Indigenous languages of the Americas

Firstly, the article on “Honduras Arrests 4 Men in Killing of Berta Caceres, Indigenous Activist” presents the murder of prestigious Goldman Environment Prize winner Berta Caceres. She was an activist protesting against the construction of the Agua Zarea Dam along the Gaulcarque River. She was fighting for the rights of the Lenca indigenous people’s right because the river was holy to her Lenca people (Malkin, 2016). She was working based on a Human Rights organization of Honduras. The…

From religion to language Mexico has been a melting pot of mixed culture and people. From the many indigenous people already on the land to the catholic spaniards immigrating to Mexico, the country is filled with many different traditions and beliefs. For Example, the great Virgin of Guadalupe is a honored and cherished figure throughout the country of Mexico. “One only has to enter a church to find icons of the Virgin of Guadalupe, one of the most revered figures in Mexico whose very depiction…

In my opinion, the article, “Animal Rights Activists and Inuit Clash Over Canada’s Indigenous Food Traditions” by Selena Randhawa, is a text that demonstrates ‘Othering’ within its discourse as the “view or treatment of a group as intrinsically lesser.” The article creates this atmosphere of marginalization—specifically toward the cultural values and opinions of the Inuit as a collective group—through both the nature of its overall subject matter and through the author’s use of particular…

important role in the lives of many people but are now no longer to be seen. These traditions did not just fade away by natural causes but rather were sought after and snipped out by forces that didn’t understand the significance of those traditions. America often gets called a melting pot, meaning that it is a combination of multiple traditions all mixed together. That term, however, is not actually…

Between 1492 and 1750, the Columbian Exchange, produced by European explorers in the “New World”, resulted in numerous effects to both the people of the Americas and the people of Europe. The native Indians suffered tremendously by the cultural exchange leading to population decline, and also a transformation in culture due to the new order imposed by Europe. However, Europeans benefited greatly from the Columbian Exchange by their economic gain through the attainment of new natural resources…

This essay argues that North American governments passed laws in an attempt to strip Indigenous peoples of their culture in what can be considered Cultural Genocide by forced relocation, the outlawing of traditional ceremonies and the use of re-education in the form of residential schools. Genocide is defined as the deliberate and systematic act of destruction to whole or part of a racial, religious or ethical group1. In 1933 Raphael Lemkin spoke at an International conference for Unification…

approximately 370 million Indigenous people in the world, belonging to 5,000 different groups, in 90 countries worldwide.” (Johnson 2009) Indigenous people are just like anyone else, although many people do not know what Indigenous people have had to do to gain equal rights as everyone else. Within indigenous people, there are thousands of smaller groups within called “bands” or “tribes.” Each tribe is different from one another, tribes vary in location from North America, all the way to…

Shortly after the first steps by the English on the new found land, soon to be the thirteen colonies of the Americas, the English would meet the native people that had already occupied the land for hundreds of years before they arrived. These people were the Native Americans, an ethnic group that was indigenous to the land, that would soon forever shape religion in the United States of America. The direct encounters that the Colonists had with the Native Americans would shape the development of…

Gómez-Quiñones’ (2012), Indigenous Quotient, Stalking Words: American Indian Heritage as Future, is a creation of two essays: the first part is an attempt to counter the historiography surrounding Indian identity, culture, and history; the second half reveals the theory of Indigenitude and why it is important to incorporate the studies of the Indigenous into school curriculum. The term “Indigenitude” is presented by Gomez-Quinones as a shift from other terms that commonly label the Indigenous.…

The Impact of Colonialism in the Americas During European colonization of the Americas the Europeans attempted to bring under their control the native populations (Bonvillain, 2013, p. 432). Their primary objective was to convince the natives that European cultural practices and values were more civilized than their own (Bonvillain, 2013, p. 432). This goal was achieved through three “agents of cultural change”, which were their missionaries, schoolteachers, and government officials. The…