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Show 8 - VENCEREMOS UCLA see a true movimiento. Given a current dropout rate among than Chicano gays.” Latinos that is even higher than among African-Americans and given all the brutal cutbacks in public school funding, Much has changed and some things haven”t changed. Beware the unholy trinity of the 1960"s, from page four such a prediction may seem absurdly hopeful. But greater, not less activism seems the only hope. Any new movement will surely be different from the still with us: reactionary nationalism, sexism and homo- phobia. Too often they travel together. : «last one. Oldies, political types like myself, would do well A New Movement? to open our eyes wide for signs of the different forces at work. Indigenismo without opportunism could sustain a new movement of young Chicanas and Chicanos by giving them an empowering sense of self-discovery with Such issues need to be addressed by the new Cesar Chavez Center. A longtime activist and hunger strike supporter, assistant professor Jose Caldren of Pitzer College, asked: “What kind of Chicano Studies curriculum will it be—like the 60's, which was too male-domi- responsibility. It could encourage new organizations that nated, or something new? Chicano Studies, after all, developed out of struggle,” Jose recalled. “It must be grounded in today's realities and struggles.” The consciousness that will accompany the birth of a' _new Chicano student movement has yet to coalesce. The school and high school youth—and especially among young women starting around age nine. Within a decade we may ” out that the IHS was inoculating Inuit children in Alaska with Hepatitis-B vaccine. The vaccine had already been conquering society. This was done through compulsory attendance at remote boarding schools, often hundreds of. Concomitantly, we suffer the highest rate of infant mortal- Indians thus serve as props, little more. We have thus been thoroughly and systematically dehumanized. Nor is this the extent of it. Everywhere we are used as banned by the World Health Organization as having a ; American demonstrated correlation with the HIV-Syndrome which is - logos, as mascot, as jokes: “Big Chief writing tablets, “Red from page six > from their Man” chewing tobacco, and “Pontiac” and “Cadillac” itself correlated to AIDS. As this is written a “field test” of land and replacing them with “superior” Anglo-American settlers was complete; the indigenous population had been Hepatitis-A vaccine, also HIV correlated, is being conduct- pickups and automobiles. There are the Cleveland “Indians,” the Kansas City “Chiefs,” the Atlanta “Braves” ed on Indian reservations in the northern plains region. reduced by as much as 98 percent while approximately The Genocide Convention makes it a “crime against and the Washington “Redskins” professional sports 97.5 percent of their original territory had “passed” to the teams—not to mention those in thousand of colleges, high. invaders. The survivors had been concentrated, out of humanity” to create conditions leading to the destruction of an identifiable human group, as such. Yet the. schools, and elementary schools across the country—each sight and mind of the public, on scattered “reservations,” with their own degrading caricatures and parodies. of -BIA has utilized the government's plenary prerogatives all of them under the self-assigned “plenary” (full) power to negotiate mineral leases “on behalf of” Indian peo- Indians and/or Indian. Pop fiction continues in the same of the federal government. There was, of course, no vain, including an unending stream of New Age manuals ple paying a fraction of standard royalty rates. The Nuremberg-style tribunal passing judgement on those purporting to expose the inner works of indigenous spirituresult has been “super profits” for a number of prewho had fostered such circumstances in North America. ality in everything from pseudo-philosophical to do-itferred U.S. corporations. Meanwhile, Indians whose No U.S. “obficial ser. private crhizen was ever imprisoned—never minded hanged—for implementing or reservation ironically turned out tó be in some of the' yourself styles.Blond yuppies from Beverly Hills amble about the country claiming to be reincarnated 17th centumost mineral-rich areas of North America, which propagandizing what had been done. Nor had the process ry Cheyenne Ushamans ready to perform previously secret of genocide affecting Indians been completed. Instead, it makes us, the nominally wealthiest segment of the -ceremonies. population, live in dire poverty. E. _merely changed form. : In effect, a concerted, sustained, and in some ways By the government's own data in the mid-1980s, Indians Between the 1880s:and 1980s, nearly half of all Native accelerating effort has gone into making Indians unreal. It received the lowest annual and lifetime per capita incomes American children were coercively transferred from their is thus of obvious importance that the American public own families, communities, and cultures to those of the - of any aggregate population group in the United States. ; Crimes l — Al that speak of domination. Ps - A celebration of spirituality without opportunism could be key to opening the door to social justice. For Raza youth in particular—like other youth—any meaningful strategy aimed at