a deadly fungal blight brought on by European colonization.

Now, a transgenic version of the American chestnut that can withstand the blight is on the cusp of being deregulated by the U.S. government. (Transgenic organisms contain DNA from other species.) When that happens, people will be able to grow the blight-resistant trees without restriction. For years, controversy has swirled around the ethics of using novel biotechnology for species conservation. But Patterson, who previously directed the Tuscarora Environment Program and today is the assistant director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, has a different question: What good is bringing back a species without also restoring its traditional relationships with the Indigenous peoples who helped it flourish?

That deep history is not always clear from conservation narratives about the blight-resistant chestnut. For the past four decades, the driving force behind the chestnut’s restoration has been The American Chestnut Foundation, a nonprofit with more than 5,000 active members in 16 chapters. Before turning to genetic engineering, the foundation tried unsuccessfully to breed a hybrid chestnut that looked and grew like an American chestnut but had genes from species native to Asia that gave it blight resistance. “Our vision is a robust eastern forest restored to its splendor,” reads The American Chestnut Foundation’s homepage, against a background of glowing green chestnut leaflets. “Our mission is to return the iconic American chestnut to its native range.”

But the Foundation website’s history of the tree begins during colonial times, suggesting a romantic notion of a precolonial wilderness that ignores the intensive agroforestry that Indigenous peoples practiced. By engineering vanished species to survive harms brought on by colonization without addressing those harms, people avoid having to make hard decisions about how most of us live on the landscape today.

read more: https://grist.org/indigenous/transgenic-american-chestnut-indigenous-rights/

Leonard Peltier, born on this day in 1944, is an indigenous rights activist of Lakota descent who has been imprisoned by the U.S. since 1977, convicted of first-degree murder following the killing of two FBI agents.

After being extradited from Canada through a false witness statement, Peltier was convicted in a controversial 1977 trial and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in a shooting on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

As detailed by "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse", Peltier's trials and conviction are considered highly controversial, and groups such as Amnesty International have raised concerns about their fairness.

On January 18th, 2017, the Office of the Pardon Attorney announced that President Barack Obama had denied Peltier's application for clemency.

"You must understand...I am ordinary. Painfully ordinary. This isn't modesty. This is fact. Maybe you're ordinary, too. If so, I honor your ordinariness, your humanness, your spirituality. I hope you will honor mine. That ordinariness is our bond, you and I. We are ordinary. We are human. The Creator made us this way. Imperfect. Inadequate. Ordinary."

• Leonard Peltier

An Interview with Leonard Peltier

Nick Estes: Leonard Peltier’s Continued Imprisonment Is an “Open Wound for Indian Country”

Let Leonard Peltier Go Free

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Tensions over lobster fishing by Indigenous harvesters in St. Marys Bay, N.S., boiled over on the weekend with shouting, scuffling and two arrests on a wharf used by the Sipekne'katik First Nation.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishermen and supporters gathered at the Saulnierville wharf on Saturday.

RCMP arrested and later released two men in separate assaults — one for pushing and the other for grabbing someone by the neck.

Police said no one was injured and identities of the men arrested haven't been released.

"Investigators spoke with the victims who stated they did not want criminal charges to proceed. The 34-year-old and 39-year-old men were later released and apologized to the victims," RCMP spokesman Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay said in a release on Sunday.

"Criminal charges are not anticipated at this time."

Earlier on Saturday some commercial fishermen gathered in nearby Meteghan after an anonymous call on social media to "come up with a plan" to deal with "poaching" in the area.

The Sipekne'katik First Nation has a food, social and ceremonial fishery authorized by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with a quota of 45,000 pounds or about 20,000 kilograms. They have rejected the quota saying it was set without adequate consultation.

Part of Europe’s biggest wind turbine farm was built on land traditionally used by the Indigenous Sami community to herd reindeer.

An Indigenous Sami activist has set up camp outside the Norwegian parliament to protest against wind turbines built on land traditionally used by Sami reindeer herders.

In October 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court ruled that two wind farms built at Fosen in central Norway, part of Europe’s most significant onshore wind farm, violated Sami rights under international conventions.

However, the turbines still remain operational.

Sami activist Mihkkal Haetta told the Reuters news agency, “It has been 700 days of human rights abuse, and the Norwegian state has not done anything to stop it. So I have chosen to come here and set up camp until the human rights abuse stops.”

“I believe that there is only one solution, and that is to tear down the wind turbines at Fosen.”

Fosen is one of the many cases that Norway has yet to resolve with climate change and technology enabling mineral extraction, energy production and tourism while threatening traditional ways of life.

The government has said that the Supreme Court, while ruling that the licences of the two farms were illegal, did not give instructions on what to do next and that the conflict should be resolved through talks.

In February, Indigenous protesters, including Haetta, occupied entrances of 10 ministries, joined by climate activist Greta Thunberg, who said human rights had to go hand in hand with climate protection and action.

Since the protests, the government and reindeer-herding families affected by the wind farm have been involved in mediation to resolve the conflict. Still, no concrete measures have been announced yet.

The herders have said that the only resolution to the dispute is tearing down the wind turbines.

Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland told the Reuters news agency, “We still hope that the mediation process will be able to lead to an amicable solution to the matter. It would be the best for all parties.”

“It is too early to say anything concrete about when a solution might be in place, but I am focused that the mediation track can be followed as long as there is hope for a solution.”

When asked about Haetta’s protest, Aasland said, “The right to free expression is a founding democratic right I have great respect for.”

Chunka Luta is under $4k away from the funds needed to provide housing for members of the community on Pine Ridge Reservation! We are helping to build the AntiColonial movement within this community, the broader Indigenous movement, and even Internationally. This will be only the beginning of what he have planned to build up this historically important and economically starved community. From cleaning the water sources, to providing electricity, and so much more, YOU can help us achieve all of it.

Please spread this GFM page, drop it in your group chats, and consider donating if you are able! Every little bit counts, even if it's just $10 or $20.

