# Can Mexican-Americans be featured in Indigenous Peoples Day? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 10, 2018, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134 "2018-09-10T22:31:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/41 "2018-09-13T11:06:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ve said there wasn’t a genocide in the Americas. Some indigenous people survived the settlement of the Americas by Europeans. So some remnants of indigenous culture survive. That’s a unique definition of genocide. The mass murder of an ethnic group does not need to be total eradication to be a genocide. The United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. > **[Genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide?wprov=sfla1)** > > Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people\[a\] in whole or in part. > In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Vict... Words have meanings. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/42 "2018-09-13T12:48:52Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > I am working with the city council to encourage that every sign they install will be in Spanish and Maya. I learned this idea when I was in Basque Country, Spain. Another language which, until quite recently, was barely written 🙂 We have placenames and peoplenames which are Basque showing up in documents from when people from Rome carried SPQR pennants; the first written sentences in Basque are on the same book and by the same hand as the first written notes in Spanish; but documents in Basque are extremely rare before the 20th century. Spelling is still being worked on, even. Last weekend I was in Nantes, which was the seat of the Dukes of Bretagne for many years. Most foreigners wouldn’t think of a place “so far south” as being Bretagne, but the locals do. About half the streets had bilingual signs. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/43 "2018-09-13T15:24:55Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > And when they do, would it be a little tone-deaf to celebrate by dressing up as Davy Crockett and waving the 1824 flag? Nah, we do that on April 21st. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/44 "2018-09-13T15:31:29Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#): > > I am referring to the verbal, spoken Maya. When the Spanish came, they wrote the Maya using the Spanish alphabet. It wasn’t written before. Just spoken. The “Spanish alphabet” is Roman script. But the Maya most certainly had a [writing system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script) they used. As a fluent speaker, I’m shocked you don’t know that. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/45 "2018-09-13T15:37:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Be that as it may, the United States, and California and Los Angeles have almost no historic Mexican culture. The Mexicans had legal control over California for about 40 years- technically, but in actuality the government in Mexico City had very little control over anything now north of the border. CA was part of Spain for almost ten times longer that it was part of Mexico. The californios deeply resented being called “mexicans” and resented the corrupt Mexico city federal government. All of this is completely irrelevant to whether Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants presently in California have indigenous roots. And of course the small number of Californians that descend from Spanish colonists that were there before Mexican independence were partly mestizos as well, and so have an indigenous connection. > [@](#): > > The Mexicans who came to CA did not bring any Aztec culture with them. To reiterate once again, we are not talking specifically about Aztecs but all indigenous groups in Mexico. They brought Mexican culture with them, which is partly based on indigenous roots. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/46 "2018-09-13T18:55:02Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The “Spanish alphabet” is Roman script. But the Maya most certainly had a [writing system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script) they used. As a fluent speaker, I’m shocked you don’t know that. Roman script but specifically the Spanish version, and specifically with Spanish transcription rules. There’s a reason many games indicate “names must use English letters”: that limits the available symbols a lot more than saying “the Latin alphabet”. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/47 "2018-09-13T19:34:27Z")
I didn’t realize Aztecs and Mayans were indigenous to Southern California - I didn’t think they’d gotten that far North. (It depends on how you define indigenous is what I’m getting at. For a broad definition sure. For a narrow one, no) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/48 "2018-09-13T20:49:46Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I didn’t realize Aztecs and Mayans were indigenous to Southern California - I didn’t think they’d gotten that far North. Who claimed or even suggested that? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2018, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/49 "2018-09-14T00:19:53Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Was watching local Los Angeles news and a news story about LA’s upcoming Indigenous Peoples Day (celebrated in opposition to Columbus Day to recognize Native Americans) prominently featured footage (I assume taken of last year’s festivities) of a bunch of Native American groups doing traditional songs and dances but intercut among these was footage of a Mexican mariachi band playing with a giant Mexican flag behind them. > > I pointed out the irony to my coworker, that a Mexican flag and Mexican culture would be featured when they just happened to be the people who had taken the Natives land before the United States. He replied that Mexican’s should be featured in Indigenous People’s Day since many of them are mixed blood from Aztecs and other native Mesoamerican cultures, but my reply to that was that that wasn’t really relevant considering we’re talking the Californian area where that wasn’t really as widespread as it was in central Mexico. > > I’m just wondering if it was culturally appropriate to be celebrating Mexican culture in a day that’s suppose to be all about Native Americans and their culture instead of their oppressors (since it is fully about countering Columbus) To get back to the original post, the real answer should be: who do the participating groups think should be included? If the indigenous Californian groups have no problem with the Mexican groups, then that’s good enough for me. Or, if they do have a problem, then that’s fine too. Given the controversy surrounding San Junípero Serra, I’m inclined to respect their wishes either way. