suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience

Henry Kammler henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de
Thu Jul 22 08:47:19 UTC 1999


For a general understanding of the word indigenismo: for me
"indigenismo" is either a native language element in Spanish or, more
importantly, a historical current in Latin American (especially
Mexican and Peruvian) policy towards the "Indians". It was aimed at
the "integration" of the native communities into the national
societies by government action and under terms exclusively defined by
the government. Though dominated by philantropist social activists,
the main feature of indigenismo was paternalism, reducing native
cultures to folkloristic vestiges in the national picture and aiming
at completely replacing native languages with Spanish. A lot of this
thinking is still there, above all in the school system, and the INI
is officially "indigenista".
So I'm wondering what the meaning of "indigenismo" is in present-day
Spanish.
(I think this is not off-topic because Nahua communities have been --
neutrally spoken -- affected very much by indigenista policies. Just
take a look at "Nahua" communities in Morelos, like Tepoztlan,
Hueyapan or Xoxocotla.)

Henry



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