social justice begins inside the individual, it does not end there, but must begin there. potential is there to be seen, especially among middle ill attract youth on the basis of life's inter-connectedness and idealism rather than the military-style titles and attire o o El d 1 » : miles from their homes, where native children were kept for years on end while systematically “deculturated” lindoctrinated to think and act in the manner of Euro Americans rather than as Indians). It was also accomplished through a pervasive foster home and adoption, pro- gram—including “blind” adoptions, where children would be permanently denied information as to who they were/are and where they'd come from—placing native youth in non-Native homes. . : The express purpose of all this was to facilitate a U.S. governmental policy to bring about the “assimilation” (dissolution) of indigenous societies. In other words, Indian cultures as such were to be caused to disappear. Such policy objectives are directly contrary to the United Nations 1948 Convention on Punishment and Prevention of the. Crime of Genocide, an element of international law arising from the Nuremberg proceedings. The forced “transfer” of the children “is explicitly prohibited as a genocida activity under the Convention's second article. Article II of the Genocide Convention also expressly prohibits involuntary sterilization as a means of “preventing births among” a targeted population. Yet, in 1975, it was conceded by the U.S. government that its Indian Health Service (IHS) then a subpart of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BLA) was even then conducting a secret program of involuntary sterilization that had affected approximately 40 percent of all Indian woman. The program was alleged- ly discontinued, and the IHS was transferred to the Public Health Service, but no one was punished. In 1990, it came ity, death by exposure and malnutrition, disease,and the like. Under such circumstances, alcoholism and other escapist forms of substance abuse are endemic in the Indian community,a situation which leads both to a general physical debilitation of the population and a catastrophic accident rate. Teen suicide among Indians is sever- al times the national average. A The average life expectancy ofa reservation-based Native American man is barely 45 years; woman can expect to live less than three years longer. Such itemizations could be continued at great length, including matters like the radioactive contaminations of large portions of contemporary Indian Country, the forced relocation of traditional Navajos, and'so on. But the point should be made: Genocide as defined'in international law, is a continuing fact of day-to-day life (and death) for North American native peoples. Yet there has begin to think about the implications of such things the next time they witness a gaggle of face-painted and warbonneted buffoons doing the “Tomahawk Chop” at abase- ball or football game. It is necessary that they think about the implications of the grade-school teacher adorning their child in turkey feathers to commemorate Thanksgiving. Think about the significance of John Wayne or Charleston Heston killing a dozen “savages” with a single bullet the next time a western comes on TV. Think about why Lando-Lakes finds it appropriate to market its butter with the stereotyped image of an “Indian princess” on the wrapper. Think about what it means when non-Indian academics profess—as they often do—to “know more about Indians than Indians do themselves.” Think about the significance of charlatans like Carlos Castaneda and Jamake Highwater and Mary Summer Rain and Lynn Andrews churning out “Indian” bestsellers, one after the other, while Indians typically can't get into print. —and is—only the barest flicker of public concern about, Think about the real situation of American Indians. the or even consciousness of, this reality. Absent any Think about Julius Streicher. Remember Justice Jackson's serious expression of public outrage, no one is punished and the process continues. . A salient reason for public acquiescence before the ongoing holócaust in Native North America has been a continuation of the popular legacy, often through more effective media. Since 1925, Hollywood has released more than 2,000 films, many of them rerun frequently on television, portraying Indians as strange, perverted, ridiculous, and often dangerous things of the past. Moreover, we are habit- ually presented to mass audiences one-dimensionally, devoid of recognizable human motivations and emotions; THE CHICANO PRESS ASSOCIATION Be a Guerrillero / a De La Pluma Meet progressive Chicano publications from across Aztlan! Talk to today's Chicano journalists! Write 240 Union for more information! admonition. Understand that the treatment of Indian in American popular culture is not “cute” or “amusing” or just, "good clean fun.” : Know that it causes real pain and real suffering to real people. Know that it threatens our very survival. And know that this is as much a crime against humanity as anything the Nazi ever did. It is likely that the indigenous people of the United States will never demand that those guilty of such criminal activities be punished for their deeds. But the least we have the right to expect—indeed, to demand—is that such practices be brought to a halt. |
