Critical Latinx Indigeneities (CLI): A Framework Addressing Indigeneity in Indigenous Migrants from Latin America

• In Event: Democrat, Education and Literacy

Proposal

Settler colonial theory, as imperfect and riddled with debate as it is, sought to continue what Indigenous studies scholars started by exposing settler colonialism for what it truly is—mass genocide and extermination of Indigenous peoples for the sake of possessing stolen lands (Byrd, 2011, 2014; Goeman, 2013; Hixon, 2013; Veracini 2010, 2013; Wolfe, 2006). As settler colonialism and Indigenous scholars have repeatedly emphasized, the settler colonial project is a “structure not an event” and continues to thrive in the present (Wolfe, 2006, p. 388). This paper attempts to further complicate, entangle and disentangle the already fraught discussion of indigeneity by drawing attention as to why Indigenous peoples' indigeneity is scrutinized as they immigrate and migrate North; crossing borders that challenge their identities and claim to land, during each phase of their passage. The Indigenous population in discussion, travel from their land of origin in Latin and Central American countries through different geographical points along their arduous journeys, crossing lands different from their own (or perhaps the same if the genealogical roots were traced), onto their final destination on stolen land that belongs to dispossessed Indigenous communities in what is now referred to as North America. To address this topic, a review of a newer theoretical framework: Critical Latinx Indigeneities (CLI) will be conducted in conjunction with Critical Indigenous and Indigenous theories and Settler Colonial theory. The aim of this paper is to see if CLI can help answer the following questions. What happens when Indigenous migrant and immigrant peoples from Latin American countries cross settler borders? Do they lose their indigeneity? Do they acknowledge and embrace their complicity as settlers?

Author

• Eden M. Rivera, University of Maryland, College Park