After making a very successful case for the various ways in which Latin American republics incorporated the symbolism and reimagined histories into their own nation-building narratives, she discusses how many of these nations ceased to make such connections to the indigenous past and instead began to reconnect with their European roots and actually embrace the conquistadors as potential "fathers" of the "patria." Considering the fact that this paradigm shift takes place towards the end of the 19th century, I can not help but think think about this as part of a larger international, multinational embrace of whiteness and Eurocentrism. Emboldened by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the Democratic Party is retaking power and asserting white supremacy, throughout the Southern US, either by violence or through rewriting state constitutions. At almost the same moment, the country is marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus by way of the Columbian Exposition (World's Fair in Chicago), as the country is mobilizing toward the Spanish-American War which will basically mark an end to Spanish colonialism and fully establish the US as an imperialist power who begins to imagine itself as the paternalistic bearer of the "White Man's Burden," domestically and abroad - inspired, of course, by the Kipling poem published around this same time. Given all this, do we now have a tendency to read and interpret history through that same prism of white supremacy and Eurocentrism? Has this shaped dominant narratives of race making and colonialism which are only recently being challenged? How does Earle's book (or other texts we've read) begin to challenge such readings of history and maybe ask us to rethink them?
Mike, this reading kept taking me back to our previous class about American race and ethnicity and I was pleasantly surprised when she mentions people such as Benedict Anderson and his ideas about national identity. It was nice to be able to draw on previous lessons and readings to compare to Earle's great work here. It also reminds me of "Playing Indian" and the idea of a national conscious based on an imagined past, of in Earle's book she mentions the idea of "antiquity" or constructing a past narrative to help define the newly established national idea.
Just when I was beginning to think that our concerns over race-making might’ve moved beyond the purview of lineage and religious beliefs, The Return of the Native pops up! (I know: if I had edited the previous line a bit more, I could’ve had a great pun. Alas.)
Over the course of various discussions and texts, we’ve identified that lineage is often one of the attributes of race-making that can be easily identifiable: once folks start keeping track of who was born to whom, the leap to stereotyping and stratifying isn’t that far off, as we saw in the case of the bogas last week.
This week, we see how the elites of various independent Spanish American nations attempted to do the same and, as was the case with Wheat, we saw that citizenship was used as a way of depriving indigenous peoples. Though there was no denying that indigenous men were citizens, elites often believed that “most native Americans simply didn’t understand the requirements of citizenship,” (177) and thus, could not be “true” citizens. As we see at another point in the book, it’s this thought that was used to justify the idea of eliminating indigenous populations “who refused to be civilized and could not participate in civil society” (162).
This distinction is what struck me the most, perhaps because it felt like a marked departure from what we read in Wheat’s book last week. After all, I don’t believe that there was even an inkling of genocidal discourse in the story that Wheat told.
Excellent observation, as we discussed in class, the race has been attached to different types of justification for Spanish colonies to perpetuate American Indians’ mind. If one pays attention every book focuses in different areas based on race, our previous readings and these readings concentrate almost in the same idea “patriotism,” which is a social issue because one can discuss social exclusion and marginalization. On the other side, Wheat’s book (two weeks ago) focused on a social, economic issue that considered Africans as human capital.
Oh, sorry! Not Wheat, McGraw. I conflated the two, but I meant McGraw's, since recognition and citizenship are at the core of that book, and it was what I had in mind when I wrote the post above.
That being said, I think we're on the same page with regards to patriotism and how it manifests in this book as well as McGraw's. Maybe we can talk about the distinction that Earle presents between nationalism as a "feeling" mode, and patriotism as a rational one. It's dualistic, meaning it's probably problematic, but I'm very interested to see if this distinction will be a larger role as we learn about race making in other Latin American nations.
The readings of this week point out one specific objective “liberalism” in Mexico and Peru. Indeed, both readings try to find the meaning of liberalism according to each country’s history. At the period, 1822, liberalism was still not aware for most people. Native people did not acknowledge their meaning “it is the succeeding in its goals of separating indigenous people from their communal lands, removed the protections afforded by ethnic distinctions and turned indigenous people into an oppressed minority” (Caplan, 241). After the second-generation or third-generation of “Indios,” liberalism had a higher impact in their lives. Moreover, Rebbeca’s books pointed out the social differences between limeños or limeñas to “Indios.” Both ethnic groups lived different social status and workplace. As a result, Peru, Mexico, and other Latin countries experienced social exclusion and marginalization, which it made indigene people to rise up and protect themselves associating with their ethnic group. I think this is the beginning when "Indians" felt more patriotic than other ethnic group because they did not immigrate to the New World as Spaniards did.