Be the change you want to see, help enact immense positive change among people who have suffer brutal oppression from the State to this day.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Indigenous authorities from different communities have symbolically applied Xik’ay, or ancestral Mayan justice, to officials considered corrupt, among them Attorney General Consuelo Porras, the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (FECI) Rafael Curruchiche, and Judge Fredy Orellana.

On August 20, 2023, sociologist and ex-diplomat Bernardo Arévalo of the progressive Movimiento Semilla party won the Guatemalan presidency by a wide margin, marking the beginning of a new era in a country that has lately been characterized by democratic backsliding and attacks against critical voices.

However, his party is in the crosshairs of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating potential irregularities in the gathering of the signatures necessary for the formation of Movimiento Semilla several years ago. Both the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Rafael Curruchiche, and the judge who ordered the suspension, Fredy Orellana, are on a list of corrupt actors compiled by the United States. Guatemala’s electoral authorities temporarily blocked Semilla’s suspension, but Arévalo has denounced ongoing attempts to prevent him from assuming his mandate.

For many Guatemalans, these are unwarranted attacks against the president-elect and his party. With a ceremony performed before the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), the Indigenous authorities performed this act, under the energies of Jun T’zi, an appropriate day in the Indigenous cosmovision for the application of Mayan justice to the operators of justice, public servants, and officials who, in their opinion, have been responsible for consolidating corruption in Guatemala.

In Guatemala, about 40 percent of the population identifies as Indigenous, composed of 23 different ethnicities. Through Indigenous movements and organizations, they have sought greater political representation and the promotion of their interests in a context in which they have historically faced socioeconomic challenges and discrimination. One Indigenous leader, Thelma Cabrera, tried to seek the presidency in these elections, but a court banned her candidacy, together with other progressive candidates.

Sebastiana Par, an ancestral authority of the Maya K’iche’, indicated that in her community, when a person steals a chicken or an ear of corn, they face justice. “That’s why we are calling on all authorities on the national level to also apply justice, not just to people who steal corn, but to these corrupt politicians who are robbing the country of its life, robbing the next generations of their future,” she said.

full article

When former chairman of the Portland chapter of the American Indian Movement Art McConville died in February 2022, it was unclear who would carry on the tradition he started at Cathedral Park. For a moment, it felt like the blessing of the Willamette’s water may have died with him.

But one of his final requests was to pass along the responsibility to his niece, Farrell Lucei-Bryant. On Saturday, Lucei-Bryant, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, brought blessings and prayers back to the Willamette’s shores for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was pretty shocked,” Lucei-Bryant said. “I’m doing my best to follow through, and making sure that I’m honoring his legacy. I’m going to go forward with it the best way I know how, with an open heart and open mind.”

The event is put on by the Portland Harbor Community Coalition, a nonprofit organization advocating for the restoration of the Willamette River. It featured ceremonial singing, drumming, dancing and prayer from Native American, Mayan, Mexica-Azteca and Purépecha — indigenous people in the northwestern region of Michoacan, Mexico — cultural groups.

Lucei-Bryant said the turnout was surprising, and that it was inspiring to see so many people gathering for the same cause. Dozens came by throughout the day.

It has been nearly a month since the wildfires blazed through West Maui. Many in the Native Hawaiian community have been working through loss and generational trauma to get things done, but the sadness and sleepless nights are beginning to add up.

Moaliʻi farmer Kekai Keahi’s genealogy traces back to the Mala, Kahana and Kahoma areas of Lāhainā. His days are filled with meetings with lawyers, government officials and community members. He’s also been delivering goods to his community in the burn zone.

“If you love your place and you love where you’re from and you love your people, what else is there?” Keahi said.

Fortunately for him, the fire went around his neighborhood of about 20 homes, but he’s still without electricity. Keahi has also been dealing with sleepless nights, a canned-good heavy diet, and lots of stress and sadness.

“It’s taxing. It starts to wear you down. It’s not just that, but you feel the hurt,” Keahi said. “My heart is saying keep on fighting. But people tell me you need to be healthy physically and mentally and you got to step away sometimes. And for me, stepping away is like letting people down. And so this weekend, that’s the game plan. I'm going to be up in the taro patches and just kinda kicking back you know.”

Strengthening that connection to land, to culture, and to traditional ways of knowing can be essential in healing, especially for the Indigenous people of these islands. But finding any connection to the land in West Maui following the fire is a very difficult task.

Healing with the land

An estimated 1,900 homes have been lost and more than 5,000 Lāhainā residents displaced. As the Lāhainā community moves into week four since the wildfire, many in the community are running themselves into the ground. That’s according to Noelani Ahia, co-founder of the Mauna Medic Healers Hui.

“That’s a trauma response and it is okay. We’re all coping in our own way,” Ahia said. “The most important thing is not to judge ourselves but be compassionate with ourselves and to understand that we’ve all been through something incredibly violent, destructive, disturbing, and horrific. And it’s okay not to be okay. But there are resources available.”

The Mauna Medic Healers Hui tent at Honokōwai Park offers everything from lomilomi massage to herbal medicine to talk story sessions to help discharge that trauma. Ahia said there’s a lot of trauma and loss in the community of Lāhainā right now.

“But for kanaka, it so deep because this isn’t the first time. We went from close to a million people down to 40,000 (in the first 100 years since Western contact). Those of us who are kanaka maoli alive today are the descendants of the 40,000,” Ahia said. “That is an unfathomable loss of population, so we have that trauma in our DNA, of that loss of our people.”

Ahia said adding to that is the loss of land and the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, the move from a subsistence economy to an extractive one, and the suppression of culture, language and spiritual practices.

Full Article

MINEAPOLIS — A state commission went to work Tuesday on designing a new state flag and seal for Minnesota to replace a current emblem in both that's considered offensive to Native Americans.

One of the main elements of Minnesota's state flag includes a prominent state seal against a blue background. The seal depicts a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plows his field with his rifle leaning on a nearby stump. The imagery suggests to many that the Indigenous people were defeated and going away, while whites won and were staying.

Not only do the state's Dakota and Ojibwe tribes consider that offensive, but experts in the scientific and scholarly study of flags — known as vexillology — say it's an overly complicated design.

