Carlos in DC: Ecuadoreans killed in New York because we don’t look American even if we are Natives of this continent

"We are Indigenous and we face the same thing: they despise us by the color of our skin, we disgust them by our stature, the way we dress, and by our languages..."

Over 13 Ecuadoran citizens have been attacked in the New York's Long Island and Brooklyn areas in recent months. Some of them are dead now. The reason of the attacks: racism, xenophobia and homophobia. The attackers: white and black American young men, who thought their victims shouldn't be in the US.

To understand these crimes, we have to know where this racism is coming from: all the victims were Native American men from Ecuador.

Why are Ecuadorans being targeted? Because they don't look Americans and because this country has pushed them into a limbo state of second class citizenship. Plain simple, the attackers saw them as foreigners- who definitely did not fit what an "American" should look like. These are hate crimes based on race, in appearances, stereotypes.

Yes, Ecuadorans -like most Native people of South and Central and Caribbean American- WE look like Mexicans to the eyes of those sick people. In part that is the truth.

But is not the way we look what is wrong. We are one people the Native descendants, e are not Latinos nor Hispanics. What is wrong is how some people associate us just for being Indigenous.

There is the idea that if you look in certain way -the Mexican look- then you must be undocumented, poor, naive and defenseless. This wrong thinking comes not only from whites but other racial groups including those who call themselves "Latinos", some Blacks and other people too.

Read this comment posted in a Youtube video about Mexicans, by the user coly66:

Once again, these victims were not Latinos: just because someone has a Hispanic surname, it doesn't gives that person a Latino nor any other European identity. For instance, one of the attackers is an Afro descendant with a Hispanic surname as well. How sad.

Meet some of the victims:

Marcelo Lucero
survived by his brother

Carlos Angamarca
survived the attack

José Sucuzhañay
killed by racists

Here in the US, we Native people become a target of racist American. The attackers assume that we must be illiterate, and that we might not be able to speak English, thus we won't tell about the crimes. Nor we will stand and defend our rights.

This is nothing new for us: racism starts at home. In Mexico, Central and South America, Native peoples and Afro descendants are considered the lower class people.

The attackers must have thought they can get away with abuse against our people, since it happens every day all over the US. Also, some of the victims were thought to be homosexuals, as two brothers were sharing a jacket in a very cold night.

These phobias are consequence of the hatred promoted by the US immigration law, its law enforcement, most mainstream media -Lou Dobbs for example- and the racist views of some Americans in regards of the world, especially towards Mexico and Latin America.

Let me say this: let's respect the memory of these victims, and do not label them with false European identities. They belong to this continent, regardless of their nationality.

But most importantly, let's address the racism against brown people, against the Indigenous peoples of this American continent who are still oppressed, attacked and exploited in many ways.

These deaths are consequences of fake identities pushed by America on the Native peoples of this continent, and because we don't have representation, and our rights are ignored from the very basics as our own identity.

America must stop all racial hate, beginning with accepting our origins, stop labeling us with stereotypes, educating Americans about who we are, about people's rights, and promoting a fair immigration law for once.

Los NIN - Ecuadoreans in New York

"We are Indigenous and we face the same thing: they despise us by the color of our skin, we disgust them by our stature, the way we dress, and by our languages..."