I agree completely, its pretty clear in these readings that the various republics that emerged in the post-revolution world. Just like we discussed last week these republics lacked to see race as a problem, so this lack of seeing equality is pretty obvious in both pieces.
Ultimately for this week I think we should focus on how the indigenous person was depicted in comparison with how they were treated. In the Earle reading I found it interesting how even with numerous ships that were named after indigenous heroes, that it was depicted that way to depict European colonialism as tyrannical. She explains that the indigenous were explained as not accepting the new state because of the former Spanish rule. "In Colombia during the 1820’s and 1930’s the failure of the indigenous population to embrace the polices of the republican state was blamed on the continuing legacy of Spanish despotism" (170 Earle) This depiction seems to pinpoint that indigenous peoples in the new Republic era were blamed not helped.
Just like in the Caplan reading we still get that idea just with land and citizenship. "In the end Yucatan’s indigenous villagers lost much of their land not as a result of the national reform but rather in the process of the reconstruction of the state after the Caste War, when the elite pushed an economic agenda that stressed both the needs of the export economy and the dangers of indigenous autonomy" (Caplan 242) So even though these countries tried to strive for equality, it was way more complicated clearly.
I agree with the complications you mentioned in regards to equality. How does this relate to the overall conversation we’ve been having about Latin Americas racial hierarchy? This reminded me of when Earle began to talk about how countries began to try to educate the Indigenous in order to try and get them to assimilate.
I was really interested in Earle’s discussion on nation-making in Latin American countries and how western culture was forced onto the “Indians,” despite the fact that these countries had a past that glorified its pre-Colombian history. Reading about the roles of the white elite during this time was frustrating, but ultimately understandable as an outcome of postindependence after the past few readings we have read. At one point Earle quotes a Mexican newspaper from 1873 which says, “anyone who stops being an Indian never wants to go back to being one” (e-book 3079). In what ways can this be an element of race making and simultaneously nation-making? How can this relate to the overall discourse on racism?
I agree with your point here, this is a question I have myself. Race making and the building of a nation seem to be a bigger issue here in Latin America than North America. Seems that these countries continue to be at odds with their past and present as well as an unwillingness to accept both.
I can see your point Daniel, however, don't you think that it depends on the demographic density of a country when factoring in your observation? The United States has a much larger population density than most of the Latin American countries; put together. I am not so sure that Latin American countries are at odds with their identities. I would subscribe to the notion of (what I call) cultural stratification. Indigenous people don't see themselves as outsiders, rather they think of themselves as a part of the social structure, yet with a distinctive cultural character, and heritage.
I think it does a lot for the development of race because the elites were trying to justify a divide between contemporary idians and themselves while still maintaining the idea that everyone enjoyed the same rights. Racism at least now is just a way to justify mistreatment based on someone background.
In previous weeks, we have discussed the intersections between the race, lineage and it's impact on national identity. This weeks readings work to push more into the national identities of not just those with Iberian heritage but those who are indigenous in this post colonial era. The struggle to find an identity while deciding whether to accept pre-Columbian culture of the indigenous people or forego it all together was the struggle for countries just gaining their independence. Additionally liberalism became a big concern for the indigenous population as the separation of their communal lands changed their status with the loss of rights and lands that they once had.
One point that I think is important about this week's reading is national culture. I am not sure that one can call it nationalism but the influence of the indigenous culture within countries such as Peru, Chile, and Mexico, in the beginning, chapters is seen as an emotional necessity to the past.
The white Creole elites' emotional reverence quickly becomes a disconnect when it came to acknowledging the present indigenous people. This transformation takes place after the end of Spanish rule, and the liberal front began to establish the Latin countries as nations with their own national identities devoid off all Spanish attachments.
Earle's book adds a new layer of ideas regarding our analysis of racial constructions in Spanish America. This book in particular peaked my interest because of this concept of nation building and how its influenced through ideas of race (as she discusses in her book). In my comment on Mike's post, I touched upon some previous readings as well as a mutual reading in which Earle mentions Benedict Anderson's work on national identity. Its an interesting topic to discuss the use of an unrelated past to mold a new social identity that forms into a national identity. The elite taking a radicalized past and including it into their own idea of a nation (which will then be radicalized as well). So my major question I am struggling to answer is that is a nation without race, or better yet, is rationalization and nation-building a two-for-one or can they be indifferent from each other?
