Photo by Austin KennedyWhy I won't mark Hispanic but American Indian in the 2010 Census in the United States. This is my personal option, you decide yours, but remember to represent your community, your people, your true race. It's important to be counted -regardless of your nationality or immigration status- so the U.S. government can direct the needed resources to your community.
Lets show the real face of the United States of America.
But if you don't get counted as Hispanic, who is going to elect those White people who speak Spanish to Congress?
ReplyDeleteYou must mark "Mestizo" in the census. How do you know if you are 100% native american or not?
ReplyDeleteMany American Indians are mestizo, mixed with White or Black, but we are still Natives. We speak English, Spanish and hundreds of Native languages. My grandparents were fluent in Quechua.
ReplyDeleteCarlos, you should take your own advice and be true to yourself, and don't deny your heritage by only checking one box. Maybe you should check white and American Indian. Unless you can trace your heritage and prove you're 100% Native, then don't deny your other races. Most Latinos today are a mixture of native and european ancestry that make us who we are today. I agree that native cultures in the Americas need representation, but to deny one is just foolish.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is that most of us are a mixture of 2 races not just one.
"The truth is that most of us are a mixture of 2 races not just one."
ReplyDeleteHow can you speak for MOST and even try to define MY heritage? Let me be clear, I said already in my video that I am expressing my personal choice and I'm not speaking for everyone here.
"Unless you can trace your heritage and prove you're 100% Native"
There is not such a thing as pure race in humanity, we are all mestizos.
My ancestry is mostly Indigenous, and my culture is strongly influenced by the Andean peoples of Peru, therefore I choose to honor my Native American heritage.
Yes, I speak Spanish and English that are two European languages imposed to our ancestors, but I'm a descendant of a blood line of peoples that predated me, they lived here thousands of years ago creating civilizations that are still alive today, one way or another.
Thanks for your suggestion though. You should represent your heritage, I will do the same.
White people don't fill out the census and break apart their identity, it's fairly simple for them. They don't say, well, I'm white, but my mothers parents are from Denmark and my father's family is Italian, so really, I'm not "white", I'm actually a collage of European tribal ethnicities.
ReplyDeleteSo why should we? Especially when the majority of faces throughout our communities blatantly reflect people's indigenous & african ancestry.
It's not about hating or denying an aspect of who you are. As Carlos shared, we're all essentially "mixed". It's about "your identity". Bob Marley was never questioned about his identity as a proud blackman, even though his physical father was a stone cold white englishman.
Yet, it seems that this issue of identity becomes an issues with lighter skinned people, which resonants with a white supremacist mentality, a by-product of the plantations & encomiendas where to survive & thrive in society, it was best to be closer to white as possible.
I was born in the States. My family is from Adjuntas, Puerto Rico and my father still works the land that our ancestors have since before 1492. I was raised knowing I was a "Puerto Rican Indian".....and that's how I see myself- Indigenous.
-Sha-King Allah