its been a long way since the 2000 census. senior year of high school still living with my nuclear family, my mother and two younger sisters. do not really recall how race and ethnicity were differentiated on that census though my mother was the one to fill it out, chances are were noted as as latino (colombia) and white.
now, ten years later, in the same city, not far from where i grew up, i see the issue completely differently. the complexity that each of us holds beyond our melanin content, beyond our phenotypes, our lineages, our peoples... are something completely different than what this white supremacist obsessed society ridden with internalized oppressions where self advancement is achieved by the slander and debasement of those that attempt the same. individualist self advancement through an aggressive pecking order.
before i can speak of who i am, i have to recognize those who came before me. in respect for the body that bore me, raised me and guided me, as well as with the territory of earth by which i belong to, i will start with my matraline.
where the aguacaliente creek comes down from the oriental mountain chain of the andes and feeds the suaza river, a tributary in the upper magdalena river valley. that was a native community. the suaza river valley once being a stronghold and still recognized as part of the ancestral territory of the andaki but also the tama people in the lower part. my mothers region, her parents region, their parents, and their parents and so forth. my people. the whole upper magdalena river valley being a territory rich with other originals peoples of different languages and customs... such as the yalcon, nasa, pijao, tama and andaki, to name just some. all of them severely crippled, displaced or both by successive waves of iberian invasions that started since the original liberation wars headed by the yalcon cacica gaitana in the 1530s.
as a result of invaders, the tama stayed throughout the region, enslaved and many loosing their identity, the nasa towards tierradentro and are now are mostly but no entirely in cauca, the pijao into tatacoa desert and mostly in the tolima, the andaki barely remain in upper suaza to near acevedo, huila and in belen de los andaquies, caqueta and the yalcon barely self identify and the yanacona are descendants of quechuas brought over by the spanish in the 1600s. while the original peoples of huila are rich and present throughout the territory, many of those that remained in the territory, mixed either culturally and matrimonially and with time became campesinos, subsistence farmers or day workers on large estates, few recognizing their original ties to this land.
as for the presence of invaders they are remembered by their long collection or sirnames from males relatives.... luna, cabrera, mendez, lara, escobar, and on and on... all that is known of these is that they have been in the region for some 3-400 years. what combinations of these sirnames are a relative´s name, a relative´s patron, master or rapist´s name, don´t really know.... as for all the women´s names that are never taken into account, its even more lost. beyond being mediterranean, i can´t even really verify if these people are iberian, moors, sephardics, roma or canary islanders who changed or bought their sirname in escape of catholic persecution. this is my matriline.
original to those lands i have only unearthed the story of sinforoza ramón. was a native women, not sure of which peoples, from the ramón hill in the municipality of then la jagua and today garzón. she was grandfather´s great grandmother.
my father´s kin, while has had little to no role in my forming, they are still donors of half of my genetic makeup. my father is born and raised in the southern cone immigrant, port city of montevideo, uruguay. in 1914 his parents came as infants, both under a year of age, from the balkans mostly ashkenazi. my grandfather came from romania and my grandmother from the ukraine, at a time that ukraine was part of russia. that is all i know
both of my parents came to this country and 17 years of age, in the mid 1970s with lil to no family here. no high school diplomas either. they would eventually settle in miami for the linguistic, cultural and environmental likeness to their places of origin. 60% of the city´s 3 million has a similar story.
when you look at my siblings, we are a palette. i am the lightest, the one that "can pass", my middle sister has the non descriptive "latina" look and my youngest sister is the color of these continents, a brown... red, earth. this earth. so when the census arrives and i the lightest one in my immediate family is the one that puts for ethnicity colombian-uruguayan and for race native-other-mestizo, while back at my family´s place, my phenotipically unchallenged and completely acknowledged sisters and mother, put white. it stings like a lemon dipped stab in the rib. a whirlwind of memories of challenged identities, unaccepted affiliations and unacknowledged experiences and existences flood the present in my mind from the lost memorial chambers of the brain.
in the territory of tekesta, now refereed to by the long since sweet river´s name, Miami, is now in many ways our territory. whether the mayan from yucatan, the tainos and caribs of the islands, or chibcha speakers from kuna yala through tayrona of the sierra nevada of santa marta, all of these peoples had established relations with the tekesta and calusa of the southern part of the peninsula we now call florida. and recognizing that first, before came columbus, we had relations of reciprocity and mutual respect and aid with africans. just the way the xicanos trace their ancestral geography throughout the occupied territory of aztlan, what the usa now calls california, nevada, utah, colorado, new mexico, arizona, texas. we, the peoples of caribbean; islands, south & central america have ours here, in south florida, where we can grow our maiz, frijol, yuca, platano, banana, tomate, calabaza, mango, aguacate & cocos like we did home. here where xango, yemaya, kukulkán and la pachamama all overlap.
while historical military interventions and recent neoliberal economic policies have degraded our arrivals from piragua flotillas to balsas and barge containers and our returns are controlled, near impossible or all too often are impossible. a land where the seeds and the fish, the fruit and the feathers are relations of our original places... like aztlan, across the gulf, was occupied first by the spanish and then by the gringos. on this peninsula is where alliances between hichiti and creek-muskogean speakers together with africans would eventually lead to three wars where this alliance remained unconquered by the white supremacist, ethnic cleansing forces of the united states govt... this until some were be forcibly relocated to aztlan and then mexico, others left to seek haven on andros island in the bahamas and then others to take refuge in glades to where some remain today, the seminoles and miccosukee.
so now, that we live here, and here is there´s, occupied, de ellos, los del norte, los que crearon las rayas, borders, en Miami, we become both things. its beautiful and its ugly. we attempt to speak, walk and live like we have always done, but when we desperately imitate, judge and consume like they do, and forget who we are, we hurt our abuelas, los y las antepasados, our non human companions, the earth, both here and home, that we were meant to care for, as originals. if we don´t even try to grow and raise our food from the earth, how do we know to care for it? the earth hurts because we have been separated from our places and relations to her, how can we if we no longer hold minga or konbit to her. we are condors in the lands of eagles, living the prophecy of our ancestors and we don´t even understand much less recognize it. and in this disconnection from our own selves, our ancestors, our relations and who we are, where we came from and why we are where we are... we are dieing... even those of us who cant pass will actually claim to be white. the white supremacist of mestizo identity is its homogenization attempting to erase our pluri cultural region. we trace our spaniard sirnames and yet our ancestors spoke carib, kankobal, garifuna or yoruba. we wander aimlessly attempting, fighting to make ourselves a new white washed future, yet we do not acknowledge where we come from or where we are standing.
so in reflection of identity and place, regardless of the constantly attempted, imposed self unacknowledgement, i am a miami born and raised mixed blood andaki, my personal turf is this peninsula and my territory is that of mother and her peoples before her. regardless of the adopted colonial tongues, oppressive & corrupt religious denominations, and the mixing of lineages to the point of self denial, known as "mejorando la raza - bettering the race". i am not only of this earth for my blood relations to it, as mixed as they may be, but for my lived relations to her and walked path of having cared for her and leave future caretakers to her. from the urban brackish waters of the miami river and of the rapid fresh mountain waters of the rio suaza, es de donde vengo yo.
