{"id":53850,"date":"2022-10-26T15:22:21","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T22:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=53850"},"modified":"2022-10-26T15:22:21","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T22:22:21","slug":"sadness-disappointment-anger-indigenous-oaxacans-fight-for-identity-representation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=53850","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sadness, Disappointment, Anger\u2019 \u2014 Indigenous Oaxacans Fight for Identity, Representation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Peter Schurmann<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Leer este art\u00edculo en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A recent article in the Spanish-language newspaper La Opini\u00f3n drew the ire of Mixtec and other Indigenous Oaxacans in and around Los Angeles. Coming amid the ongoing firestorm over racist remarks by the city\u2019s most prominent Latino leaders \u2014\u00a0remarks disparaging both Indigenous and African American residents \u2014\u00a0the article described the backlash against City Council Member Kevin de Le\u00f3n, one of the leaders heard on the leaked audio, as a political \u201clynching.\u201d That\u2019s a problematic term for both the Indigenous and African American communities, says Arcenio L\u00f3pez, director of the Mixteco\/Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) in Ventura County. L\u00f3pez has spent two decades working to promote civic engagement among Indigenous Oaxacans and says the remarks were a blow to that effort.<\/em><\/p>\n

What was your response when the leaked audio was released?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first, I thought it was a joke\u2026 like the memes on social media that people post to gain followers. I wanted to believe that was the case but then I reached out to Indigenous leaders in Los Angeles, and they confirmed it was real. From that point there were all kinds of emotions: sadness, disappointment, anger. It felt like we\u2019d just been sent backwards, after all the work we\u2019ve done to move ahead, one, two or three steps. With this we went back miles. That is how it felt for me.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0incident<\/a>\u00a0has since become national news. Do you feel Indigenous voices are being reflected in the coverage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think not too much\u2026 there needs to be more. People are hearing the word Oaxacan and Indigenous, sometimes for the first time, without any background about who these people are. That is what is missing. We\u2019re not given the opportunity or the space to express who we really are. We didn\u2019t just arrive here\u2026 we\u2019ve been on this continent for thousands of years and this is probably the first time some have heard of us. And so, people may be confused about why this issue is so critical and delicate within what is called the Latino\/Hispanic community.<\/p>\n

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Arcenio L\u00f3pez, director of the Mixteco\/Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) in Ventura County<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

What is your relationship to the term \u201cLatino?\u201d Do you identify as a Latino?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t identify as Latino or Hispanic. I\u2019ve been forced to identify as Latino when it comes to legal forms or government documents but now, I mark the \u201cother\u201d box and write in Mixtec. It\u2019s taken 20 years of personal work and reflection for me to get to this point where I can embrace my Indigenous identity, to feel proud and not to feel scared or embarrassed that I am an Indigenous person. If you knew me 20 years ago, I would never say that I am Indigenous. I would say that I am Mexican. But now I embrace my Indigenous identity because I know how important that is.<\/p>\n

Do today\u2019s generation of Mixtec and other Indigenous groups face that same struggle?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a large percentage of our population who still mark Latino on official forms for many reasons. Some do it because it is easier to navigate the system. We do a lot of work with the local school districts around issues like language access. Many Mixtec parents don\u2019t speak Spanish or English\u2026 and yet it took years for the districts to modify their intake forms to include Mixtec or Zapotec. When they finally did, we began to educate the community, encouraging them to check the \u201cMixtec\u201d box. But parents told us it takes so much time to access services when they mark Mixtec because they have to schedule interpreters that many just mark Latino to make the process move more quickly.<\/p>\n

Spanish language media has come out in recent days to defend de Leon and to argue for more \u2014\u00a0not less \u2014\u00a0Latino representation in Los Angeles. What is your response?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We disagreed with the article published in\u00a0La Opini\u00f3n<\/a>, because it felt like it was all about protecting his reputation, about giving him a pass. The victim\u2019s voice was not included\u2026 it was more the voice of the perpetrator. The headline also used the term \u201clynching,\u201d which has a problematic history with Indigenous people and African Americans.<\/p>\n

The other day de Leon was on Telemundo and Univision, insisting he won\u2019t resign. It\u2019s as if these other outlets are now joining the campaign to defend him. A lot of this has to do with Spanish-language media in general, which excludes Indigenous people\u2026 You don\u2019t see people that look like me in these media, and when you do, often the stories are patronizing.<\/p>\n

But what about the question of representation? Where do Indigenous communities like the Mixtec fit in that discussion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t speak about Los Angeles because I don\u2019t live there, but as an Indigenous person in California, I can say that this whole scandal has reaffirmed the one thing we feared, which is that candidates who run campaigns saying they represent us\u2026 they are not representing us. They are just mouthing the words that they care about us. But they don\u2019t care about our issues, and they are not willing to defend us.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s clear there is more work that we need to do to foster the political power of Indigenous communities. And I am confident there are individuals from within the Indigenous and African American communities who can fill these seats on the city council. That would be a key piece in the healing process. But I wonder if other Latinos would allow an Indigenous person to run for office or if they would support that person.<\/p>\n

What are the platforms or channels that Mixtec and other Indigenous communities use to make their voice heard?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is something we need to work toward. Social media, FaceBook and YouTube, they\u2019re popular. But our system is still largely word of mouth, by community and network. Each of our towns has its own committee, like hometown associations, which is how we organize. At MICOP we do a lot of civic engagement, encouraging people who are citizens to vote and educating them on the election process, for example. With this scandal, I worry about the damage its done to that effort. I worry it will discourage Indigenous people from wanting to be more engaged and have their voice heard. With the current political climate, it just makes the effort to motivate people that much more difficult.<\/p>\n

How do you see the community moving forward from here?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It takes time and time is our best friend, but it has to be intentional. The more we embrace our identity, the more we keep fighting and passing our language to new generations\u2026 this is powerful. The key is that each culture learns to be proud, and is then willing to share, and to receive. When we mobilize people and communities around these values it makes our world stronger. What happened in Los Angeles is exactly the opposite.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByPeter Schurmann Oct 21, 2022 Leer...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53851,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53850\/revisions\/53851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}