Guidelines from the North American Vexillological Association say flags should be simple but meaningful, with just a few colors, easily recognizable from a distance, and without seals or lettering. The association ranks Minnesota in 67th place out of 72 U.S. and Canadian state and provincial flags. Minnesota's design dates from 1957, an evolution from the 1893 original.

Minnesota is joining several other states in redesigning flags that haven't withstood the test of time. The Utah Legislature last winter approved a simplified flag design that still includes a beehive, a symbol of the prosperity and the industriousness of the Mormon pioneers who settled the state. Mississippi voters in 2020 chose a new state flag with a magnolia and the phrase “In God We Trust” to replace a Confederate-themed flag that had been used by Ku Klux Klan groups and was widely condemned as racist.

Other states considering simplifying their flags include Maine, where voters will decide next year whether to replace their current banner with a retro version featuring a simple pine tree and blue North Star, as well as Michigan and Illinois.

The Democratic-controlled Minnesota Legislature earlier this year tasked its commission — which includes representatives of the state's tribal and other communities of color — with producing new designs for the flag and seal by Jan 1. Unless the Legislature rejects them, the new emblems will automatically become official on April 1, 2024, which Minnesota observes as Statehood Day.

“What I am looking forward to is creating a flag that we can all be proud of, and a flag that everybody can look at and say: ”Yeah, that’s Minnesota’s flag. That’s a cool flag. That’s very distinctive," said the commission's vice chair, Anita Gall, who teaches state history at Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Worthington.

In contrast to flags, state seals, which are used among other things to stamp official documents, can be more intricate, said Democratic Rep. Mike Freiberg, of Golden Valley, an author of the legislation for the new emblems.

Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon, who sits on the panel, noted that one of his official duties is to serve as keeper of the state seal. “These are enduring symbols and emblems meant to last not just decades, but one or more centuries," Simon said. "And so it’s a big responsibility.”

Two Republican legislators with nonvoting seats on the panel urged their colleagues to choose designs that will be unifying symbols.

Rep. Bjorn Olson, of Fairmont, said the change will be difficult for him, as a student of history and as a captain in the Army Reserve, because outnumbered soldiers from Minnesota staged a critical charge that helped hold the Union line against advancing Confederate forces in the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. The 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment suffered heavy casualties while carrying a flag that was similar to the current design, he said.

“I know that there’s many Minnesotans that think we need a new flag and there’s many that don’t,” said Sen. Steve Drazkowski, of Mazeppa. “Obviously, the decision is made — we’re going to have a new flag. And so my goal going forward ... is that we have a flag that doesn’t represent one idea or one ideology or one anything, but represents all of Minnesota.”

Words are among the most powerful things that exist and thanks to them we can communicate, understand what surrounds us and even create our own identity. However, we often forget that in Mexico we speak not only Spanish but also 68 indigenous languages (plus their variations).

Each one of them represents a different way of knowing and naming the world. Miriam Hernández, activist and translator of the Maya Ch'ol language, points out that each "language is life, it is a cosmovision, it is another way of living and another way of thinking".

However, institutions such as Inali - which is currently facing its own demise - and civil organizations constantly warn of the dangers facing indigenous languages in Mexico and of all that is lost when one of them becomes extinct.

As the philosopher and historian Miguel León Portilla said in his poem "Cuando muere una lengua" (When a language dies):

When a language dies

everything in the world

seas and rivers,

animals and plants,

are neither thought nor pronounced

with glimpses and sounds

that no longer exist.

However, there are several people working every day to preserve these languages. We talked to some of them and we present some of their projects and efforts.

The current state of indigenous languages in Mexico

According to the Catalog of National Indigenous Languages, created by the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), 68 languages belonging to 11 linguistic families are spoken in Mexico, from which some 364 variants are derived.

Data from Inegi's 2020 Population and Housing Census indicate that in our country there are just over 7,360,000 people aged three years and older who speak an indigenous language.

The same report mentions that as of 2020, the main indigenous languages spoken by this population are: Nahuatl (22.4%), Mayan (10.5%), Tzeltal (Tseltal) (8.0%), Tzotzil (Tsotsil) (7.5%), Mixteco (7.2%) and Zapoteco (6.7%).

Despite this linguistic wealth, 60% of these languages are at risk of disappearing.

Irma Pineda, Zapotec poet and defender of indigenous peoples, reflects that one of the greatest threats to these languages is the discrimination and exclusion that still exist.

"They push you aside because you speak differently, because you come from another culture," she mentions, and she also clarifies that it is surprising that although she has been fighting against discrimination for years, she still has not been able to do much to reduce it.

To this day, many people associate those who speak an indigenous language with cultural backwardness and poverty. As a result, they exclude them or even these same speakers decide to stop expressing themselves in their native language for fear of being discriminated against.

So what can be done for these languages?

The work of preserving the intangible

Fortunately, there are more people who fight to spread and protect indigenous languages from their trenches. There are all those who sing or even rap in their native language.

There are also those who are more attached to technology and the digital world and decide to spread their own language through these media.

Irma Pineda, resistance through words

Originally from Juchitán, Oaxaca, Irma Pineda belongs to the Binni Záa or Zapotec culture, as she is also known, and is a speaker of the Diidxazá language. Since she was a child she has been in contact with her native language and also with the world of literature, but she never thought of combining both worlds.

"It wasn't until I migrated," Irma Pineda says and tells Animal MX that she moved from Juchitán to Toluca. She describes the experience as very difficult because of the loneliness. In addition to not having her family and friends nearby, she realized that all her thoughts, dreams and communication with the people around her had always been in her own language, Diidxazá.

She also felt limited with her Spanish, which was a very local and regional one, so she preferred to live in silence.

Irma was in a constant struggle to reconnect with her language and discovered that writing allowed her to have that connection with the words and with her own culture because then she "thought about it, reflected on it and wrote about it".

Although she was aware of the discrimination she and others suffered for using her native language, she decided that she had to make it louder, especially in public spaces. From that moment on, her poetry became not only a literary issue, but also a weapon of resistance.

