As a youth, I was one of hundreds of activists who protested the Rose Parade back in 1992 (yeah, I’m getting old). For you northerners, Southwestern Chicanos tend to be more Native-centric about our heritage rather than being promoters of that Eurocentric concept Hispanidad…Thus, there we were–Chicano kids from MEChA hanging out with leaders from many of the 500 nations. (here’s a link to an LA Times Article from January 1992).

Some things that stick out in my mind:

• As we beat the drums, many of the parading horses were so frightened that they lifted their front legs in terror and tried to leave the procession, disrupting the parade completely. I remember everyone being excited because of this unintended consequence (we had gone to protest not to actually disrupt the parade). I secretly felt bad for the horses.
• Several of the leaders from the Cherokee Nation looked like white dudes. One was blue-eyed and had dirty blond hair. Some of us Chicanos (oblivious to our own Latin features) thought that was weird and even questioned if they were really Cherokee.
• Everyone was angry with the Native American Co-Grand Marshall (added at the last minute in response to calls for one from prominent Angelenos including Eddie Olmos) for accepting such a token position rather than protesting with the rest of us.

Dia de La Raza is always a tough day for me as a mestizo.  On the one hand, I agree with Carlos Fuentes that you can’t deny that a large part of Latin-American culture is European (Spanish or Portuguese), like it or not.  Hence it does make sense for us to embrace our entire culture rather than hating half of who we are.  On the other hand, it seems a bit romantic to ignore a genocide and conquest that still causes dysfunction in the present for the sake of some mythical Raza Cosmica.  People in Latin America have major race issues.  Sure, we are proud of the Inca, the Maya, and the Aztecs–mainly because European Archaeologists made them cool back in the 1970s.  But it is still better to be white than to look like an Indian in many parts of Latin America.  Heck, even in my family (we can clearly trace our lineage) we still have some old-timers who pronounce babies as pretty or not depending on skin color.  My grandmother, for all her anger toward the gringos for stealing our land, still calls her unfriendly neighbor una india fea (an ugly Indian)–let me reiterate, my Grandmother is Native but is on the white side phenotypically.  As far as Europe was concerned, mestizos and mulattoes were not European.  The caste system the Spaniards put in place made sure that no uppity mestizo got it into his head that he or she was Spanish too just because they had some Spanish blood.  Even pure-bloods (as pure as Spaniards can be given all the race-mixing in Spain) born in the Americas were considered Criollos rather than true Spaniards, i.e. Peninsulares–why else would the criollos revolt?

Whatever our actual complexion, deep down most of us know that ultimately we are native peoples.  For those of us who choose to hear them, the voices of our ancestors–the Mexica, the Zapotec, the Rararumi, the Taino, the Inca,  Hopi, the Navajo, and thousands more–are omnipresent in the background of our existence.    The cries of Africa are there too, as descendants of African Slaves fight for recognition everywhere and especially in Colombia, the country named after the controversial explorer.   It’s just easy to get caught up sometimes in the farce/marketing phenomenon that is Hispanicity.   Identity is a choice.  If you don’t choose then others will choose it for you.  The reason why those blond Cherokees were still Indians was because they embraced their history in the Americas.  They refused to romanticize some great exchange of cultures (as Fuentes did to some extent in his book the Buried Mirror).   Besides, in the US, to be classified Native-American, you need only be at least 1/4 Indian.   By that measure, most of us easily pass the bar.  We should remember that when we are checking our nice little Census boxes.  Perhaps instead of boycotting the Census, we should all check Native-American in order to remind the government who the real immigrants are.