In Imiuh Tenamaztle: Communiqué to Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction J. Huppenthal

Nahuacalli Educators Alliance 
In Imiuh Tenamaztle

In ompa Tlamananalco inic oniquizaco inic onihuallihualoc ca mitl, onimacoc in Inimiuh Tenamaztle, auh yehhuatl ihihyo ixpantzinco, tehhuan tamechnahuatih totlahtol.

March 12, 2012 

The State of Arizona

Superintendent John Huppenthal

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
1535 W. Jefferson Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Dear Mr. Huppenthal,

The 11^th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will convene at UN Headquarters in New York from May 7 -18, 2012.  A special theme for discussion at this year’s session will be the “Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery on Indigenous Peoples”, which is the subject of the Preliminary Study on the Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery submitted to the UNPFII at the 9^th Session in 2010.  The intent of this letter is to solicit a response from the Arizona Department of Education addressing the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery in terms of past and present educational policies and practices in the State of Arizona.

Context

On September 13, 2007 the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  As a standard setting instrument of International Law, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) establishes for the first time in five hundred years that Indigenous Peoples are “Equal to all other peoples….” with corresponding rights as “PEOPLES” in the world community.  Of the 46 Articles proclaimed in the UNDRIP, the following are particularly pertinent to our present request:

Article 3

Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Article 5

Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

Article 8

1. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.

2. States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for:
(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;
(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;
(c) Any form of forced population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;
(d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration;
(e) Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial or ethnic discrimination directed against them.

Article 14

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.

2. Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right to all levels and forms of education of the State without discrimination.

3. States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language.

Article 15

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately reflected in education and public information.

2. States shall take effective measures, in consultation and cooperation with the indigenous peoples concerned, to combat prejudice and eliminate discrimination and to promote tolerance, understanding and good relations among indigenous peoples and all other segments of society.

Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery

The above clarifications become especially significant for the purposes of this letter for the following reasons:

The current Social Studies Standard for American History extracted from the Arizona Department of Education Website for High School level curriculum acknowledge the precept that Indigenous Peoples are recognized as “Peoples” by use of the term in:

Strand 1: Concept 3:  Exploration and Colonization

PO 1.  Review the reciprocal impact resulting from early European contact with indigenous peoples:

This same strand of study from the social studies curriculum calls for:

PO 2. Describe the reasons for colonization of America (e.g., religious freedom, desire for land, economic opportunity, and a new life).

The recognition of Indigenous Peoples as such in the standards of the Arizona Department of Education is noteworthy, but of greater concern is the perpetuation of policies of prejudice and “ethnic solidarity” in that discriminate favor of “white” pupils in the evaluation systems of the Arizona State Department of Education.

The designation of “white” as a category of evaluation and quantification of pupils in the Arizona State department of Education is not a new phenomenon.  In fact, from it’s beginnings on September 9, 1850 with the establishment by the 31^st Congress of the Territorial Government for New Mexico, the organic instrument from which the State of Arizona derives its jurisdiction as a State (1912), the legal identity of “white person” has been given preferential “ethnic” treatment with policies of prejudice and “white supremacy” that are derivatives of the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny. 

The concept of Manifest Destiny, a regime of ethnic solidarity if there ever was one, prescribes to the Anglo-Saxon “race” historical rights in the territory that supersede all others. Manifest Destiny is itself a meme of caste that by its nature as an ideology of “white supremacy” is a racist relic still embedded in the underlying Doctrine of Discovery, a chapter of the “Masters’ Narrative” that has dictated the rules of dominion by American societies since October 12, 1492.  We are speaking of the context of cognition that provides precept and dogma for the ongoing justification of colonization by European-American constituencies in territories to which they have immigrated or invaded as colonizers in this hemisphere.

Colonization is a crime.  It is a crime that became so in 1960 with UN GA Resolution 1514 which proclaimed “All peoples have the right to self determination.”  With the adoption in 2007 of the UNDRIP, and our recognition as “Peoples, equal to all other peoples….”, the Indigenous Peoples not only of Arizona, not only of the US, not only of the Americas but the Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth – Nican Tlacah Cemanahuac - are determined to achieve the equilibrium and harmony with the Natural World that will allow Humanity as a whole to mature and realize planetary sustainability. 

