Challenges Facing Indigenous Latin Americans

Dawson, Alexander S. “From Models for the Nation to Model Citizens: Indigenismo and the ‘Revindication’ of the Mexican Indian, 1920–40.” Journal of Latin American Studies 1998 : 279-308. Print.

The author pleads to the political powers to give countries their fair chance and govern their own countries. “Lower yourselves to the unfortunate and raise them up in your arms…let the country’s natural blood surge and throb through its veins,” (Martí 287). The author asks the people in a higher social positon to be an even level of humanity and celebrate a triumph rather than subject Latin American countries under submission. Martí inquires once again freedom for nations that have been under a certain sovereign power. On a rhetorical level, he is also canvasing for equality through the learning of native languages and culture once again. Writer Carlos Urzaiz proclaims that Martí had centered his writings, “concerned with American indigenous populations, emphasizes their capacity to animate their respective cul-tures and associates the restoration of their respective soul— “identity” in modern terms.” Conserving primitive civilizations had become important to Martí and saw the seriousness of bringing back the abandoned cultures back to the surface as revolutions throughout Latin America were

During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.

There have been many instances throughout history in which indigenous people have unwillingly suffered the consequences of foreigners’ interaction with their culture. In the case of the Huaorani two foreign groups, the oil companies and the missionaries, invaded their land and gravely affected the life they led in the Ecuadorian amazon. In the book Savages Joe Kane gives a firsthand account at how the Huaorani fight to preserve their land and traditional way of life.

For many years’ native people live quietly and peacefully in their homelands of America. That was until June 1540, Hernando De Soto, a Spanish explorer, came in contact with

Martha Garcia and Paula Gunn Allen both write in their essays of the challenges that Native American women have historically faced and continue to confront to this day. Major contributors to these challenges are the stereotypes and misconceptions by white male anthropologists and missionaries who studied the Native American tribes and found the women subservient and passive. Both of these authors strongly disagree in this characterization of Native American women and instead portray them as important and honored members of their tribes who will struggle but will continue to have a tremendous impact on the future of their tribes.

One of the first questions to be addressed when interacting with Native Americans is the question of their rights. Upon arrival to America, the conquistadors believed the Native Americans were too weak to take care of the land and themselves. Spaniard, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda described the Native Americans to be weak, simple minded, and slaves by nature. He compares the relationship between the conquistadors and the Natives to that of a father over his wife and children (de Sepúlveda, 63). Comparing Native American to children implies that they are incapable of taking care of themselves and their own affairs. In being

When the Europeans first arrived in Latin America, they didn’t realize the immensity of their actions. As history has proven, the Europeans have imposed many things on the Latin American territory have had a long, devastating effect on the indigenous people. In the centuries after 1492, Europeans would control much of South America and impose a foreign culture upon the already established civilizations that existed before their arrival. These imposed ideas left the continent weak and resulted in the loss of culture, the dependence on European countries, and a long standing ethnic tension between natives and settlers which is evident even to this day. The indigenous people of South America, which

The injustice surrounding the Indigenous populations in Mexico and Central America began with the Spanish colonies in the sixteenth century, and the struggle for their land and constitution rights has been an ongoing battle for hundreds of years. The indigenous people take up a large part of the population in Mexico and Central America. (See Table 1; Graph 1 below). Indigenous people make up of over 16 percent of the Mexican population, and over 66 percent of the population is indigenous in Guatemala. The historical reality of the indigenous peoples in Central America has been one poverty, eviction from their land, political violence and mistreatment at the hands of

Since the Europeans first entered the Americas in the sixteenth century, indigenous groups have struggled to reclaim political and economic power from the Europeans and their descendants. With the exception of Peru and Bolivia, many countries feature a percentage of less than ten percent purely indigenous people, thus making circumstances unfavorable to create a political voice forceful enough to allow these native groups the political prowess they need (World Development Index). Even in countries with a large percentage of indigenous people, the rise to political power can be a slow process. However, in 2005, Bolivia elected their first president to office from native descent. As the United Nations assesses the perverse situations within indigenous rises to political power, a pristine case to evaluate would be that of Bolivia. With the election of Evo Morales, Bolivia began their empowerment of the indigenous population and encountered difficulties in providing necessities such as education and economic assistance to bridge the gap in social and economic separations of opportunity between the native and non-native populations.