I don't think so, given the definition of nation, no. They are tied together at the hip. A Nation-State, generally no. A State, maybe. But in order to build a nation, that common past, descent you will have to rationalize - especially in Nation-States that were former colonies, or formerly apart of another Nation-State.
Originally, I thought the book was going to be about the many ways in which the native population in the Caribbean was abused and marginalized by colonizers and in some ways, it was. At its core though it seemed to be about Identity. “Creoles in whose veins Spanish blood circulated declared themselves their heirs and avengers of Aztecs, the Incas, and the Araucanians who had been massacred centuries earlier by their fathers”. The struggle of identity was ever-present in the book the fact creoles claimed that they were the true natives while at the same time appropriating pre-conquest history and disrespecting the contemporary Indians was a very strange idea to comprehend which makes the books a very good read.
Reading Professor Caplan's essay on Indigenous system and the role of Government in Mexico I found it fascinating that the system in early independent Mexico (with some swings) set up two, separate but equal, governments, while claiming "indigenousness" did not exist. Further, that while Oaxaca and Yucatan were treated differently. Indigenous population of the Yucatan were not as autonomous as the Oaxcas. The basis, while hinted in population, is left that Oaxaca has material resources, and the Yucatan did not. This lead to differences for petitions of redress, as well as the Oaxcan government officials arguing the case for protection for indigenous population. We see the Bogas in Colombia being stereotyped, and now the newly Mexican Nation-State doing the same based on the fact the Yucatan's indigenous population. Meanwhile, in Earle's book we see Argentina ignoring the pre-conquest past, claiming civilization had finally arrived to Argentina. Mike is not alone in thinking this is a larger, international trend of embracing whiteness, and automatically thought of the United States as well. I can see the Yucatans are, in someway, being stereotyped for lack of resources and production, the same way we are here. Even, if some progress has been given to those who are deemed inferior by a white or living standards. I guess, my question is what came first: The hatred or dislike of those different from white Europeans tied to ones' resources (by extension economy), living standards or is it cosmetic?
After making a very successful case for the various ways in which Latin American republics incorporated the symbolism and reimagined histories into their own nation-building narratives, she discusses how many of these nations ceased to make such connections to the indigenous past and instead began to reconnect with their European roots and actually embrace the conquistadors as potential "fathers" of the "patria." Considering the fact that this paradigm shift takes place towards the end of the 19th century, I can not help but think think about this as part of a larger international, multinational embrace of whiteness and Eurocentrism. Emboldened by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the Democratic Party is retaking power and asserting white supremacy, throughout the Southern US, either by violence or through rewriting state constitutions. At almost the same moment, the country is marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus by way of the Columbian Exposition (World's Fair in Chicago), as the country is mobilizing toward the Spanish-American War which will basically mark an end to Spanish colonialism and fully establish the US as an imperialist power who begins to imagine itself as the paternalistic bearer of the "White Man's Burden," domestically and abroad - inspired, of course, by the Kipling poem published around this same time. Given all this, do we now have a tendency to read and interpret history through that same prism of white supremacy and Eurocentrism? Has this shaped dominant narratives of race making and colonialism which are only recently being challenged? How does Earle's book (or other texts we've read) begin to challenge such readings of history and maybe ask us to rethink them?
ReplyDeleteMike, this reading kept taking me back to our previous class about American race and ethnicity and I was pleasantly surprised when she mentions people such as Benedict Anderson and his ideas about national identity. It was nice to be able to draw on previous lessons and readings to compare to Earle's great work here. It also reminds me of "Playing Indian" and the idea of a national conscious based on an imagined past, of in Earle's book she mentions the idea of "antiquity" or constructing a past narrative to help define the newly established national idea.
DeleteHi all,
ReplyDeleteJust when I was beginning to think that our concerns over race-making might’ve moved beyond the purview of lineage and religious beliefs, The Return of the Native pops up! (I know: if I had edited the previous line a bit more, I could’ve had a great pun. Alas.)
Over the course of various discussions and texts, we’ve identified that lineage is often one of the attributes of race-making that can be easily identifiable: once folks start keeping track of who was born to whom, the leap to stereotyping and stratifying isn’t that far off, as we saw in the case of the bogas last week.
