From Our San Anto Correspondent Pedro Ruiz

Conrado Acevedo and other danzantes lead the march

Saturday the March for Indigenous Dignity took place in San Antonio, Tejaztlan.  The march started in Columbus Park and took us all the way to the Front of the Bexar County Courthouse on Market Street in downtown Yanawana (San Anto-San Quilmas). 

A group gathered in the Park as had been called for by Antonio Diaz, head of the Texas Indigenous Council.  Various speakers spoke and there was singing by the Carrizo Apaches–Juan Mensillas in their traditional language. I had the pleasure of singing four songs.

When the Grupo Teocali, Mechica Danzantes arrived, we did several danzas and led the march all through downtown Yanawana.  Chants of “We Didn’t cross the border, the Border Crossed US,” “El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido,” among many other rang out. 

When we arrived , Teocali again did more danzas and various speakers spoke from the marchers and audience.  They stressed the concept that we don’t own the earth; the earth owns us.  A lady spoke who at one time had been undocumented and had gone to Washington and had spoken to the thousands of people there.  She stressed that One of the Reasons that she was able to do this was due to our people.

Commentary follows.

We the MEXICAN, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN PEOPLES ALWAYS were always able to go wherever we needed to find food, water, shelter.  This is a human right. We (NOSOTROS LOS INDIOS) come here to do exactly that and not to find the “American Dream.”  Which is the propaganda the US Europeans feed humanity. We have been doing this for millennia.  THIS IS OUR CONTINENT–THE RED/BROWN CONTINENT.  There are 4 sacred colors, the Red, the Yellow, the White and the Black.  These are the four races of the world and these is who we are.

Columbus was a criminal, a murderer, and a rapist along with most of the “conquerors” like Hernan Cortez.  They deceived the Indigenous people with lies, killed them by the millions with their diseases, assassinated most of the heads and spiritual leaders, destroyed all the knowledge of science in which indigenous peoples were way ahead. They destroyed most of the languages of our peoples, destroyed most of our connectedness to Ometeotl, Omeyocan by imposing their language and their religion.
 
When the Europeans brought the worst sin (private property) with them, they set the stage for the destruction of the environment, exploitation of the resources of our mother Tonantzin, and eventually, for the destruction of life as we know it.

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Conrado Acevedo is a veteran of the Chicano Movement and is now a danzante in Houston.  For more information on the Texas Indigenous Council, please see prior post.

“We were confused into believing that Spaniards were more civilized, and what I am trying to teach the youth is that the society of our ancestors was, if not equal to, superior to the culture of the Spanish,” says Tony.

He is a veteran of the struggle, and got involved in organizing “Mestizos en Marcha,” which participated in the 1995 Coordinadora march in Washington DC.  Since then, he has moved to an exclusively indigenous point of view.

Tony was born into the people’s struggle.  He was born in the fields on the back of a flatbed truck.  “The first thing I knew was the fields,” he confides.

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Tony, along with my friend from my MEChA days, Pedro (Olin Quetzalcoatl), and others from the Texas Indigenous Council are hosting Indigenous Dignity Day, in place of what before might have been called Dia De La Raza. I send them my best wishes. Mexika Tiahui. Tlazokamati Ometeotl.