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I recently attended a workshop in the National American and Indigenous Studies Association's 2016 national conference called "IN PURSUIT OF INDIGENOUS DATA SOVEREIGNTY" in which I witnessed presentations by scholars from the University of Waikato, the Australian National University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Auckland all of which argued eloquently and powerfully for the importance of controlling our knowledge of and through data.
One of the U of A's scholars of the Native Nations Institute in particular asserted that "data" has been gathered by Indigenous Peoples since time immemorial and that it was "sacred".
However, this scholar also argued for the exclusion of "Mexican American Indians" from the American Indian Tribal Groupings count in 2020. I find this highly controversial and divisive.
At first, this comment seemed flippant, "Mexican American Indians" of course, are not a tribe and "do not exist" she joked with the audience of professors, organizers and students from around the world. The audience laughed in agreement.
Shocked, I waited for the presenter to further contextualize her remarks, but it became clear that what seemed like a dismissive remark actually represented an intellectual argument on her part.
Mexicans ought not be counted as American Indians.
When I pressed the issue with the presenter, she conceded that she had perhaps been misinterpreted and that she referred to the "Mexican American Indian" tribe as a "false aggregation, just like American Indian is a false aggregation". To which I replied, "Sure, but you didn't say American Indians don't exist." The presenter apologized for offending me and tried to move on. When I spoke with her after the presentation, she assured me she understood the issue but in her role as a member of the National Advisory Council to the US Census simply wanted to increase accuracy of the data.
Yet, the topic of the workshop was a pursuit of Indigenous Data Sovereignty, so, why shouldn't we as indigenous Mexicans, also pursue and defend our own data sovereignty? Certainly, our data is mined and marketed, targeting everything from casinos, to concerts to weed farms - even sovereign federally recognized tribes target the "Spanish speaking market".
So how will our data be gathered by the U.S. Census in 2020?
New changes are reportedly afoot.
Beyond a simple question of semantics or "identity", we ought to be concerned that our children, indigenous children especially, are not receiving ANY resources as such to support indigenous language and culture revitalization as has become the cause celebre of this president's administration for federally recognized tribes.
Just as the U.S. has a "special" obligation to federal tribes due to campaigns of mass extermination and termination, so too, the U.S. government has an obligation to Indigenous Peoples throughout the Americas forced to migrate due to over a century of Monroe Doctrine imperialism. One might argue that this obligation is even greater given the continued subordination of dependent states and the increasingly miserable conditions exacerbated by American imperialism in our countries to this day.
Indigeneity is not a simple concept - yet, in many ways, one either is or is not, indigenous. There are many ways the U.S. has exerted its force as a settler state over Indigenous Peoples across both continents. Yet, one would think that far from categorizing Indigenous Peoples from across the Americas as a threat (see Ethnic Indians Threat), native nations in the U.S. ought to forge strong alliances with our demographic supermajority across Abya Ayala. Certainly, mining our data as any other casino consumer to be exploited is beneath sovereign nations and very short-sighted. Towards exerting our own "data sovereignty", Indigenous Peoples must address this issue directly, clearly and with all due urgency on a national level.
So let's make the upcoming 2020 Census count simple for us all as Indigenous persons: Include all Latin American nationalities under the American Indian category and add the term "Indigenous" to the choice of "American Indian, Alaska Native". Then, the ten percent or so of non-indigenous Latin Americans can self-identify out of it by selecting white on their own. At least that way our true ancestral roots to these continents are affirmed correctly.
Yet, the topic of the workshop was a pursuit of Indigenous Data Sovereignty, so, why shouldn't we as indigenous Mexicans, also pursue and defend our own data sovereignty? Certainly, our data is mined and marketed, targeting everything from casinos, to concerts to weed farms - even sovereign federally recognized tribes target the "Spanish speaking market".
So how will our data be gathered by the U.S. Census in 2020?
New changes are reportedly afoot.
Here is an example of what to expect.
From: Census Blog
Currently the "DEFINITION OF AMERICAN INDIAN OR ALASKA NATIVE USED IN THE 2010 CENSUS According to the federal Office of Management and Budget is, “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment."
Now, given the realities of deportations over the past eight years, wouldn't combining the question of "race" with one of "origins" lead to further confusion in the data as one of the 10,000,000 undocumented persons from Mexico/Latin America? Wouldn't an undocumented person likely want to avoid disclosing origin as a question of personal security vs. race as a question of human/historic/cultural identity?
Also, what if one does select BOTH Hispanic (which based upon examples restricts its definition to nation-state based nationalities vs. cultures, "tribes" indigenous nations/peoples) AND selects American Indian BUT does not know the "tribe" or as a matter of fact, does not refer to their people as a "tribe" (as the majority of Indigenous Peoples in Latin America do NOT)? Will the Census invalidate that answer or will the identifier of "Hispanic" trump (pun intended) all else?