This week, we see how the elites of various independent Spanish American nations attempted to do the same and, as was the case with Wheat, we saw that citizenship was used as a way of depriving indigenous peoples. Though there was no denying that indigenous men were citizens, elites often believed that “most native Americans simply didn’t understand the requirements of citizenship,” (177) and thus, could not be “true” citizens. As we see at another point in the book, it’s this thought that was used to justify the idea of eliminating indigenous populations “who refused to be civilized and could not participate in civil society” (162).
This distinction is what struck me the most, perhaps because it felt like a marked departure from what we read in Wheat’s book last week. After all, I don’t believe that there was even an inkling of genocidal discourse in the story that Wheat told.
Excellent observation, as we discussed in class, the race has been attached to different types of justification for Spanish colonies to perpetuate American Indians’ mind. If one pays attention every book focuses in different areas based on race, our previous readings and these readings concentrate almost in the same idea “patriotism,” which is a social issue because one can discuss social exclusion and marginalization. On the other side, Wheat’s book (two weeks ago) focused on a social, economic issue that considered Africans as human capital.
DeleteOh, sorry! Not Wheat, McGraw. I conflated the two, but I meant McGraw's, since recognition and citizenship are at the core of that book, and it was what I had in mind when I wrote the post above.
DeleteThat being said, I think we're on the same page with regards to patriotism and how it manifests in this book as well as McGraw's. Maybe we can talk about the distinction that Earle presents between nationalism as a "feeling" mode, and patriotism as a rational one. It's dualistic, meaning it's probably problematic, but I'm very interested to see if this distinction will be a larger role as we learn about race making in other Latin American nations.
The readings of this week point out one specific objective “liberalism” in Mexico and Peru. Indeed, both readings try to find the meaning of liberalism according to each country’s history. At the period, 1822, liberalism was still not aware for most people. Native people did not acknowledge their meaning “it is the succeeding in its goals of separating indigenous people from their communal lands, removed the protections afforded by ethnic distinctions and turned indigenous people into an oppressed minority” (Caplan, 241). After the second-generation or third-generation of “Indios,” liberalism had a higher impact in their lives. Moreover, Rebbeca’s books pointed out the social differences between limeños or limeñas to “Indios.” Both ethnic groups lived different social status and workplace. As a result, Peru, Mexico, and other Latin countries experienced social exclusion and marginalization, which it made indigene people to rise up and protect themselves associating with their ethnic group. I think this is the beginning when "Indians" felt more patriotic than other ethnic group because they did not immigrate to the New World as Spaniards did.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely, its pretty clear in these readings that the various republics that emerged in the post-revolution world. Just like we discussed last week these republics lacked to see race as a problem, so this lack of seeing equality is pretty obvious in both pieces.
DeleteUltimately for this week I think we should focus on how the indigenous person was depicted in comparison with how they were treated. In the Earle reading I found it interesting how even with numerous ships that were named after indigenous heroes, that it was depicted that way to depict European colonialism as tyrannical. She explains that the indigenous were explained as not accepting the new state because of the former Spanish rule. "In Colombia during the 1820’s and 1930’s the failure of the indigenous population to embrace the polices of the republican state was blamed on the continuing legacy of Spanish despotism" (170 Earle) This depiction seems to pinpoint that indigenous peoples in the new Republic era were blamed not helped.
ReplyDeleteJust like in the Caplan reading we still get that idea just with land and citizenship. "In the end Yucatan’s indigenous villagers lost much of their land not as a result of the national reform but rather in the process of the reconstruction of the state after the Caste War, when the elite pushed an economic agenda that stressed both the needs of the export economy and the dangers of indigenous autonomy" (Caplan 242) So even though these countries tried to strive for equality, it was way more complicated clearly.
I agree with the complications you mentioned in regards to equality. How does this relate to the overall conversation we’ve been having about Latin Americas racial hierarchy? This reminded me of when Earle began to talk about how countries began to try to educate the Indigenous in order to try and get them to assimilate.
DeleteI was really interested in Earle’s discussion on nation-making in Latin American countries and how western culture was forced onto the “Indians,” despite the fact that these countries had a past that glorified its pre-Colombian history. Reading about the roles of the white elite during this time was frustrating, but ultimately understandable as an outcome of postindependence after the past few readings we have read. At one point Earle quotes a Mexican newspaper from 1873 which says, “anyone who stops being an Indian never wants to go back to being one” (e-book 3079). In what ways can this be an element of race making and simultaneously nation-making? How can this relate to the overall discourse on racism?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point here, this is a question I have myself. Race making and the building of a nation seem to be a bigger issue here in Latin America than North America. Seems that these countries continue to be at odds with their past and present as well as an unwillingness to accept both.