Recently, Irma Pineda participated in the creation of the book Intraducibles, together with Gabriela Lavalle, director of the Mexican Institute of Tourism in Houston. The book consists of gathering words from various indigenous languages that cannot be expressed with any other word in Spanish and explaining their meaning.

Full Article in spanish

I know many indigenous religions are nature based, much like many pagan philosophies, and use rituals and magic, again paralleling paganism. I want to update the c/paganism side bar to be more welcoming and I would love to learn about various practices and beliefs of people who have been in touch with the land forever. Many European tribal religions are grouped with paganism however I have no clue how the rest of the worlds indigenous communities feel about being grouped the same way or discussing their beliefs with people walking other paths. I want to be welcoming and respectful so I would love some feedback.

For centuries, tribes in the area now called Portland gathered at an ancient encampment called Neerchokiko for trade and community building. With colonization, that place was lost to Native people. But as of this summer, Neerchokiko is owned outright by the Native American Youth and Family Center – an accomplishment that many say fits within the Land Back movement.

Today, the 10-acre spot is home to the organization's offices, gardens and community center. The goal is to create a permanent home for the urban Native community here – one that reflects the land's history.

When Yakama citizen Paul Lumley joined NAYA in 2016 as CEO, the organization was deep in debt and almost had to sell the land. Three years later, NAYA prioritized “Return to Neerchokikoo,” a campaign focused on paying NAYA’s mortgage debt and renovating its buildings.

Fast forward to June 9 at 3:06 p.m., when Lumley received an email from the bank. NAYA’s mortgage was paid off in full. That afternoon, Lumley delivered the news to staff as he led his final meeting as CEO. Cheers and hugs erupted (Lumley left NAYA to take a job as CEO of Cascade Aids Project).

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful, precious place that now is permanently Native community, which I think is amazing,” Lumley said later. “The organization doesn’t have to pay rent, they don’t have to pay a mortgage — it’s theirs. This is land back.”

‘Now, it’s officially Indian Country’

The Land Back movement has been active since colonizers arrived on this continent. It gained traction and mainstream attention during the 2018 protest at Standing Rock, which sought to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Robby Burroughs is an enrolled member of the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians in Northern California. He is the Holdings Managing Director for NDN Collective, an organization centered around the concept of Land Back.

In its simplest terms, Burroughs says the movement means putting the stewardship and ownership of land back in the hands of Indigenous peoples and communities. It’s a lot to accomplish, but Burrough is up for the challenge.

“For us, Land Back is any way, by any means necessary,” said Burroughs. “As long as at the end of the day, the Indigenous peoples or tribes are the ones on title to the land.”

The medicine man flashed a mischievous grin as he dabbed his warriors’ eyeballs with a feather soaked in malagueta pepper and watched them grimace in pain. “They’re going into battle and this will protect them,” José Delfonso Pereira said as he advanced on his next target with a jam jar of his chilli potion.

“It hurts and it burns,” the Macuxi shaman admitted. “But it will help them see more clearly and stop them falling ill.”

It was a crisp August morning and a dozen members of an Indigenous self-defence team had assembled in the hillside village of Tabatinga to receive Pereira’s blessing before launching their latest mission into one of the Amazon’s most secluded corners, near Brazil’s border with Guyana and Venezuela.

Some of the men clutched bloodwood truncheons as they prepared to journey down the Maú River in search of illegal miners; others held bows and arrows adorned with the black feathers of curassow birds. Marco Antônio Silva Batista carried a drone.

“If I die, it will be for a good cause – ensuring our territory is preserved for future generations,” said the 20-year-old activist-journalist, whose ability to spy on environmental criminals from above has made him a key member of GPVTI, an Indigenous patrol group in the Brazilian state of Roraima.

Batista, who belongs to South America’s Macuxi people, is part of a new generation of Indigenous journalists helping chronicle an age-old battle against outside aggression. For centuries, non-Indigenous writers and reporters have flocked to the rainforest region to tell their version of that ancestral fight for survival. Now, a growing cohort of Indigenous communicators are telling their own stories, providing first-hand dispatches from some of the Amazon’s most inaccessible and under-reported corners.

“It’s dangerous work and we suffer a lot when we’re out in the field,” said Batista, one of about 26,000 inhabitants of Raposa Serra do Sol, Brazil’s second most populous Indigenous territory. “But it really gives me strength because I’m showing the reality of our lives to the world.”

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, won power last year promising to improve the reality of Indigenous lives after four calamitous years under the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, who trashed protection efforts and encouraged illegal mining in places such as Raposa Serra do Sol.

Batista and his comrades from GPVTI (pronounced jeh-peh-vi-chee) were among 60 million Brazilians who voted for the leftist. “He’s seen as a brother here … people respect him because he respects Indigenous culture,” the young journalist said of Lula, who authorised Raposa Serra do Sol’s creation in 2005, to the fury of wealthy rice farmers whose henchmen rampaged through one community burning homes, a church and a school.

But Batista had no illusions that Lula’s return to office would miraculously eradicate the threats facing his mineral-rich home, on which diamond and gold miners have long preyed, as well as drug and gun runners. After being cleansed by the shaman, the journalist and his team left GPVTI’s base in Tabatinga on motorbikes and sped east towards the border with Guyana, determined to capture aerial footage of the miners polluting Raposa Serra do Sol’s rivers. They hoped such images may prompt a government crackdown.

“It’s my job to monitor the territory: to see who’s coming in and who is leaving, to find areas being invaded, and to defend the territory because we cannot live without it,” said Batista, who was trained by a local Indigenous association, the Conselho Indígena de Roraima, as part of an initiative called Rede Wakywai, which means “our news” in the local Wapichana language.

Caíque Souza Wapichana, an Indigenous photojournalist who teaches Rede Wakywai’s reporters to use cameras and drones, said he was inspired by a famous 1989 photograph showing a Kayapó activist using a machete to confront the president of a hydropower company plotting to dam a river in another part of the Amazon.

“In the old days we pointed machetes. These days we fly drones,” Souza said, calling unmanned aerial vehicles “defensive weapons” against invaders.

Full article

The controversial construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) gained national and international attention when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accepted an application filed by Energy Transfer Partners, a Texas-based developer behind the project.

