Indigenous people should drop "Latino"

Drop the “Latino” and Re-Adopt the Indigenous Label for Mixed-Indigenous People: This is Our Idle No More Movement

By Hummingbird KnowsIf we identify as American Indian (not the feathered Indian Hollywood portrays, but the modern-day Indigenous in 2014) in the U.S. Census, the United States has to recognize Ecuadorians as an Indigenous Nation in North America. We make up close to 1 million of Ecuadorians in the United States.

But this is not what the U.S. wants to deal with. Because it’s easier to label them Hispanic or Latino instead of recognizing them as one of the original people of the Americas. Because it’s convenient to make them think they’re the immigrants, terrorists, invaders, thieves, criminals, and idiots instead of treating them with proper respect and solidarity. Because it’s okay to fool them into thinking they’re “free” and they’re chasing the “American dream” instead of disrupting US colonial institutions that aim to steal more land and more resources abroad.

As long as church authorities force their knees to the floor and media convince us into thinking we’re Spanish with white actors on soap opera, South American and Central American Indigenous and mixed-Indigenous people will not rise as a people with a political right to have a say of their lands.

But if North American and South American Indigenous people in the United States work together to raise awareness, all Indigenous people of the Americas will have a stronger political voice as one Indigenous race.Comment:  For more on the subject, see:

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Most Mexicans are Indians