The perpetuation of doctrine is not education, it is indoctrination.  And while the resistance and rebellion against these regimes of “intellectual apartheid” by the Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala [the Americas] to the centuries old regime of white supremacy in the continent did not begin in Arizona, the time has come for us to here and now, as Nican Tlacah, to move deliberately towards collective corrective action in order to address the violations of Civil Rights, Human Rights, and Indigenous Rights that have become exacerbated in terms of public educational services for our community since the passage of AZ HB 2281.

Ancestral Corridors of Indigenous Culture and Trade 

Therefore, we as Nican Tlacah, Indigenous Peoples of Anahuac who reside in the territories of the O’otham Nations also known as the State of Arizona now present the following demands and recommendations in pursuit of realizing the intent of this letter:

In light of the fact that there is absolutely NO REFERENCE in the current Arizona State Curriculum Standards for a track of study on the relevance of the Doctrine of Discovery in terms of Social Studies, History or Public Policy:

We demand that the Preliminary Study on the Doctrine of Discovery, submitted to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues be integrated into the Social Studies Curriculum standards immediately for implementation across the spectrum of services delivered by the Arizona Department of Education at all levels across the state with no exceptions.

We recommend that the State of Arizona:

•  Promote and advocate for the continued development of appreciation, knowledge and understanding of the Cultural Diversity of all Arizona residents by supporting educational programs that contribute to this goal;

• Reinforce programs of Cultural Competency to meet this goal, as a legal obligation binding the State of Arizona in terms of Civil Rights, Human Rights, and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; 

• Promote and advocate for the implementation of a state wide Indigenous Peoples Studies curriculum, that addresses the ignorance and lack of historical perspective in the general public related to outdated public policies that are grounded in the concepts of racial profiling and illegal preferences to constituencies of European-American “white persons” such as “Manifest Destiny”;

In closing, may we affirm the notion that this communiqué is no way to be interpreted as a message of resentment or hatred towards any other peoples, however they may classify themselves.  This is not a message of antagonism against white people, but it is a challenge to the social constructs of white supremacy.  And at a deeper level, it is a call to our common humanity to strive to collectively correct the injustices committed in the name of “Western Civilization” that make victims of not only the colonized by the colonizer as well. 

Where is the homeland of the “White” ethnicity? What are its boundaries? Where are its borders? Who is their leadership?  Who benefits from this ideology, and who suffers?  Is it not the “white people” themselves who have lost the most, by fomenting ethnic and political identity at the family, community and national levels based on a “melanin deprived” physical characteristic that is unscientific and racist, not to mention horribly dehumanizing?

These questions, demands, and recommendations are signals from the ancient world of the Indigenous Peoples in this year 2012 that call upon us as Human Beings not to remain divided by dogma and doctrine but achieve integrity and sustainability with the natural world based on principles of both individual and collective responsibility and self determination.  “Equal to all other peoples” is not a phrase of ethnic solidarity; it is a call once again from the tradition of the Indigenous Peoples that reminds us all why this continent was called the “New World” by the immigrants from the “Old World”.

Not only are we the New World, we are NOW the World in Renewal: We are the Nican Tlacah of Cemanahuac and our proposals in terms of education are hereby respectfully submitted in the spirit of the Prerogative of the Peoples and for the purposes of advancing the Public Services towards the Greater Good, the wela of We the Peoples.

Sincerely,

Tupac Enrique Acosta, Yaotachcauh

Tlahtokan Nahuacalli

Indigenous Peoples Forum on the Doctrine of Discovery

2012

Indigenous Peoples Forum
on the

Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery

Friday March 23, 2012

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Arizona State Capitol - House of Representatives

1700 West Washington    Phoenix, AZ

Hosted by:

Native American Caucus

O’otham Hemuchkam

NAHUACALLI

Embassy of Indigenous Peoples

A regional forum to address the implications of the

Preliminary Study on the Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery

by the
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

in context of the standards established by the adoption on September 13, 2007 of the

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Local - Regional - Continental - Global

Ves O’otham Ha-Jeved

**************

2012

Indigenous Peoples Forum
on the

Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery

Preliminary study of the impact on Indigenous Peoples of the legal construct

known as the Doctrine of Discovery

Submitted to United Nations Economic and Social Council

Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Ninth Session

New York, April 19-30, 2010

“This preliminary study establishes that the Doctrine of Discovery has been institutionalized in law and policy, on national and international levels, and lies at the root of the violations of Indigenous Peoples human rights, both individual and collective.”

