The color of the people of Mexico is one of the things that had a most profound effect on my psyche when I first visited the place of my birth in 1976 at the age of 22. The people came in all colors, though primarily different shades of red-brown, owing to the nation's Indigenous roots.
Having grown up in a white-dominant society, it was an affirmation of my own brown skin color, in sharp contrast with the artificial color of official Mexico. I was used to seeing government bureaucrats and those that graced the nation's television screens with light skin, bleached blond hair and artificial blue or green eyes.
The truth is, more than 40 years later, the nation's color line has seemingly not changed much at all. When I first noticed this preference for light skin in Mexico, it was present at every turn and every corner. It wasn't just a case of difference, but also disdain. Apparently, all things that were light were "good" and all things dark were "bad." This was especially true of television. White or light skin was preferred for virtually every role, except the ones for the subservient, demeaning and outlaw roles.
This was most pronounced in advertising. Virtually all commercials used the same obscenely blond baby or the same blond couple to sell or promote anything and everything.
This had a shocking effect on me as I had been part of the Chicano movement and had just graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles. The movement was political, fighting for our human rights, but it was also an explosive time of cultural pride; it is what birthed the slogans: "Brown Power," "Brown is Beautiful" and "Brown Pride." No longer would we accept subservience, nor would we ever again be ashamed of our color or our Indigenous roots.
I thought the Mexican reality would have been opposite of the United States'. Bewildered, when I inquired, even the Mexican revolutionaries explained that racism was a US problem: a product of its history, not Mexico's. Rather, Mexico was afflicted with a deep-seated classism, not racism, they said.
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Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
July 5, 2018
Political Report # 1353 Mexico's Color Line and the Cultural Imperialism of Light-Skin Preference
June 18, 2018
Political Report # 1348 “Never Again Can There Be a Mexico Without Indigenous Peoples:” Recovering Native Languages in Mexico
By Daniela Pastrana, Toward Freedom
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(IPS) - Ángel Santiago is a Mexican teenager who speaks one of the variations of the Zapotec language that exists in the state of Oaxaca, in the southwest of Mexico. Standing next to the presidential candidate who is the favorite for the July elections, he calls for an educational curriculum that “respects our culture and our languages.”
Juan José García Ortiz, a teacher who is also mayor of Guelatao, a small town in this southwestern state, speaks in Zapotec and Spanish about the problems of education in Mexico, and ends with a message: “Never again can there be a Mexico without indigenous peoples.”
So does the poet Irma Pineda López, who reads the commitments drafted by the country’s best-organised teachers’ union, from Oaxaca, the state with the largest indigenous population in Mexico and where 418 of the 570 municipalities have a majority indigenous population and are governed by native customs.
The presidential candidate, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, nods. Next to him is Susana Harp, a prominent international singer of traditional Zapotec music, who is a candidate for the Senate for the presidential candidate’s party, Morena.
Behind them is Esteban Moctezuma, who López Obrador plans to appoint as minister of education if he wins the Jul. 1 elections.
This scene took place on May 12 in the town where the only indigenous president of Mexico, Benito Juárez (1858-1872), was born. On this occasion, López Obrador presented his proposal to reform education in the country and, remarkably, all the participants spoke first in their native mother tongue and then in Spanish.
One of the candidate’s campaign pledges is to establish bilingual schools in all regions with an indigenous majority.
The event in Guelatao is a sign of a new phenomenon that has begun to slowly emerge in the country: the recovery of native languages.
More speakers
In the last decade, according to the population census conducted every five years by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), the number of speakers of indigenous languages in Mexico increased 20 percent, practically at the same rate as the population growth.
In fact, for the first time in 80 years, the downward trend in the population of speakers of native languages has stopped.
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April 4, 2018
Abstract, Alternatives for Latin American Integration: Beyond Racial Fusion and Multiculturalism
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Alternatives for Latin American Integration: Beyond Racial Fusion and Multiculturalism
by Jorgelina Loza
Latin American integration is a core issue in Rodolfo Stavenhagen’s “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America.” A critical reading of the sixth thesis suggests an alternative interpretation. Changes in the past 50 years with regard to Latin American ethnic integration, for example in Mexico and Colombia, have called into question the model of integration through assimilation. The current challenges to integration in Latin America point to an alternative approach that attributes positive value to hybrid status as a path toward overcoming internal colonialism.
Alternatives for Latin American Integration: Beyond Racial Fusion and Multiculturalism
by Jorgelina Loza
Latin American integration is a core issue in Rodolfo Stavenhagen’s “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America.” A critical reading of the sixth thesis suggests an alternative interpretation. Changes in the past 50 years with regard to Latin American ethnic integration, for example in Mexico and Colombia, have called into question the model of integration through assimilation. The current challenges to integration in Latin America point to an alternative approach that attributes positive value to hybrid status as a path toward overcoming internal colonialism.
March 30, 2018
Abstract, Stavenhagen and the Nation: Ethnicity, Community, and Political Project
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Stavenhagen and the Nation: Ethnicity, Community, and Political Project
by Jorgelina Loza
There is consensus in Latin America that the modern states of the region emerged from a communal project based on the existence of pre-national societies. It remains important, however, to ask who the actors behind this construct are and how they understand the discourse of the nation promoted by those states. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, who took a critical view of the processes of construction of this modern organizational form, approached the concept of the nation as a construct that took into account the coalition of prevailing forces and could be disputed by those seeking to play a leading role in it.
