UNPFII Intervention from Azteca Chichimeca community of SemAnahuac - (Anahuacalmecac/Xinaxcalmecac)

ON CULTURE

Delegacion Sem Anahuac - Anahuacalmecac's
special mission to the 12th session of the UNPFII with the
Tadodaho of the Onoandaga Nation

UNPFII - United Nations, New York, New York            

Tuesday, May 21, 2013     

Panoltitzinoh, tlaquiltitzinoh, tlapoyahualtitzinoh:

Timex tlahpaloa quex nican zan cegne inmix panteh ihpan "Hueican Centlalitl Tlalticpac Tlahtolocan"  Tahameh tih "Anahuac Calmecatl Maxtihqueh"  Ihuan nantica "Hueican Tlalticpac Maxtihcayotl" 

To calmaxticayotl mohueztica "Los Angeles California"  Tih piah hueye paquiliztle ihca otimo yehcocatihqueh ihpan in "Hueican Centlalitl Tlalticpac Tlahtolocan"  campa yehco noche ahmantle, quechica hueye tlalticpactle, tlin tex yolcocohuah, tlin tex yol-ahmanah ihpan quechica hueye to Tlalnan Altepechahchan.

Tahameh tih cualcaue in teo maxtihcayotl tlahtolli campa to ampohuan otex tlalihqueh tih cualcuizqueh in tlatepiz-nahuatihlli nihcan " ihpan Hueican Centlalitl Tlahtolocan"

On behalf of the Delegacion SemAnahuac on behalf of our school community in Los Angeles, California it is our great honor to be able to present before you as you consider other issues impacting our lives here on Mother Earth. We come to address you about the importance of sacred culture and sacred spaces to the education of our youth and the revitalization of our languages and cultures as self-determined peoples.

Today we request your support, solidarity and intervention on behalf of the ONLY indigenous community-based high school, our school, Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory. Our school is located in nican chanehqueh Gabrielino Tongva territory, now know as Los Angeles. Our school was founded with the blessings of Gabrielino-Shoshone Chief Yaana Vera Rocha and is spiritually guided by Azteca elder Tata Cuaxtle Felix Evodio and Gabrielino-Tongva Spiritual leader, Jimmy Castillo. 

As the ONLY indigenous peoples charter school in all of Los Angeles county of California, the metropolis with the greatest population of indigenous peoples within the United States, we understand that our role and existence is both an anomaly and a blessing. Our school has become a vital center of cultural revitalization within the vast and complex realities of indigenous peoples in Los Angeles and throughout our continent.  

Noting that Articles 11 and 12 of the UN DRIP recognize that, “Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs,” and that, “Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains,” the reality in Los Angeles today is that cultural centers such as our school are targets of government hostility, ancestral burial grounds of dozens of ancestors in downtown Los Angeles have been desecrated within the last two years, and the future of an ancestral Gabrielino-Tongva sacred spring, burial and village site currently on the grounds of a non-indigenous public school called Kuruvangna, remains uncertain. 

We recall that in the 2nd Session of the Permanent Forum, it recommended that, “Governments and local authorities adopt policies and take measures to address needs of indigenous people in urban contexts.” As of today, we note that these policies in Los Angeles, California have not been developed to our knowledge and definitely do not address so-called unrecognized indigenous peoples, especially migrant indigenous peoples.

This led to the UN-HABITAT’s Report on Activities Regarding Indigenous Issues Submitted to the eighth session of the Permanent Forum by its Shelter and Sustainable Human Settlements Development Division under its overarching theme of “Sustainable Urban Development” is seeking to advance, “a global network of partners, acting individually or jointly to further the understanding and application of the principles of sustainable urban development, at global, regional, national and / or city-local levels”.

We also recall that, the third session of the Permanent Forum recommended, “that States to facilitate the establishment of civil society organizations to assist in the preservation and protection of indigenous cultural heritage.”

And that the seventh session of the Permanent Forum stated that, “Indigenous peoples and Member States are encouraged to support the continuing development of sports, traditional games and culture.”

Lastly, we note Article 25 of UN DRIP which states, “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard.” Together with UN DRIP articles 26, 31 and 34, we recognize that while our aspirations as indigenous peoples have been clearly delineated conceptually there is no clear path towards implementation in the local, urbanized context we live in.

Therefore,

1. We urge the Permanent Forum to reaffirm the call for all levels of government to “provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs” to revitalize cultural centers in urban areas as well. 
2. We call on the Permanent forum to study the relationship between cultural centers, sacred sites and the cultural revitalization of indigenous peoples particularly within major urban centers such as what is known today as Los Angeles, California to better understand what implementation of the UN DRIP in our communities and realities means to those of us who live there, particularly the youth and how we determine the local and national government ought to provide redress.
3. We further recommend that all levels of government begin redressing indigenous peoples by supporting self-determined and indigenous led autonomous cultural centers in cities especially in sacred cultural sites.

In closing we share words entrusted in us from our Tongva relations:

“The city of Los Angeles (named Yagna in Tongva) and most of Southern California depends on water, today as well as in the past, for its livelihood and survival. For the Gabrielino-Tongva, the original inhabitants who have lived in the Los Angeles area for over 10,000 years, water is held as sacred. Water brings birth and rebirth. Water is essential to life and death, being used in ceremony to cleanse ourselves and the area around us. 

The spring at Kuruvungna is extremely important to us because it continues to flow, even after the colonization of our people and the devastation of our land. The spring symbolizes to us that even through changes have occurred in Los Angeles through urbanization and the settlement of non-native people, we are still here. We may have at one time only been a trickle but through the building of our community and the help of our neighbors we are once again flowing, and reminding the public of our continued stewardship of the land and the water.” 

We thank you for the honor of addressing the Permanent Forum and the indigenous leaders present.

Nahac nic tlatzocamachilistle to tahuan ihuan to nahuan.