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/50 "2018-09-14T00:35:22Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > That’s a unique definition of genocide. The mass murder of an ethnic group does not need to be total eradication to be a genocide. The United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. > > [Genocide - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide?wprov=sfla1) > > Words have meanings. So, how many Natives died with the INTENT to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group? I mean, most native Americans died purely by accident, the European brought over diseases. That killed 90+% of the native Population. > **[Population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas)** > > Population figures for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before European colonization have been difficult to establish. Estimates have varied widely from as low as 8 million to as many as 100 million, though by the end of the 20th Century, many scholars gravitated toward an estimate of around 50 million people. > The monarchs of the nascent Spanish Empire decided to fund Christopher Columbus' voyage in 1492, leading to the establishment of colonies and marking the beginning of the migrati... _The scope of the epidemics over the years was tremendous, killing millions of people—possibly in excess of 90% of the population in the hardest hit areas—and creating one of “the greatest human catastrophe in history, far exceeding even the disaster of the Black Death of medieval Europe”,[25] which had killed up to one-third of the people in Europe and Asia between 1347 and 1351._ > **[Guns Germs & Steel: Variables. Smallpox | PBS](https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html)** > **[NunnQianJEP.pdf](https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/qian/resources/NunnQianJEP.pdf)** > > 607.57 KB _Although we may never know the exact magnitudes of the depopulation, it is lthough we may never know the exact magnitudes of the depopulation, it is estimated that upwards of 80–95 percent of the Native American population was decimated within the fi rst 100–150 years following 1492 (Newson, 2001). ._ Then there was War. Both sides are to blame there, other than a few minor “mopping up” expeditions late in the period, there was no “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”." The Trail of Tears was more a result of incompetence and corruption that a deliberate attempt to kill the Cherokee. Perhaps there were a few isolated instances of actual "genocide’ vs the Native Americans, but mostly it was caused by blundering and ignorance, rather than intentional. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2018, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/51 "2018-09-14T01:23:38Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > That issue is that many Mexicans identify with their indigenous heritage (whether Aztec or some other indigenous group), despite all the attempts to destroy it. Are you disputing that fact? Not Little Nemo, of course, but it seems to me that the actual question is not, “Do Mexicans identify with their indigeous heritage” but, “Do Mexicans identify Mariachi Bands with their indigenous heritage”? The Mexicans who have indigenous heritage are free to celebrate it however they wish, I just would have expected to hear Native music on Native instruments, not the instruments and music styles of the Spanish conquerors at an event specifically meant to commemorate the conquered. But what do I know. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2018, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/52 "2018-09-14T02:23:55Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Not Little Nemo, of course, but it seems to me that the actual question is not, “Do Mexicans identify with their indigeous heritage” but, “Do Mexicans identify Mariachi Bands with their indigenous heritage”? > > The Mexicans who have indigenous heritage are free to celebrate it however they wish, I just would have expected to hear Native music on Native instruments, not the instruments and music styles of the Spanish conquerors at an event specifically meant to commemorate the conquered. > > But what do I know. Again, like **Little Nemo** , you’re missing the point. Trying to separate out the different strands of _mestizo_ culture is pointless. It’s a _mixed identity_. I know that many people from the US have trouble with this concept. Elements that were of European origin can come to be part of indigenous identity, as witness the horse cultures of the Plains. ---
**Author:** ![mistymage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mistymage/32/459_2.png) [@mistymage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistymage)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2018, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/53 "2018-09-15T02:27:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So, how many Natives died with the INTENT to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group? > > The Trail of Tears was more a result of incompetence and corruption that a deliberate attempt to kill the Cherokee. > > Perhaps there were a few isolated instances of actual "genocide’ vs the Native Americans, but mostly it was caused by blundering and ignorance, rather than intentional. So you are handwaving the death of 70-90% of NA from post contact diseases, handwaving Manifest Destiny as merely incompetence (because they didn’t kill _all_ of the various tribes forced to move west?) and well, in the context of this thread, the death through religious schools (both actual death and forced conversion to not just a religion but also made to forget languages, culture and original religion so as to assimilate)? Said schools existing into the 70s… that is the 1970s? Oh wait… 2007. [American Indian boarding schools - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools) “Many children died while in custody at Indian Schools. The 1928 Meriam Report noted that infectious disease was often widespread at the schools due to malnutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, and students weakened by overwork. The report said that death rates for Native American students were six and a half times higher than for other ethnic groups.[17]” Reservations were not meant as strongholds (though we did manage to use them as such). They were meant to break us like the Ghettos over the centuries were used. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2018, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134/54 "2018-09-15T06:11:34Z")
> [@mistymage](#): > > So you are handwaving the death of 70-90% of NA from post contact diseases, handwaving Manifest Destiny as merely incompetence (because they didn’t kill _all_ of the various tribes forced to move west?) and well, in the context of this thread, the death through religious schools (both actual death and forced conversion to not just a religion but also made to forget languages, culture and original religion so as to assimilate)? Said schools existing into the 70s… that is the 1970s? Oh wait… 2007. [American Indian boarding schools - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools) “Many children died while in custody at Indian Schools. The 1928 Meriam Report noted that infectious disease was often widespread at the schools due to malnutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, and students weakened by overwork. The report said that death rates for Native American students were six and a half times higher than for other ethnic groups.[17]” > > Reservations were not meant as strongholds (though we did manage to use them as such). They were meant to break us like the Ghettos over the centuries were used. the death of 70-90% of NA from post contact diseases- Not intentional. Many thought they were helping the Indians move to safer areas. And those people thought they were helping the native americans assimilate. In order for it to be "genocide’ it must have \*intent. - [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-mexican-americans-be-featured-in-indigenous-peoples-day/821134.md?page=2)