AGENDA

9:00            Opening Ceremony O’otham Hemuchkam

9:15            Welcome from the Native American Caucus

9:20            Installation of the Presidium – O’otham Hemuchkam

9:30            Tupac Enrique Acosta, Izkaloteka: Objectives of the Indigenous Peoples Forum

9:40            Steve Newcomb, Indigenous Law Institute: Domination and Colonization

10:10            Shannon Rivers, O’odham Hemuchkam: Impact on O’otham Nations and Territories

10:25            Julie Cavanaugh Bill and Larson Bill, Western Shoshone Defense Project:
                     International Context

10:55            Professor Robert Miller, Lewis and Clark University:
                    The Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny

11:30            Jose Matus, Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras:
                     The Doctrine of Discovery and International Borders           

11:40            Summary and Plan of Action           

12:00            Closing Ceremony and Farewell

***************************************

United Nations

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007

“Affirming that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples...”

LUNCH provided at NAHUACALLI

802 N. 7^TH STREET

Phoenix, AZ 

Link:
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Framework of Dominance

Preliminary Study on the Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery

Universal Unitarians Resolution on the Doctrine of Discovery

Motion from the Right Relationship Monitoring Committee for the UUA
Board of Trustees meeting January 2012

Moved: That the following section entitled “Report from the Board on the Doctrine of Discovery” be added to the 2012 Board report to the congregations of our Association, that the responsive resolution that follows it be placed on the agenda for the 2012 General Assembly, and that both this section of our report and the resolution be sent out to congregations with the Tentative General Assembly Agenda.
 

Report from the Board on the Doctrine of Discovery
 

In September of 2011, the UUA Board was asked by partner organizations with whom the UUA is working in Arizona to educate UU congregations about the Doctrine of Discovery and to ask the delegates of the 2012 General Assembly to repudiate this doctrine. We believe that the Doctrine of Discovery, as conceived in the 15th century and enforced to this day in U.S. law, is contrary to Unitarian Universalist principles, theology and values.  Because of this, we recommend to our member congregations that they engage in education about the Doctrine of Discovery and we endorse the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery by the 2012 General Assembly. We further endorse measures that will help the United States be in full compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, an agreement seen as reparative to the centuries of damage caused by the Doctrine of Discovery.
 
Background Information
 
The Doctrine of Discovery (DOD, also called the Doctrine of Christian Discovery) is a principle of law developed in a series of 15th century Papal bulls and 16th century charters by Christian European monarchs on the basis of which much of the rest of the world was explored and colonized by Europeans. It contained a theological justification of colonization that later became a nationalistic one.  In an article in Yes! magazine, Gale Courey Toensing writes, "it was essentially a racist philosophy that gave white, Christian Europeans the green light to go forth and claim the lands and resources of non-Christian peoples and kill and enslave them--if other Christian Europeans had not yet already done so."
For more than five centuries, the interpretive framework of the DOD has been institutionalized and used to assert a presumed right of dominance over originally free and independent indigenous peoples. The DOD was used by European nations to justify their conquest of Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas. It was the justification--theological and political--for the appropriation of the lands and resources of indigenous peoples and efforts to dominate native nations and undermine the sovereignty of indigenous nations and peoples. Among other things, it formed the basis for the slave trade, the partition and colonization of the Near East, the colonization of the Americas, and the genocides of the indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas.
 