The position of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is that the Dakota Access Pipeline violates Article II of the Fort Laramie Treaty, which guarantees the "undisturbed use and occupation" of reservation lands surrounding the proposed location of the pipeline. In 2015 the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, operating as a sovereign nation , passed a resolution regarding the pipeline stating that "the Dakota Access Pipeline poses a serious risk to the very survival of our Tribe and ... would destroy valuable cultural resources."

To generate momentum for their cause and demonstrate their opposition to the pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe organized runs, horseback rides, and marches. Many Native Nations, along with non-Native allies, celebrities, and several politicians supported the movement and travelled to join DAPL protesters at the Sacred Stone Camp on the Standing Rock Reservation. Conditions at the camp became intense. North Dakota law enforcement officials and private guards hired by Energy Transfer Partners clashed with protestors, sometimes violently, and made hundreds of arrests.

On September 3rd, 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline company used bulldozers to dig up part of the pipeline route that contained possible Native graves and burial artifacts; the land was subject to a pending legal injunction.

Protesters stormed the land and were attacked by a private security firm, armed with attack dogs and pepper spray.

The battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline, explained vox

Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline: Native American Perspectives: Background: Historical and Current

Dakota Access Pipeline Company Attacks Native American Protesters with Dogs & Pepper Spray

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

• ❤️ Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
• 💖 Come talk in the New Weekly Queer thread
• 💛 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread
• ⭐️ August Movie Nominations ⭐️

reminders:

• 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
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Inaccurate statement by the International Union for Conservation of Nature made as part of the 1982 process for world heritage status for Tasmanian wilderness area

Unesco removes ‘hurtful’ document claiming Tasmanian Aboriginal people ‘extinct’ Inaccurate statement by the International Union for Conservation of Nature made as part of the 1982 process for world heritage status for Tasmanian wilderness area

A UN agency was forced to remove a “hurtful” document that for more than 40 years publicly claimed Tasmanian Aboriginal people were extinct.

The inaccurate claim, stating that “Tasmanians are now an extinct race of humans”, was made as part of the nomination process for the declaration of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its addition to the world heritage list in 1982.

The reference was included in the technical evaluation of the temperate wilderness area, which now encompasses about one-fifth of Tasmania’s landmass, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The review also suggested the survival of the thylacine, which is believed to have gone extinct in 1936:

“With … important Aboriginal sites (the Tasmanians are now an extinct race of humans), and many endangered species of plants and animals (including, perhaps, the thylacine or Tasmanian wolf), the area is unique and special at a world scale.”

In May, the Australian reported that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) had refused to remove the erroneous reference. The agency refuted that claim, saying it had not been contacted regarding the statement, and confirmed the reference was removed the day the article was published.

Through three oral interventions before the experts of the UN Human Rights Council for indigenous peoples, Peruvian lawyer Karina Baca Gómez Sánchez, raised in Geneva the terrible situation of many peasant communities of the native Quechua peoples in her country. She said that they are under threat of being evicted or dispossessed of their own ancestral territories, due to court rulings in favor of the sons of landowners who are claiming restitution of lands supposedly belonging to their relatives from the colonial era. (1)

Responsible for the National Association of Indigenous Peoples in Peru, Karina Baca Gomez Sanchez, a lawyer specialized in the defense of indigenous peoples, echoed the complaints that the victims of this plundering have been making public for some time, without getting a definitive recognition of the Peruvian justice system, nor the support of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the competent body of the OAS, which has not provided precautionary measures. That is why they are now turning to the UN.

The Peruvian justice has not issued sentences that guarantee the property titles of the territories of these Quechuas, leaving them helpless at the mercy of the present neo-colonial violence. The conquest took away their lands and haciendas were set up where the indigenous people worked as slaves until the agrarian reform, when their lands were returned to them, the community was recognized and their titles were officially registered, said Karina Baca Gómez Sánchez.

However, in the Tancalla case of 2005, a lawsuit for not having notified the former landowners of the loss of the property initially assigned by the continuators of colonialism, has been judicially imposed de facto, given the defenselessness of the Quechuas, who could not defend themselves on equal terms against the alleged descendants of the colonizers, due to conditions of poverty, exclusion and severe discrimination, stressed Karina Baca Gómez Sanchez.

She also stressed that the figure of usurpation has been used to criminalize the defense of the geography of the native peoples, recognized by the Peruvian state, a questioning also wielded by former hacienda owners for the dispossession of the properties of the peasant communities by those who have economic power and access to ordinary justice. He explained that equality without discrimination based on ethnicity is still alien to the native populations of Peru.

He added that the judicial proceeding in Peru took place in a Mixed Court in Santiago, outside its jurisdiction, with a judge who was removed for corruption by the National Board of Justice, questioning Quechua people who registered the lands 20 years ago, who were never subjected to any control of conventionality. Nevertheless, they are now forced to vacate their lands, occupied by housing and social services, under intimidation of demolishing the buildings and launching police intervention, with the power to arrest those who oppose them.

Karina Baca Gómez Sánchez justified her initiative before the UN Human Rights Council by requesting the "unenforceability of the sentence of unconstitutionality and violation of the communal jurisdiction" of the sentence against the Quechua residents of the lands now being questioned by colonialist nostalgics. He justified this because the UN is a "supranational instance" for Peru regarding the application of international norms on indigenous peoples ratified by the country.

In particular, he recalled Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which guarantees the ownership and possession of lands by the peoples who traditionally occupy them, and that "appropriate procedures must be instituted within the framework of the national legal system to resolve land claims formulated by the peoples concerned", an instrument ratified by Peru, whose rights have been confirmed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Peru's own domestic legislation,

(1) He gave as an example the cases of the peasant communities of Tantacalla, Patabamba, Incacona, Sihuina, Urinsaya Ccollana Huarondo, Usi and others in the Cusco region (mainly), which are part of the original Quechua peoples in the provinces of Anta, Calca, Espinar and Paruro in Peru.

Native American children have attended at least 523 Indigenous boarding schools since the 19th century, including hundreds that were run by the federal government to assimilate children into White society, a non-profit group says.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition released a new list of Indigenous boarding schools Wednesday that surpasses the number of previously reported institutions.