Previously, the official Census position was: "The U.S.Census Bureau collects information on race following the guidance of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) 1997 Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity. These federal standards mandate that race and Hispanic origin (ethnicity) are separate and distinct concepts and that when collecting these data via self-identification, two different questions must be used."
In the new format "race" is combined/confused with "origin". For "Hispanics" the question is now no longer a question of "ethnicity" but one of "national origin" given the examples.
So in order to self-identify as, "a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America)" one must select both Hispanic and American Indian and then include the specific tribe of origin.
This will obviously require education as it has changed drastically over the past three Census periods. What resources will the Census/government dedicate to a targeted education campaign for Indigenous Peoples? Additionally, what must be done to educate indigenous persons, particularly Mexicans and those of Central American origin, in Los Angeles, who may not realize that their identity as a "mestizo" or "indigena" (which would be more familiar to most people) which characterizes them as both "Hispanic" and American Indian given Census/OMB definitions? What about Mayans, Nahuas and Zapotecas?
Apparently there was a very lively exchange regarding all of these issues in the U.S. Census' National Advisory Committee. Most notably according to the record of the NAC process, were individual interventions which at one point described the Census' treatment of American Indian and the requirement of community attachment as, "borderline racist requirement in that, this racial category is the only one on the questionnaire that requires more from respondents than it does for other respondents with other racial backgrounds. i.e. the questionnaire does not ask “African-Americans” to write in the name of their tribe(s), from their origins in Africa."
Apparently there was a very lively exchange regarding all of these issues in the U.S. Census' National Advisory Committee. Most notably according to the record of the NAC process, were individual interventions which at one point described the Census' treatment of American Indian and the requirement of community attachment as, "borderline racist requirement in that, this racial category is the only one on the questionnaire that requires more from respondents than it does for other respondents with other racial backgrounds. i.e. the questionnaire does not ask “African-Americans” to write in the name of their tribe(s), from their origins in Africa."
A review of the NAC record highlights several themes which stand out to me:
- The issue of tribal "enrollment" is best left for the over 500 federally recognized tribes to count
- The issue of race for American Indians is still not developed from the perspectives of most Native Peoples
-The issue of identifying Indigenous Peoples from Latin America was of utmost concern but not resolved in the toss up between the "AIAN" label and the Hispanic/AIAN "races"
- Reportedly over one million people (30% of AIAN in 2010) identified as AIAN but did not identify a tribe and it is unclear if these responses were invalidated, but a portion of them definitely were
-A discussion of the challenges for identification of Indigenous Peoples from Latin America has been a constant issue raised but not addressed;
A review of the 2020 Census: Race and Hispanic Origin Research Working Group - Final Report (6/10/2014) also confirms that absolutely no challenge of the use of the term "Hispanic" or "Latino" as a race or origin is even posed. This is concerning because these terms continue to reproduce outdated policies regarding our peoples and confusing our children. If issues of "trauma" can be raised by NAC members regarding AIAN discussions of enrollment then certainly we ought to raise issues of trauma regarding the impacts of deculturalization and assimilation of Latin American origin peoples.
Beyond a simple question of semantics or "identity", we ought to be concerned that our children, indigenous children especially, are not receiving ANY resources as such to support indigenous language and culture revitalization as has become the cause celebre of this president's administration for federally recognized tribes.
Just as the U.S. has a "special" obligation to federal tribes due to campaigns of mass extermination and termination, so too, the U.S. government has an obligation to Indigenous Peoples throughout the Americas forced to migrate due to over a century of Monroe Doctrine imperialism. One might argue that this obligation is even greater given the continued subordination of dependent states and the increasingly miserable conditions exacerbated by American imperialism in our countries to this day.
Indigeneity is not a simple concept - yet, in many ways, one either is or is not, indigenous. There are many ways the U.S. has exerted its force as a settler state over Indigenous Peoples across both continents. Yet, one would think that far from categorizing Indigenous Peoples from across the Americas as a threat (see Ethnic Indians Threat), native nations in the U.S. ought to forge strong alliances with our demographic supermajority across Abya Ayala. Certainly, mining our data as any other casino consumer to be exploited is beneath sovereign nations and very short-sighted. Towards exerting our own "data sovereignty", Indigenous Peoples must address this issue directly, clearly and with all due urgency on a national level.
So let's make the upcoming 2020 Census count simple for us all as Indigenous persons: Include all Latin American nationalities under the American Indian category and add the term "Indigenous" to the choice of "American Indian, Alaska Native". Then, the ten percent or so of non-indigenous Latin Americans can self-identify out of it by selecting white on their own. At least that way our true ancestral roots to these continents are affirmed correctly.
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