The DOD is the basis for United States policy regarding native peoples. After the American Revolution, the tenets of Christian Discovery were continued by the new United States. In the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823), Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that “Christian people” who had “discovered” the lands of “heathens” had assumed the right of “ultimate dominion to be in themselves” and that this presumption of “dominion” had “diminished” the Indians' rights to complete sovereignty as independent nations, and had resulted in the Indians having a mere right of occupancy to their lands. This decision stripped native nations of any and all sovereignty agreed to in treaties with the U.S. Unlike many regretful decisions of the past, this decision has never been overturned, and is still referred to in legal decisions on a regular basis (as recently as 2010 in the Federal courts).  The DOD is also foundational in the ways in which our nation's policies on migration and immigration are formed and enforced. Preventing Indigenous Peoples from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to inhabit lands that are historically theirs is justified in U.S. law by the DOD.
 
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, overwhelmingly passed in 2007 after two decades of work, repudiates the DOD and calls upon the nations of the world to respect the land claims of their indigenous peoples and treaties made with indigenous peoples. It is a positive and comprehensive international human rights instrument addressing the economic, social, cultural, political spiritual and environmental rights of indigenous peoples. Among other things, it recognizes the right
of indigenous peoples to migrate in their own lands, even when national borders have been drawn by colonial powers through them.
 
The United States is one of only four countries in the world that voted against the declaration (the others being Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Since then, all four have claimed to endorse the Declaration without taking steps to implement it. In the United States, the Declaration has not been submitted as a treaty to the Senate, giving it no force in law. While the rights addressed in the Declaration are similar to the rights guaranteed for other groups through other international human rights agreements that
the United States has ratified and is implementing, none of these existing agreements extend rights of self-determination and equality to the indigenous peoples of this continent.
 
Indigenous peoples from around the world are asking all religious faiths and their respective national and international organizations to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery and related documents, and to call for the United States to fully implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples without qualifications. As the Declaration is described in its own preamble as “as a standard of achievement to be pursued in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect,” implementation of its standards needs to be done in accountable relationship with the indigenous peoples of our continent.
 
Unitarian Universalist Theologies and the DOD
 
The Unitarian and Universalist religious movements were born in the midst of revolution.  “We the people” established the state and federal governments of the United States.  The notion that human communities could be established on a democratic and intentional basis had a profound impact on our religious heritage. The American values of equality and justice were directly tied to the Universalist and Unitarian theologies that declared everyone equal in the eyes of God and possessing of sparks of divinity within.
But the United States did not come into being with an inclusive understanding of who constituted “we the people.” Women, People of Color, working people, people of diverse sexual and gender orientations still have to struggle for equity and inclusion. Unitarian Universalists have joined in these struggles. This work of equality and justice continues and there is much to do before our country can call itself inclusive, equitable and genuine in its commitment to justice for all.
 
Unitarian Universalists have long been guided by the radical notion that the truth will make us free. But we are not free of the past, our nation lives a lie, and our people are taught a history based in denial.  A theology of mutuality and equality rather than of privilege and dominance means challenging ourselves to understand this history.
 
The indigenous people of this land were conquered by vicious force and the land was taken from them. These actions were rationalized with the arrogant notion that the natives were savages and the invaders were civilizing Christians. The first people of this land have contributed much to our national culture, our food, our music, and most notably to our impatience with hierarchy and patriarchy. Benjamin Franklin credited the Haudenosaunee Confederacy for the idea that a federal union could be created out of self governing states. Yet these contributions are forgotten and even denied and it offends the presumption of white privilege to admit how much the nation has been influenced by People of Color.
 
Unitarian Universalist congregations covenant to affirm and promote “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part”. This, our seventh principle, has profound theological implications. It calls us to a deeply rooted relationship with all that is, realizing that we belong to this world and that the world does not belong to us. Once we take this stance, we realize that the dominant culture of Europe and North America propagates a fundamentally different orientation, one based on exploiting
our planet and using it for immediate gratification. We hear claims that the land is a “resource” and the people of the land should “be employed” for “productive purposes” by enterprising people of privilege and power. More and more people are learning that the world view of domination is profoundly alienating, estranging us from our essential human nature and from each other.
 
Unitarian Universalism is grounded in theologies that value relationship and reconciliation. We are taught that each of us has creative power that can be used to foster right relationship and build the beloved community. Conversely, that power can be used to dominate, oppress and harm others and make the beloved community that much further away from reality. 2010 Ware Lecturer Winona LaDuke, among others, teaches us that the continued domination of the indigenous people of North America is fundamentally in opposition to a theology of right relationship. By perpetuating centuries of injustice rooted in theologies of domination, we keep our culture alienated from the indigenous nations with whom we share the Earth.
 