DeletePre-Columbian*
DeleteI can see your point Daniel, however, don't you think that it depends on the demographic density of a country when factoring in your observation? The United States has a much larger population density than most of the Latin American countries; put together. I am not so sure that Latin American countries are at odds with their identities. I would subscribe to the notion of (what I call) cultural stratification. Indigenous people don't see themselves as outsiders, rather they think of themselves as a part of the social structure, yet with a distinctive cultural character, and heritage.
DeleteI think it does a lot for the development of race because the elites were trying to justify a divide between contemporary idians and themselves while still maintaining the idea that everyone enjoyed the same rights. Racism at least now is just a way to justify mistreatment based on someone background.
DeleteIn previous weeks, we have discussed the intersections between the race, lineage and it's impact on national identity. This weeks readings work to push more into the national identities of not just those with Iberian heritage but those who are indigenous in this post colonial era. The struggle to find an identity while deciding whether to accept pre-Columbian culture of the indigenous people or forego it all together was the struggle for countries just gaining their independence. Additionally liberalism became a big concern for the indigenous population as the separation of their communal lands changed their status with the loss of rights and lands that they once had.
ReplyDeleteOne point that I think is important about this week's reading is national culture. I am not sure that one can call it nationalism but the influence of the indigenous culture within countries such as Peru, Chile, and Mexico, in the beginning, chapters is seen as an emotional necessity to the past.
ReplyDeleteThe white Creole elites' emotional reverence quickly becomes a disconnect when it came to acknowledging the present indigenous people. This transformation takes place after the end of Spanish rule, and the liberal front began to establish the Latin countries as nations with their own national identities devoid off all Spanish attachments.
Earle's book adds a new layer of ideas regarding our analysis of racial constructions in Spanish America. This book in particular peaked my interest because of this concept of nation building and how its influenced through ideas of race (as she discusses in her book). In my comment on Mike's post, I touched upon some previous readings as well as a mutual reading in which Earle mentions Benedict Anderson's work on national identity. Its an interesting topic to discuss the use of an unrelated past to mold a new social identity that forms into a national identity. The elite taking a radicalized past and including it into their own idea of a nation (which will then be radicalized as well). So my major question I am struggling to answer is that is a nation without race, or better yet, is rationalization and nation-building a two-for-one or can they be indifferent from each other?
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, given the definition of nation, no. They are tied together at the hip. A Nation-State, generally no. A State, maybe. But in order to build a nation, that common past, descent you will have to rationalize - especially in Nation-States that were former colonies, or formerly apart of another Nation-State.
DeleteOops I meant Racialization/Racialiazed, it was auto corrected. Apologies.
DeleteOriginally, I thought the book was going to be about the many ways in which the native population in the Caribbean was abused and marginalized by colonizers and in some ways, it was. At its core though it seemed to be about Identity. “Creoles in whose veins Spanish blood circulated declared themselves their heirs and avengers of Aztecs, the Incas, and the Araucanians who had been massacred centuries earlier by their fathers”. The struggle of identity was ever-present in the book the fact creoles claimed that they were the true natives while at the same time appropriating pre-conquest history and disrespecting the contemporary Indians was a very strange idea to comprehend which makes the books a very good read.
ReplyDeleteReading Professor Caplan's essay on Indigenous system and the role of Government in Mexico I found it fascinating that the system in early independent Mexico (with some swings) set up two, separate but equal, governments, while claiming "indigenousness" did not exist. Further, that while Oaxaca and Yucatan were treated differently. Indigenous population of the Yucatan were not as autonomous as the Oaxcas. The basis, while hinted in population, is left that Oaxaca has material resources, and the Yucatan did not. This lead to differences for petitions of redress, as well as the Oaxcan government officials arguing the case for protection for indigenous population. We see the Bogas in Colombia being stereotyped, and now the newly Mexican Nation-State doing the same based on the fact the Yucatan's indigenous population. Meanwhile, in Earle's book we see Argentina ignoring the pre-conquest past, claiming civilization had finally arrived to Argentina. Mike is not alone in thinking this is a larger, international trend of embracing whiteness, and automatically thought of the United States as well. I can see the Yucatans are, in someway, being stereotyped for lack of resources and production, the same way we are here. Even, if some progress has been given to those who are deemed inferior by a white or living standards. I guess, my question is what came first: The hatred or dislike of those different from white Europeans tied to ones' resources (by extension economy), living standards or is it cosmetic?
ReplyDelete