The list of Indigenous boarding schools in the United States includes many that have closed and some that are still in operation today.

Last year, the Department of Interior released a review of the past efforts by the federal government to assimilate Native American children into White American society. It found the federal government ran or supported 408 boarding schools that forced assimilation between 1819 and 1969.

Deborah Parker, the coalition’s CEO, told CNN that her group identified an additional 115 institutions, the majority of which were operated without federal support.

“There’s just so much we don’t know and trying to get records from churches has been incredibly difficult until now. We’re starting to get some records, but it’s just not enough,” Parker said. “We’re really trying to build this movement so that we can help families find their loved ones.”

Parker said people in many Indigenous communities are still looking for relatives who were taken to boarding schools.

“They’re still trying to search for information that could lead them to where their family members are. We know that many, many children died in the boarding schools and yet, we don’t know where they’re right now,” Parker said.

The coalition’s list includes institutions that meet three requirements: the institutions must have been designed specifically for Native American children, have an educational component and house students for any period of time. The Interior Department had similar criteria but only counted schools opened before 1969 that were operated or directly supported by the US federal government.

The list also includes 125 schools that are currently open and that were or are considered Indigenous boarding schools.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Native American children were sent to schools where they were renamed, told not to use Indigenous languages and had their hair cut, the Interior Department’s review states.

Hundreds of those schools were operated or directly supported by the US government but many were also run by religious groups and churches after Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act in 1819. The legislation provided religious organizations with the resources to run more than a hundred schools for Native American children. Many operated like military training camps where children were subject to abuse, neglect and corporal punishment.

In recent years, efforts to raise awareness about the legacy of boarding schools have gained momentum with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland – the nation’s first Native American to serve as cabinet secretary – who launched an initiative to investigate the boarding schools.

The Interior Department’s initial investigation found that 19 boarding schools accounted for the deaths of more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children but noted the number of recorded deaths was expected to rise, CNN previously reported.

“The Department expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands,” the report said.

Hundreds of Indigenous protesters, many in traditional feather headdresses, rallied in the capital Brasilia as the court weighed the legality of the so-called "time-frame argument," which holds that native peoples should not have the right to lands where they were not present in 1988, when the current constitution was ratified.

Indigenous groups say that violates their rights, given that many were forced from their ancestral lands, including during the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from the 1960s to 1980s.

The Supreme Court began hearing the case in 2021, but has adjourned the proceedings several times.

So far, two of the court's 11 justices have sided with the Indigenous plaintiffs, and two against them, one of these a judge who announced his stance on Wednesday.

Climate campaigners have joined Indigenous activists in pressing for the court to reject the time-frame argument, given that numerous studies have found that protected Indigenous reservations are one of the best ways to fight deforestation and, with it, global warming.

"The argument ignores our constitutional rights to our ancestral lands, puts existing Indigenous reservations at risk and makes creating new ones unviable," Dinamam Tuxa, coordinator of the Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples (APIB), told AFP ahead of the trial.

Indigenous rights groups have dubbed the case the "trial of the century."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement that a win for the time-frame limitation argument would be "a big setback" for the rights of Indigenous people in Brazil and go against international human rights norms.

The limitation is backed by Brazil's powerful agribusiness lobby, which scored a victory in May when the lower house of Congress passed a bill enshrining the 1988 cutoff in law.

The bill is now working its way through the Senate.

Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a self-described ally of Indigenous peoples, is expected to veto the bill if it passes. But Congress, where the agribusiness coalition is a major player, could override a veto.

The case could enter murky legal territory if that happens before the Supreme Court's justices finish delivering their rulings.

The constitution makes no mention of a cutoff date in relation to Indigenous reservations.

Indigenous reservations cover 11.6 percent of Brazil's territory, notably in the Amazon rainforest.

Brazil has around 1.7 million Indigenous inhabitants -- 0.8 percent of the population.

The Indigenous voice referendum date will be announced at a large community rally in Adelaide’s outer suburbs on Wednesday, kickstarting a campaign to change Australia’s constitution for the first time in nearly half a century.

Albanese will join South Australia’s premier, Peter Malinauskas, in Elizabeth in Adelaide’s north, to confirm the referendum date. If held on 14 October, as widely anticipated, it would kickstart a 45-day campaign.

The yes campaign sees its path to victory through young people and women in the cities and the suburbs and is banking on a massive grassroots push to reverse current polling showing the no vote ahead in key areas.

“Seven years ago when the Uluru statement was issued, no one would have known out of that process, a place of despair, we’d be on the cusp of going to a referendum with a positive vision for the future,” said Prof Megan Davis, co-chair of the Uluru Dialogue and an architect of the voice.

“That’s the choice the referendum provides: either an endorsement of now, which is not great for our people, or it’s a new Australia.

“This is a campaign of two future Australias,” she said.

“One [future Australia] is backward-looking, negative, pessimistic, has a very deep racial undertone, bullying – and the other is a vision for Australia that was developed by First Nations people, that opens its arms up, is positive and forward-looking and has huge numbers of Gen Z and millennials who say they want their future to be inclusive.”

Dressed head to toe in white, 33-year-old indigenous man Ailton Krenak ascended to the pulpit of the lower house of Brazil’s Congress on September 4, 1987. There, members of a constituent assembly were in the process of building the country’s new charter following years of a military dictatorship. At the time, neither Mr. Krenak nor any of the constituents were aware that the speech he was about to make would go down in history.

As he spoke into the microphone, he delicately touched his cheek with one hand, leaving a smudge. He had been holding a traditional black-colored dye made from the genipap fruit, used by the Krenak indigenous people during mourning periods. As he continued to speak, he painted his entire face black.

Mr. Krenak was campaigning for laws to protect Brazil’s indigenous peoples, and his theatrical gesture is remembered decades later by anyone interested in such issues. At the time, however, it was not well understood. A newspaper headline the following day read: “Indian gets angry with the constituent assembly,” omitting the content of his speech.