There is a profound brokenness deeply embedded in our national identity that calls to us for healing and reconciliation. The Doctrine of Discovery is central to many painful legacies of American history, including the legacies of slavery, the forcible relocation and genocide of Native American peoples and the colonial partitioning of the continent.
 
It is also central to the painful relationship that European-Americans have with their history. Healing is needed. We believe this resolution is a beginning step in the healing of this brokenness, a step toward restoring right relationship among the peoples of this land.
 
Why We Are Offering This Resolution at General Assembly 2012
 
This resolution has been placed on the General Assembly agenda in keeping with our charge to be accountable to migrant communities and partner organizations in Arizona.
 
In preparing for General Assembly, some of the partner organizations with whom we are working in Arizona asked us specifically to take up this resolution. Coalitions of indigenous peoples and their allies (including many Unitarian Universalists) have been working for many years to get religious groups to repudiate the DOD and to ask the United States to fully implement the tenets of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Episcopal Church of the United States did so in 2009.
The DOD--and the legal ramifications of it to this day--have profound effects on the issues of migration, racial and economic justice, the focus issues of this Justice General Assembly. For example, laws restricting the migration of indigenous peoples across national borders are a direct consequence of a legal system that allowed European colonizers the right to draw those borders through the lands of others. The DOD is also central to the construction of the category of race--and thus the development of racism--in the Western world.
 
This resolution is being offered as a Responsive Resolution because the UUA By-Laws prevent us from making justice statements through normal business resolutions (and because the 2011 General Assembly passed by-law amendments to remove Actions of Immediate Witness from the General Assembly agenda in 2012). The Board feels that this is an issue that our congregations will need to study and discuss prior to General Assembly, so we are taking the unusual step of submitting it to you in advance for this consideration.
 
A Responsive Resolution to the Report of the Board
 
WHEREAS the delegates of the 2010 General Assembly instructed the UUA Board to create a “Justice General Assembly” in 2012, whose business is accountable to partner organizations doing human rights work in Arizona; and
 
WHEREAS the Unitarian Universalist Association has been asked by partner organizations working with the Arizona Immigration Ministry to educate our member congregations about the Doctrine of Discovery and to pass a resolution repudiating it;
and
 
WHEREAS the UUA Board of Trustees has submitted to the member congregations a report explaining the Doctrine of Discovery and why the Board believes it to be contrary to Unitarian Universalist principles;
 
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that we, the delegates of the 2012 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery as a relic of colonialism, feudalism, and of religious, cultural, and racial biases having no place in the modern day treatment of indigenous peoples globally, and American Indians nationally; and
 
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call on the leadership of the Unitarian Universalist Association to make a clear and concise statement repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery and its current use in U.S. laws and regulations, and
 
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we encourage other religious bodies to reject the use of the Doctrine of Discovery to dominate indigenous peoples, and
 
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that we call upon the United States to fully implement the standards of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in U.S. law and policy without qualifications. 

In doing so, we support the establishment of commissions that include accountable representatives of American Indian nations.

Inevitably

“Inevitably, cultural self-government and cultural self-determination must precede their political and economic counterparts if these latter areas are to have any substance and significance.”

The Nations Within – The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty

 by Vine Deloria Jr. and Clifford Lytle, ©1964 

*******

TEOCALLI MACEHUALLI

Teocalli Macehualli

CONTEXT

            The destruction of the thousands of AMOXTIN (books) that existed in the Mesoamerican centers of learning during the first phase of Spanish invasion of the Americas may perhaps never be accurately evaluated in terms of the effect on the heirs of these sources of knowledge. The autos-de-fé by Archbishop Zumarraga of the libraries of TEXCOCO are the most well known but were doubtless countless others that escaped notation in the colonial histories. 

What is known is that every commercial and cultural center of ANAHUAC had its own AMOXCALLI (library) and that the art and science of writing - TLACUILOA - was extensively instructed in the TELPOCHCALLI and CALMECAC, the two major educational institutions of the Nahuatlaca. The scriptures of the Nahuatl are a complex system combining: text, image, and color in a phonetic representation that requires the talent of the artist and el conocimiento del sabio TLAMATINI for its expression on two dimensional matrices.    Yet the ability to read, not merely interpret, the Nahuatl written script was nearly universal in the all urban centers where public education was obligatory.