Stavenhagen and the Nation: Ethnicity, Community, and Political Project
by Jorgelina Loza
There is consensus in Latin America that the modern states of the region emerged from a communal project based on the existence of pre-national societies. It remains important, however, to ask who the actors behind this construct are and how they understand the discourse of the nation promoted by those states. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, who took a critical view of the processes of construction of this modern organizational form, approached the concept of the nation as a construct that took into account the coalition of prevailing forces and could be disputed by those seeking to play a leading role in it.
March 28, 2018
Abstract, “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America” and the Emergence of a New Mexican Anthropology
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“Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America” and the Emergence of a New Mexican Anthropology
by Emanuel Rodríguez Domínguez
Mexican social anthropology was established as a practical tool for combining field studies with proposals for government action. From its inception it was closely related to the revolutionary project of national integration, but by the end of the 1950s academics had begun to question indigenista policy and its relationship with anthropological practice. Rodolfo Stavenhagen’s “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America” was one such critique. During the 1970s and 1980s it led to a debate that influenced many areas of anthropological study, nurturing a new kind of Mexican anthropology.
“Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America” and the Emergence of a New Mexican Anthropology
by Emanuel Rodríguez Domínguez
Mexican social anthropology was established as a practical tool for combining field studies with proposals for government action. From its inception it was closely related to the revolutionary project of national integration, but by the end of the 1950s academics had begun to question indigenista policy and its relationship with anthropological practice. Rodolfo Stavenhagen’s “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America” was one such critique. During the 1970s and 1980s it led to a debate that influenced many areas of anthropological study, nurturing a new kind of Mexican anthropology.
December 2, 2016
Introduction, The Resilience of Memory, Truth, and Justice Processes: Culture, Politics, and Social Mobilizations
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The Resilience of Memory, Truth, and Justice Processes: Culture, Politics, and Social Mobilizations
edited by Roberta Villalón
A second wave of memory, truth, and justice mobilizations has been spreading in Latin America since the turn of the century (Villalón, 2015). The push to address unresolved human rights violations perpetrated in the 1970s and 1980s has resulted in the (re)opening of trials of perpetrators and a more complex understanding of past and present violence and inequalities. The resilient collective efforts that have fed these processes have also gained depth. Richer collective memories and the achievement of (at least partially) successful outcomes have provided movements a clear sense that not all their efforts have been in vain. Justice, reconciliation, and social equality may not be at all possible, but they are utopic ideals worth pursuing (Villalón, 2016).
This third issue on the politics of collective memory expands on the contents of the first two (March 2015 and September 2016). Theoretically, it contributes to the body of literature in the field by uncovering the politics of framing memory and is developed in terms of a critical epistemology from the bottom up. The research is intended to challenge systems and practices of inequality and contribute to community efforts to generate social change for justice. The contributors dismantle inequalities of knowledge and power by critically pointing to controversies, inconsistencies, and complexities of memory, truth, and justice processes. Their studies allow for a more nuanced comprehension of past violence, breaking up simplistic interpretations that pair victims and victimizers, left and right, pre- and postconflict, truth and injustice to explore the grey areas in between and reveal the misleading effects of dichotomous rationalizations.
The Resilience of Memory, Truth, and Justice Processes: Culture, Politics, and Social Mobilizations
edited by Roberta Villalón
A second wave of memory, truth, and justice mobilizations has been spreading in Latin America since the turn of the century (Villalón, 2015). The push to address unresolved human rights violations perpetrated in the 1970s and 1980s has resulted in the (re)opening of trials of perpetrators and a more complex understanding of past and present violence and inequalities. The resilient collective efforts that have fed these processes have also gained depth. Richer collective memories and the achievement of (at least partially) successful outcomes have provided movements a clear sense that not all their efforts have been in vain. Justice, reconciliation, and social equality may not be at all possible, but they are utopic ideals worth pursuing (Villalón, 2016).
This third issue on the politics of collective memory expands on the contents of the first two (March 2015 and September 2016). Theoretically, it contributes to the body of literature in the field by uncovering the politics of framing memory and is developed in terms of a critical epistemology from the bottom up. The research is intended to challenge systems and practices of inequality and contribute to community efforts to generate social change for justice. The contributors dismantle inequalities of knowledge and power by critically pointing to controversies, inconsistencies, and complexities of memory, truth, and justice processes. Their studies allow for a more nuanced comprehension of past violence, breaking up simplistic interpretations that pair victims and victimizers, left and right, pre- and postconflict, truth and injustice to explore the grey areas in between and reveal the misleading effects of dichotomous rationalizations.
November 8, 2016
Book, Latin America: An Interpretive History
:::::: Book ::::::
Latin America: An Interpretive History, 10th Edition
by Julie A. Charlip and E. Bradford Burns
by Julie A. Charlip and E. Bradford Burns
For courses in the History of Latin America and Modern Latin America.
A thoroughly updated examination of Latin American
Latin America: An Interpretive History interweaves the story of Latin America with coverage of broader themes and regional differences. Building upon the work of original author E. Bradford Burns, current author Julie Charlip presents Latin American history as a continuum to help students make connections among time periods and events, and see the impact of the past upon the present. A new closing chapter examines in detail the “Pink Tide”–the swing left in Latin America that began at the end of the twentieth century and has continued over the last 15 years.
A thoroughly updated examination of Latin American
Latin America: An Interpretive History interweaves the story of Latin America with coverage of broader themes and regional differences. Building upon the work of original author E. Bradford Burns, current author Julie Charlip presents Latin American history as a continuum to help students make connections among time periods and events, and see the impact of the past upon the present. A new closing chapter examines in detail the “Pink Tide”–the swing left in Latin America that began at the end of the twentieth century and has continued over the last 15 years.
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