Nearly 40 years later, Mr. Krenak has written several books and is currently the leading candidate for a chair in the Brazilian Academy of Letters this year. But the way he and other indigenous thinkers see the world is still poorly understood in Brazilian academia.

There are more than 300 indigenous languages in Brazil, and dozens more have been lost over time as a result of the violence of colonization. And beyond the languages themselves, many unique expressions and philosophies have also been lost.

full article

In recent years, several exhibitions held abroad have featured Indigenous people from Brazil and Latin America, giving unprecedented visibility to artists historically erased by gallery owners and museums.

Some examples include Siamo Foresta in Milan; The Yanomami Struggle in New York, and BEĨ: Benches of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples in Japan.

According to curators, the works transcend a mere aesthetic vision, being deeply connected to each people’s cosmologies, in addition to taking political and socioenvironmental issues into museums and galleries.

The art market is moving closer and closer to Indigenous villages. In recent years, several exhibitions have been held abroad that focused on Indigenous peoples from Brazil and Latin America, giving unprecedented visibility to their artists, historically erased by gallery owners and museums.

At this time of high demand for Indigenous art, Europe is also debating how colonialism usurped Amerindian culture and wrongly appropriated its artifacts. An example is the 16th-century Tupinambá mantle at the National Museum of Denmark, which will be returned to Brazil after three centuries in the institution’s collection. A late reckoning.

Such renewal in the circuit shows how art and politics are inseparable, and it may guide exhibitions and change curators’ colonial thinking. This is the case of Siamo Foresta, an exhibition that opened at Milan’s La Triennale in June, gathering works by 27 artists related to the Amazon Rainforest. They include Indigenous collectives such as the Yanomami Group, one of the best known in the country, with artists such as André Taniki, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Vital Warasi and Joseca Mokahesi.

This is the collective’s second international exhibition in 2023, after The Yanomami Struggle, at The Shed culture center in New York in February. Alongside the work of photographer Claudia Andujar, who has documented changes in the Yanomami Territory for 50 years, the artists showed, in the largest U.S. city, the struggle of a people who have recently faced one of their worst humanitarian tragedies.

French anthropologist Bruce Albert, the exhibition’s curator, pointed out in a statement to the press that “Siamo Foresta stages an unprecedented encounter between thinkers and defenders of the forest; between Indigenous … and non-Indigenous artists.” The exhibition “draws its founding inspiration from this aesthetic and political vision of the forest as an egalitarian multiverse of living beings, human and non-human and, as such, offers the vibrant allegory of a possible world beyond our anthropocentrism.”

full article here

The mass slaughter of the North American bison in the 19th century, widely recognized as an ecological catastrophe, also delivered a crippling blow to the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, according to a new study led by Emory University.

The research sheds light on the long-lasting economic and social consequences the bison slaughter had on these Indigenous communities that once thrived on bison.

Researchers from Emory University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Victoria quantified the economic shockwaves that continue to affect Indigenous populations. The study exposes the economic disparities rooted in this nearly forgotten aspect of American history.

Economic shock

In the mid-19th century, the United States was home to an estimated eight million bison, a number that plummeted to fewer than 500 in just two decades.

While this decimation momentarily boosted the economies of settlers, hunters, and traders who profited from selling bison hides and bones, the Indigenous peoples who had depended on the bison for their livelihood for over 10,000 years experienced a catastrophic economic shock, the reverberations of which are still felt today.

Health consequences

The economic fallout manifested in several ways, including a striking decline in the average height of bison-dependent Indigenous men.

“Adult height across a population is one proxy of wealth and health given that it can be impacted by nutrition and disease, particularly early in development,” said study co-author Professor Maggie Jones.

Prior to the slaughter, bison-reliant Indigenous men averaged around six feet in height, making them “among the tallest people in the world in the mid-19th century,” said Jones.

However, in the aftermath of the slaughter, the average height of the most affected Indigenous populations dropped by over an inch within a generation. “That’s a major drop, but given the magnitude of the economic shock, it’s not necessarily surprising,” she adds.

A persistent economic gap

The researchers also found that by the early 20th century, child mortality rates among bison-dependent Indigenous nations were 16 percentage points higher, and the likelihood of working-age males reporting an occupation was 19 percentage points lower compared to Indigenous nations never reliant on bison.

Furthermore, income per capita for bison-reliant nations remained 25% lower on average than other nations from the mid-20th century to the present day. This persistent gap could not be accounted for by variations in agricultural productivity, self-governance, or the application of the Dawes Act of 1887.

The study identifies limited access to credit as a key factor that hindered the economic adjustment of bison-reliant nations following the near-extinction of the bison.

“One role of economists is to provide quantitative evidence that people can turn to when trying to design more effective policies,” said Jones. “By providing data that benchmarks disparities among bison-reliant people and the sources and evolution of these disparities, we hope to support efforts to improve the situation.”

Full article

"Our land is drying up and our water is polluted," says Nati Machaca, one of the protesters manning a roadblock in the village of Purmamarca, high in the Andes mountains.

Ms Machaca is a spokeswoman for the indigenous groups living in Jujuy, a province in northern Argentina.

Jujuy is located in what has become known as the "lithium triangle", a stretch of the Andes straddling the tri-border area between Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which holds the world's biggest reserves of lithium.

The metal is used to make rechargeable batteries for everything from smartphones to laptops.

It has become especially sought after as electrical cars, which also use lithium in their batteries, are becoming increasingly popular.

Argentina is the world's number four lithium producer, but some residents of Jujuy say not only are they not benefiting from the industry, but that their way of life is under threat as a result of it.

Lithium extraction requires huge amounts of water - about two million litres per tonne.

And locals like Nati Machaca, who live off the land and raise cattle in this predominantly rural area, fear it is drying the soil and polluting the water.

"If this goes on, we will soon starve and become ill," she warns.

The position of the more than 400 indigenous groups inhabiting these mountains is complicated by the fact that many lack legal titles to the land where they have lived for centuries - long before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 1500s.

Ms Machaca is a case in point. She lives on a piece of land her grandfather bought from the landowner he worked for.

"Back then it was all verbal agreements," she explains, "but there's no proof".