The main problems in both South Mexico and First Nations communities is the inequality among the people in the country even though there are many opportunities in how they can be fixed. People in these regions are treated as second class citizens with most of them living in poverty with no way to escape because of lack of education, housing and healthcare. First Nation people living on reserves should be living the same quality of life as people living off reserves and the system in which we ensure this should be changed. Empowering First Nations people and fixing their economy would impact the future greatly by giving them the opportunity of building their communities in a way which is equitable and allows their youth to live fulfilling lives. Until this happens more funding should be available for things such as infrastructure so that the first step towards unification is

The indigenous peoples of Peru were in fact excluded by the non-indigenous because they were looked down upon by the Peruvian government and treated as inferior. One of the reasons is because there was a racial aspect to Peru’s exclusion of their indigenous populations. Officials in Peru believed that Indians were “lazy, ignorant and backward, and argued that they were bound to traditions that impeded on economic progress” (6) Officials believed that they were an inherently inferior race that only produced the minimum in order to survive. Officials were overall disgusted with their indigenous population, and resorted to creating codes in order to constitute who is considered to be Peruvian. The state would consider them to not be part of the republic if they did not adapt those codes (8). Consequently, the believed that since they were inherently different, they should not be included in their nation (9). Indigenous Peruvians paid taxes, which helped them keep property. The ownership of property resulted in the formation of indigenous communities separated from non-indigenous Peruvians. Leaders emerged from these indigenous communities. As a result, Indigenous communities were considered to be autonomous (9), and did not need the political influences of the

1. This study uses economic methods as an attempt to document the socioeconomic situation of the estimated 34 million indigenous people in Latin America which is 8% of the region's population. Authors provide results confirming that indigenous communities are a severely disadvantaged group, in areas such as education, and even worse off than expected, including discussions on the theoretical and linguistics aspects of this book. These results also show that policy makers can help indigenous people improve their situation by strengthening human capital.

Much of the Chaco is still inhabited by indigenous people who often do not have rights to the territory they are on. Development brought on by actions from organizations like the IIRSA can be devastating to the indigenous people. Natural resource companies can displace communities. They can also harm the indigenous people by extracting resources which the indigenous rely on for their way of life. The IIRSA is attempting to boost economic development by promoting resource extraction and agriculture production, but in doing so they are harming many communities that need the Chaco’s resources to survive. According to a USAID Issue Brief about Tenure and Indigenous Peoples “new infrastructure to improve access to markets, facilitate trade, and promote economic growth” leads to an increase in demand for land. This new infrastructure makes it easier for “settlers, merchants, and illegal loggers to clear forests and settle in indigenous territories.” The USAID brief also mentions how this infrastructure has both directly and indirectly caused negative effects in the Gran Chaco region. They report how small-scale illegal loggers invading indigenous titled lands “follow[ed] the new transoceanic highway built as part of the IIRSA development plan, which threatens indigenous peoples in South America through interlinked set of dams, canals, and multiple routes to the Pacific. The highway crisscrosses highly fragile, biodiverse, and mainly indigenous lands of the Amazon basin and Gran

In this research paper, we will be looking at the large poverty confronting Panama’s indigenous areas. First, I will be defining the different Panamanian indigenous groups. Then, we will see why the situation has become like it is in the past years, and why the poverty rates had kept increasing in rural and indigenous areas while the economy had been skyrocketing in the urban parts of Panama. Why has Panama become one of the first country in terms of inequality between its citizens? Will the Panamanian government pay more attention the indigenous population, and help them develop in great accordance with the rest of the population?