It is well to remember that the Anahuac Culture of meso-america integrated urban development where the centers of population followed the spiritual tradition of being CHAKRAS (ceremonial centers), each a dynamic focus of space and time.  The primordial orientation of the culture, reflected in the name of the language itself, NAHUATL, is the principle of harmony with the forces of creation.   This entailed above the balancing at all levels of the cosmic duality that represented the highest level of Nahuatl philosophy – OMETEOTL.

If there is to Be Four: There must first Be two: the Two must Be One

The negation of the existence of a written convention for Nahuatl began with the first arriving Spaniards.  Although the initial accounts of their encounter with the Meso-American civilizations were full admiration, the Spaniards quickly reversed themselves and began to negate all positive aspects of the culture.  

It became necessary in order to justify the imposition of the colonial superstructure to diminish the civilization, culture, and language of the Nican Tlacah indígena to a savage and unenlightened status.  

The denial of la escritura Nahuatl served the immediate purpose of forcing all official, legal transaction to be conducted in the European scheme, with Latin Characters.  The demeaning process via sets of cognition of the Euro-centric schools of anthropology and linguistics has preserved this bias in the highest levels of academia.  It is taught that the criteria for recognizing a written language is that the symbolic elements cannot have a representation outside of the phonetic, a definition that suits the Indo-European languages and relegates all others to an inferior status.  As a direct consequence, the scriptures, the history, systems of knowledge, and languages of the Nican Tlacah of indigenous Mexico are relegated to expressions of only folk dialects, and not languages of Peoples.

AZTATL

Furthermore, this prejudice has shielded the continued colonization of the continent from impartial intellectual evaluation, denying in precept the existence of the surviving Indigenous Peoples as cultures and civilization except in terms of the nation states currently enjoying international recognition in the hemisphere.

Five hundred years after the invasion by Spain, Mexico (los Mexicanos y los Chicanos) still suffer from the violent imposition of a European psychology on the national identity.  The latinization of Mexico is a deliberate colonial project that is ongoing but it began officially when Spain imposed a Spanish Only policy in the Vice-Royalty of New Spain in the 1500's.

Indeed, with the publication of the first Spanish language grammar in 1492 which was given blessing by the Royal Family of Castille, el idioma Castellaño became a language which was engineered to serve the purpose of empire as stated: "Language is the perfect instrument of empire."

The educational policies of "Intellectual Apartheid" since 1492 under the project of America applied by the colonizers results in the psychological genocide of the succeeding indigenous generations. 

They are acts of war - psychological warfare that utilizes the instruments of the state to bring to bear weapons of mass destruction that wreak disaster and trauma over generations.  And while the elites of the Hispanic-American and Anglo American corporatists compete hemisphericallly, they also collude in conspiracy as European-Americans both to defend their hegemony continentally in the present era of ascendancy and competition for world domination by the rising of the Asian economic powers led by China.

These policies and programs in education are reinforced by the other levels of genocide -physical, cultural, and political -  but the practice of INTELLECTUAL GENOCIDE is the most pervasive and insidious of sciences and necessarily so.  South of the Rio Bravo, the European-American allegiances (Latino, Hispanic, Portuguese, etc,) are a numerical minority demographically and to retain control over the predominantly indigenous populations of Anahuac, Mexico, and all of Abya Yala [the Americas] overt colonization is not viable. 

In terms of ethnic studies, the concept is to control and manage allegiance by usurping the symbolism and sovereignty of the ancient MEXICA CONFEDERACY (Aguila y Nopal, Piedra y Agua, AZTLAN and TENOCHTITLAN) and thus subvert the liberation of the Indigenous Peoples of Anahuac.

Yet MEXICAYOTL has endured.  Within la Republica Mexicana the Mexican language is the mother tongue of over two million and in AZTLAN a new generation - El XICANO - has revived the consciousness of our ancient indigenous identity.  This consciencia is not a romantic idealization, but a process reborn, an expression of the our relationship with the surviving Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples that form the family of Uto-Aztecan languages.  