She and many like her, who have no legal documents to back up their claims to the land, could now face eviction under a controversial constitutional reform approved in June by the governor of Jujuy, Gerardo Morales.

"[Governor] Morales comes after the land because he knows it's where the lithium is," says Ms Machaca.

The new constitution also limits the right to protest, but that has not deterred the indigenous communities, who have blocked the roads to the lithium mines.

Police were deployed to remove them, but the protesters say this made them more united and determined.

"We are not moving. The land is ours, the lithium belongs to us," they insisted.

Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak [Mahkate:wi-meši-ke:hke:hkwa] means "be a large black hawk"

Black Hawk was a war chief and leader of the Sauk tribe in the Midwest of the United States. He was known more for being a war leader, a “captain of his actions” than he was a tribal chief. Black Hawk earned his credentials by leading raids and war parties in his youth. The War of 1812 consisted of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against the United States where part of it took place around the Great Lakes area. An undeterred Black Hawk and his group of about 200 warriors were allies for the British, and they fought against the U.S. army. It was Black Hawk’s wish to push white settlers away from his people in the Sauk territory. Saddened by the many lives that were lost due to European attack methods, Black Hawk returned home to Saukenuk.

In the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis, the Sauk and Fox, in exchange for an annual payment of goods, both tribes gave up a stretch of land that started in Missouri through most of Illinois, and part of Wisconsin. Black Hawk resented the treaty saying that the tribal leader who had signed it was not authorized to sign treaties. In 1832, Black Hawk led a loose confedaracy of the Sauks, Meskwakis and Kickapoos known as the “British Band”. These tribes made up about 1500 warriors and non- combative people that crossed the Mississippi River into the state of Illinois from Iowa.

Black Hawk and his followers had contested the seizure of 50 million acres (20 million hectares) of territory that had that the U.S. government claimed following the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis. Black Hawk openly defied the U.S. government and attempted to reoccupy tribal lands along the Rock River in Illinois. The intention of Black Hawk was to peacefully regain and settle on tribal land that had been taken by the United States in the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis.

When the British Band tried to return to Iowa, there were a number of battles with opposing forces. The last war fought on the east side of the Mississippi River was called the Black Hawk War.

On August 2nd, the Massacre at Bad Axe (sometimes called the "Battle of Bad Axe") occurred when Sauk people attempted to surrender. Instead of accepting the surrender, American soldiers gunned them down indiscriminately. Women carrying children on their backs attempted to swim across the Mississippi River to safety were shot at by soldiers. Many of those not shot to death drowned in the Mississippi waters.

After the war, Black Hawk lived with the Sauk in Iowa, he later died after a two week illness. He was buried on a friend’s farm in Des Moines River, Iowa.

While detained by American forces, Black Hawk dictated his autobiography, published as "Autobiography of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk". This was one of the first Native American autobiographies published in the U.S.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MA-KA-TAI-ME-SHE-KIA-KIAK,

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Article https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article278276708.html#storylink=cpy

When California’s Central Valley leaders of Mixteco origin learned about the racist comments made by three Latinos on the Los Ángeles City Council regarding the Oaxacan Indigenous community in October 2022, they were not surprised.

After all, those insults against the indigenous are nothing new and are part of a culture of racism and discrimination that goes back centuries. “We have always experienced discrimination and oppression from Latinos themselves,” said Oralia Maceda, program director of El Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño in Spanish in October.

CULTURE OF RACISM

Hugo Morales, co-founder and executive director of Radio Bilingüe, said culturally, discrimination and racism against indigenous people is something that has taken place since colonial times when white people invaded and conquered México and Latin América “instilling their own culture of racism.”

The 74-year-old Morales, who is of Mixteco descent, said after the Spaniards invaded México and Latin América, they wrote a legal code of hierarchy placing pure whites from Spain at the highest order above Blacks and native Americans. “That was literally part of the legal system in colonial times throughout, you know, Latin América that was ruled by Spain, which is most of the Américas,” Morales said. “So, you know, that racism was embedded there.”

The racist, anti-indigenous comments by Los Ángeles City Council President Nury Martínez, along with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, among others, were caught on audio and leaked near Columbus Day. The holiday is referred by Morales and other indigenous as the “the anniversary of (Christopher) Columbus’ march of colonization and genocide.”

Recently, Columbus Day has increasingly been replaced with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which honors and celebrates the history and culture of indigenous people of the Américas. “We are in the commemoration of 530 years of resistance of our Indigenous communities and we are still experiencing those bad experiences that we have as (Indigenous) communities,” said Maceda, who is of Mixteco origin.

In the leaked audio, councilmembers refer disparagingly to the appearance of immigrants from Oaxaca, calling them ugly, short, and dark-skinned. California is home to about 350,000 Indigenous Oaxacans, who are mainly concentrated in the Central Valley, the southern part of the state and the Monterey area, according to a 2016 study by USC and the Mexican research institute El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Racism and discrimination can evolve to hate speech and hate crimes. State officials have noted an increase in hate crimes in recent years among all ethnicities and sexual orientation.

The indigenous have been discriminated against because of their language, culture, stature, dress or indigenous features they have. “I think that racism among Mexican mixed bloods is so deep that it doesn’t matter how a person dresses,” said Morales, adding that people find a way to discriminate.

For example, the Monterey County community of Greenfield, where about one in three residents are Oaxacan indigenous migrants, made the news in 2011 when national media reported an “ugly conflict” between long-time Latino residents and Oaxacan newcomers who spoke their own languages, and kept their own customs such as arranged marriages to daughters still in their teens.

Latinos, mostly Mexican Americans, were unhappy with the new immigrants and presented a series of escalating grievances against the Oaxacans to the city council, social media sites and the local newspaper. Elsa Mejía, the first Mixteca elected to a U.S. city council, has endured slurs like those made by Los Ángeles leaders since childhood. “It didn’t stop when I was a child. It happened in social settings as a teenager.

It happened in the workplace and it continues to happen,” Mejía said. At one entry level job, the manager who was Mexican called Mejía “Indita” (Little Indian.) and nobody said anything about it.

Full article https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article278276708.html