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1. "Two Bloods!": Defining Race and Nation
- University of New Mexico Press
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11 A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S “Two Bloods!” Defining Race and Nation The indígena hides ever more obstinately in his ancestral customs . . . . By this attitude . . . the indígena becomes a deadweight . . . for social, economic, and cultural development. —National Indigenista Institute,¿Por qué es indispensable el indigenismo? 1969 Tecún Umán [conquest-era K’iche’ warrior] is a . . . representative of the land; as clean as our skies, above political conflicts and fratricidal struggles, sacrificed when the two bloods that run in our veins met, source of the river of our history. —Revista Cultural del Ejército, January–June 1979 What are they without traje [traditional dress]? Nothing but Indian trash. —Hotel owner, Cobán, Alta Verapaz, 2002 I speak for my race. . . . I speak for the blood that circulates in my veins, the blood of the kekchíes, the Maya blood! . . . They [Ladinos] try to incorporate us into their society so we can continue serving them and they can continue humiliating us, because that is what the indígena has always been: servant, . . . peon, beast of burden, . . . until he has become a thing. —Eduardo Pacay Coy, in La Ruta, September 26, 1971 1 12 C H A P T E R 1 Race has been a central and problematic theme in Guatemala’s vision of itself as a nation. It is a country of profound and remarkably lasting contrasts —linguistic, cultural, and economic—that tend to coalesce around the racialized and opposing social categories of “indígena” and “Ladino,” the latter term generally applied to Guatemalans not defined as indigenous. Yet the concept of race can seem problematic when applied to indigenous populations. Scholars usually view distinctions among Guatemalans as “ethnic” rather than “racial,” marked by cultural or economic specificities (language, dress, ways of life or work) that an individual or group can maintain, adapt, achieve, or discard. Race, on the other hand, smacks of biological determinism. In writing about Maya activism I have wrestled with the question of terminology: does “ethnicity” or “race” better capture the complicated construction of Maya identity? The term “ethnicity” focuses attention on important cultural and economic differences among Maya groups and Guatemalans more generally. But processes of categorizing indigenous groups as one—whether it be Mayas, indígenas, or the more disparaging indios—and ascribing qualities to them have revolved around ideologies of race. In other words, ethnic differences and the racialization of those differences are important to understanding recent Guatemalan history. Central to the story, too, are the ways in which Guatemalans, Mayas and Ladinos, used the terms. In a society with a large Maya population and a genocidal civil war, when and why did Guatemalans see or assert “race”? For what reasons did people frame identity in ethnic terms? Varied framings have reflected historically produced understandings of difference, often alongside aims specific to the moment.1 Activists like Eduardo Pacay in the epigraph wrote of la raza—“the race”—and insisted that Mayas across ethnic boundaries in Guatemala had blood-based links to pre-Columbian Maya ancestors and to each other. This was not only to stress connections between the Maya present and past. It also challenged a cultural and economic determinism that defined indígenas as tied to the bean patch and rendered nonindigenous those who were not so tied. In time, the discourse shaped Maya-specific activism as people like Pacay organized opposition to a violent state. Simultaneously, other Mayas and Ladinos on the political Left favored the term ethnic in part because it diminished distinctions between them, a construction of difference that was important as they sought to build class-based unity. Ladino elites’ positions reflected other goals. State officials had long claimed for the nation the blood of ancient Mayas such as Tecún Umán, [18.191.211.66] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 04:22 GMT) 13 “ T W O B L O O D S ! ” eulogized in the Revista Cultural del Ejército (Army Cultural Review). They sponsored homages and commemorations including an annual Day of the Indian, staged the annual Folklore Festival, and even featured an indigenous woman on the national currency. Their views on the present-day Maya were more ambiguous. Ladino elites tended to employ cultural notions to define and disparage contemporary indios, equating identity with traditional practices considered backward and with a low class status, and called for assimilation. Yet underneath official rhetoric were persistent beliefs about the contemporary indigenous...