Native Sun News Today: The Indigenous 'immigrants' to America

Friday, July 12, 2019

Hispanic immigrants are mostly Indians

The Indio heritage of these detainees is obvious from the photo.

By James Giago Davies

RAPID CITY — Two salient facts stand out about immigration detention in the United States: most of the detainees come from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, according to the website Freedom for Immigrants, and these groups carry more First American ancestry than other Hispanic groups, according to an article from the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Genetic studies have also determined that much of the First American ancestry came through the female line, indicating that, initially, European males reproduced with First American females, and then, later, most of the reproduction was between the offspring of these unions. This is exactly what would be expected if first contact, and subsequent interaction, was along a military invader/colonized tribe dynamic.

It is disputed how many tribal peoples populated the New World 507 years ago, when Columbus landed on the white sand beaches of San Salvador, but the number is at least in the tens of millions, and it is highly unlikely these population groups, south of the US border, constituting greater numbers and more advanced cultures than north of the border, simply disappeared, leaving no living descendants.

However, the popular perception of these Hispanic groups is distorted by a bad US education system. The actual history of brown skinned peoples from Central and South America, between the time of colonization and the years where the European colonizers were ousted, and independent countries formed, seldom speaks to who these people were genetically, focusing mainly on who they had become, culturally.

Small group of Native American protesters / dancers are in front of the Texas state capitol. They’re protesting against the colonisation of their country and in solidarity with indigenous people in immigration detention in Texas. pic.twitter.com/J47OtHvaxY
— Paul Kidd (@paulkidd) July 4, 2019

Because the First American community in North America tends not to view the tribal people of Central and South America as fellow aboriginals, their response to the mistreatment of detainees has taken a distinct turn, and it is not one of direct concern or activism.

Internet search engines reveal article after article about how First Americans know full well what it feels like to be separated from loved ones. These articles fixate on the historical injustices inflicted on First American tribes, using the injustices committed against present day detainees as a backdrop, and seldom mention the common ancestry of the present day detainees with First American Tribes.

The average First American blood quantum of Hispanics living along the border with Mexico, from Texas to California, has been determined to be about a quarter. This is enough to qualify most people for tribal enrollment, an example being Fort Peck in Montana, or for tribal schools, an example being Flandreau Indian School.

Tribes and social activists decry the destruction of tribal groups which did not survive the Manifest Destiny expansion of the United States westward, but they are curiously silent about the even greater levels of genocide committed against tribes south of the US border.

While US Indian policy over the past two centuries is justifiably seen as brutal and destructive, it is relatively civilized compared to the treatment received by Central and South American tribes. There, oppressors and governments were seldom bound by Democratic restraints or the outcry of white people of conscience, such as Helen Hunt Jackson and her 1881 book, A Century of Dishonor.

The danger in categorizing such tribes, is seeing those tribes lucky enough to have survived the cultural destruction and genocide, as presently being legitimate First Americans, whereas those tribes which were culturally broken, but still survived in large numbers, and were subsequently immersed in Hispanic controlled environments over centuries, as having lost their claim or right to be considered Indians.