she’s basically accusing me of “stolen valor” by saying “youre not indigenous, youre mexican,” despite having 25% “indigenous peoples: mexico” on my ancestry DNA test. can anyone please explain to my mother how this works? i tried to explain it but she wont listen to me.
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Tell her that there were people in Mexico before it was called Mexico. There were plenty of people here before Spain showed up. Those Spanish raped and subjugated native/indigenous people and a percentage of that DNA lives on in you.
The Spanish colonizers were ruthless in their quest to eradicate the native culture and replace it with their own. Native Mexican civilizations like the Aztecs were forced to adopt Spanish practices to survive. So within a few generations there really wasn’t much left of the native Mexican identity. That’s why it’s understandable that your mother doesn’t view you or herself as native Mexican even if your DNA says you have a significant portion of Native DNA.
But yes you would be considered native American by your DNA. But by culture, the Aztec culture is all but extinct. So unlike the North American native tribes where they hold onto their identity and practice their culture in numerous reservations, there really isn’t much of a distinct culture left for the Aztecs apart from the culture of Mexico as a whole. So really you’re both right. Culturally you are just Mexican. Genetically you are native Mexican (ie native Central American.)
Mexico is part of America, so the native Mexicans were Native American. Descendents of those native Mexicans are therefore descendents of native Americans.
I get what she’s saying but her misconception is thinking that only native tribes from within the boundaries of the USA are considered “native American”.
I’ll let [Frank Reynolds](https://youtu.be/aDktG64Cx8I?si=TKkA1N4HJ8SkdlpL) handle this one.
This is like saying “You’re not native American, you’re from Oklahoma”. Like…yeah I know.
People were indigenous to Mexico before the Spanish. Those people are indigenous peoples.
You never mentioned where your mom was from, but if she is Mexican, she is probably more used to the term mestizo.
In the US, it is very common for people to say that they are 1/16 Navajo (or something like that) but, traditionally, Mexicans don’t have this idea. If you have a mix of indigenous and European ancestry, you are a mestizo.
Technically, the majority of the Mexican population is mestizo, so they reserve the term indigena or indio (indigenous, native) for people who don’t have any (or very little) European ancestry.
You might want to show this to your mother: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/genetically-theres-no-such-thing-mexican-n129866
>Mexicans themselves show such extreme diversity that someone from the dry north is genetically as different from someone from the Yucatan as a European is from an East Asian.
Mexico is part of the North American continent. People living on the north american and south american continents before europeans arrived are native americans. People were living in the area that is now mexico well before it had a name.
Colonizing and rivalries between european countries are why both continents are divided up at all into different countries. The US was an english colony, canada a french colony, and mexico a spanish colony. While native americans were hardly united, to them borders would look very different or non-existent. It was all simply north america(or rather whatever they called the landmass) to them.
Jumping on the bandwagon but like what’s not to get? Despite the rhetoric Mexico is certainly a part of the Americas, and it’s the part of the Americas that the Europeans conquered pretty much right away and they did the same awful shit that their far northern neighbors experienced way later. I say this sarcastically but this is America. Mexico is America and Mexicans got it as bad as the rest of the Americans during colonialization. Stolen valor my ass, it’s no more stolen than a kid celebrating his or her family being on the beaches of Normandy or surviving the holocaust. Or in this context I might say “a holocaust,” indigenous America got it pretty fuckin bad
INFO: Are you currently living in Mexico, or the US, or somewhere else?
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