However, to escape the parameters of the European intellect (AKA: the OK Corral) and participate in the regeneration of our indigenous self determination and destiny, the path of communication and thus unity and confederacy with our Indigenous Nations is in the shared Spirit of our Languages: In Nelhuayotl, In Aztlan.

More profoundly, in an indigenous context not limited to anthropocentric conceptions of society, communication of harmonization of the people with the powers of nature and the cosmos requires the ceremonial and non-verbal  (moving-image) aspects of the culture.  These ceremonials and their caretakers are the remaining bases of resistance to the total psychological conquest of the people.  Their survival over 500 years of European domination is a testament to eternal and universal values of the Nahuatl culture and Peoples: the Nican Tlacah.

     “WE AS INDIAN PEOPLE KNOW THAT THE DEFENSE OF OUR TRADITIONS BELIEFS AND KNOWLEDGE ARE A CENTRAL PART OF THE STRUGGLE FOR OUT DEFINITE SOCIAL LIBERATION AS A PEOPLE.  UNFORTUNATELY , THOSE THAT OPPRESS AND EXPLOIT US, IN WHICHEVER COUNTRY WE ARE, ALSO KNOW THIS.  IN THAT SENSE, AND ENORMOUS INSTITUTIONAL BUREAUCRACY HAS BEEN CREATED THAT SEEKS TO SUPPRESS OUR VALUES IN ORDER TO SUBSTITUTE THEM WITH OTHERS THAT CORRESPOND TO EACH GOVERNMENT.

Tenamaztle

IN GENERAL OUR CULTURE IS RESPECTFUL OF THE EARTH AND OF NATURE. WE FEEL WE ARE A PART OF THE EARTH AND IN HARMONY WITH HER.  BASED ON THIS FUNDAMENTAL BELIEF, WE HAVE DEVELOPED A COMOVISION, WHICH EMPHASIZES THE HARMONIOUS AND COMMUNAL EXISTENCE BETWEEN MAN AND OUR NATURAL SURROUNDINGS.  OUR INDIVIDUAL DESTINIES ARE IN UNION WITH ALL LIFE, INCLUDING ELEMENTS THAT ARE CONSIDERED INERT BY WESTERN CULTURE. THAT IS WHY WE SHOULD NOT ABRUPTLY BREAK FROM OUR ENVIRONMENT AND THE CREATION OF OUR SYMBOLS, WHICH WE  REGARD WITH REVERENCE AS THEY ENRICH OUR DAILY LIVES.  THIS IS OUR TRUE SPIRITUALITY, WHICH IS AT THE BASE OF OUR CULTURE. . . . . .”

From a report written for the 1990 Continental Conference on the 500 Years of Indian Resistance attended by 120 representatives of Indigenous Nations from throughout the hemisphere –Commission of Culture, Religion and Education. 
Quito, Ecuador - July, 1990

Links:

TENAMAZTLE

The Legend of Truth and the Doctrines of Power

Declaration of Quito 1990 

Nahuacalli Educators Alliance

In Imiuh Tenamaztle

In ompa Tlamananalco inic oniquizacao inic onihuallihualoc ca mitl, onimacoc in Inimiuh Tenamaztle, auh yehhuatl ihihyo ixpantzinco, tehhuan tamechnahuatih totlahtol.

March 12, 2012 

The State of Arizona

Mr. John Huppenthal

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
1535 W. Jefferson Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Dear Superintendent Huppenthal,

The 11^th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will convene at UN Headquarters in New York from May 7 -18, 2012.  A special theme for discussion at this year’s session will be the “Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery on Indigenous Peoples”, which is the subject of the Preliminary Study on the Impact of the Doctrine of Discovery submitted to the UNPFII at the 9^th Session in 2010.  The intent of this letter is to solicit a response from the Arizona Department of Education addressing the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery in terms of past and present educational policies and practices in the State of Arizona.

We now request a meeting with you to discuss the demands, questions, and recommendations in the attached communiqué.

Sincerely,

Tupac Enrique Acosta, Yaotachcauh

Tlahtokan Nahuacalli