Understanding the Complexities of Latin American History and Identity: Andares and Mexican Indigenous Representation in Southwest Virginia

Abstract

Understanding the Complexities of Latin American History and Identity:Andares and Mexican Indigenous Representation in Southwest Virginia Dominique Polanco This essay about Mexico-based theatre company Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral is part of a series of writings by Virginia Tech faculty, staff, and community members that contextualize Moss Arts Center visiting artist performances. The guest ensemble performed Andares, a work about Indigenous peoples in Mexico, at the Moss Arts Center on October 12 and 13, 2022. The play Andares was a unique and important opportunity for the Virginia Tech community, especially those of us who are Latinx. It is a rare treat to have Latin American stories on the stage at the Moss Arts Center, particularly those featuring Indigenous and Indigenous-descended actors. Issues of Native and Queer visibility and invisibility in Mexico are prominently depicted in this show. The artists who created the play present the intersectional aspects of their lives in Mexico. Many of the issues portrayed stem from Indigenous and colonial histories. The prejudices and violence date back to the time when Europeans first invaded Abya Yala and Turtle Island (current-day American continents and the Caribbean Islands) in 1492. That was when the notion of European superiority and Indigenous inferiority developed into a colonial mentality that is regrettably still present throughout the Americas. My paternal grandmother's family is from Uruapan, Michoacán, a city in the western state of present-day Mexico. Uruapan is in the ancestral homelands of the P'urhépecha people, from whom I descend. My great-grandparents migrated to northern Illinois in the early twentieth century and were one of [End Page 127] only a handful of Mexican families in Rockford when they had and raised my grandmother and her siblings. My father and I were born in Southern California, putting us closer to Mexico, but still removed from our family. Nevertheless, I have returned to my history and heritage through multiple means, one of which is my research. As a Mexican-American art historian who specializes in Indigenous manuscripts from colonial Mexico, I am aware of the violence and long-term consequences for Indigenous people that arose from European invasion. Andares masterfully depicts the subjugation of Native cultures. Europeans targeted language, among other things, in the larger goal of erasing Indigenous civilizations from their own ancestral lands. In the case of colonial Mexico, priests codified and created dictionaries for languages such as Nahuatl, P'urhépecha, and Otomí for the purpose of converting and forcefully supplanting Indigenous culture with Christianity. Moreover, the Church attacked notions of gender and sexuality. Many Indigenous groups of Mesoamerica (the Indigenous cultural region covering present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and western El Salvador) understood gender and sexuality outside of the European-Christian fixed binary. Mesoamerican concepts of pleasure, self-expression, and religious importance were different than those in Europe. Mechanisms like the Spanish Inquisition were transplanted from Iberia to record and persecute behaviors that contradicted the rules of the Church in colonial society. The Church also authorized special task forces on "idolatry" to persecute Native peoples and communities. Sentences ranging from corporal punishment to the full expulsion from Catholic society instilled fear and a colonial mentality that have unfortunately persisted in Latin America. Indigenous people learned to surveil and self-regulate beliefs, practices, and customs that the Church denounced in the sixteenth century. The characters of Andares tell various experiences of ongoing violence in their lives resulting from the commodification of their ancestral homelands. The theft of land and natural resources, both essential and sacred, have led to the breakdown of cultural traditions and understanding. Furthermore, poverty, pollution, and the lack of access to basic necessities like clean water and healthcare continue to affect Indigenous people in Mexico and all of Turtle Island and Abya Yala. These are all violent and traumatic effects stemming from the Spanish Invasion when Indigenous people and their land were exploited for European profit and privilege. [End Page 128] Community was and continues to be an important means of survival for Indigenous people and their cultures. Native people were spiritually connected to the lands they inhabited, which were part of their origin stories. These connections were inherent in the rituals they...