context

First, lets acknowledge that light skinned people do receive privilege whether they want it or not. That privilege translates to cultural and material capital. There are levels of attitudinal racism that we are not subjected to - that means we are not always subjected to the same levels of violence, aggression discrimination that our darker sisters and brothers may be subjected to. Many of us get this and have been told our whole lives by family members and other folks that "you don't know" or "you have it easy." We have to acknowledge that we don't.
Now, something else should be acknowledged. We (guera/os) are mestizos from the same socio-historical and class backgrounds as the darker members of our families. We  do not suddenly gain generations of white privilege and all the power and capital and social connections that come with that. For example, my daughter is guera. She has "ojos chinos" and other physical attributes from her indigenous heritage and very curly hair from the African in our mix but she is very blonde and is easily confused for white.

Yet that doesn't change the fact that her dad is a mestizo who grew up working in the fields as a child farmworker and was never able to finish high school. He was a poor migrant worker who labored en el campo his whole life. Her dad doesn't read or write much and had difficulty reading to his children. He was also a cholo from the Imperial Valley where children of migrant farmworkers had few opportunities for educational advancement or social mobility. His parents were also poor mestizos from central Mexico. Their language was a very Mexican spanish - mixed with many words in nahuatl. He grew up in a mixed status family and our daughters to a certain extent have inherited his experience.

The experience that my daughter inherits from me is very mixed. I too am a mestiza. My mother is a mestiza from Mexico. She came here without legal authorization. I guess that would make me an "anchor baby" to some people. Myself and my daughters have lived la pesadilla - nightmare - terror and trauma of worrying about losing family mambers to deportation.

My father had a very white and "American" identity even though he was darker than my mother and he was proud to be Cherokee. My dad's people were Cherokees, whites and melungeons from the Carolinas & Tennessee who moved west around removal time. I believe that as they moved west they also re-invented themselves and whitened up as they intermarried more whites - particularly in Texas. Although my dad only claims white and Cherokee, I did discover that we are also part african. His family had a mix of native and african peoples who were persecuted through removal and slavery as well as the whites who enslaved.

My mom's Mexican family was also a mix of indigenous Mexican heritage with european. Some of those ancestors were poor and some were revolutionaries. We are even related to Jorge Negrete (the famous Mexican singer/actor). I guess I am his niece since he was first cousins with my grandfather.

Anyway, I think there are many chicanos who in the process of reclaiming their indigenous identity, will deny the truth of their mixed race mixed class heritage that has afforded them privilege. If you have relatives in Mexico, like we do, or if you ever travel to Mexico, you will know that being indigenous as a mestizo from the U.S. is very different than being an indigenous Mexican from an indigenous community in Mexico. I think chicanos should be very careful about co-opting indigenous identity and need to be aware that many indigenous peoples in Mexico and the SW U.S. do not see us as indigenous peoples and see mestizos as having been complicit with the oppression of indigenous peoples in Mexico and the SW.

Living in New Mexico, I have learned that many tribal peoples in the SW, particularly Pueblo peoples do not see Chicanos/Mexicanos as Native or indigenous peoples. I have heard a lot of criticism from Native peoples here, who see Chicanos who do Aztec dance or danza as acting out stereotypes of native peoples and do not believe that these Chicanos are native or indigenous or Indian like them. While I think there are times that we are all susceptible to acting out stereotypes of ourselves when we internalize what the dominant culture has taught us to believe about ourselves, I also believe in a wide spectrum of indigenous identity that goes beyond being enrolled in a federally recognized tribe. That spectrum includes Chicanos and other mestizos. But we also have to recognize our dual nature and the fact that mestizos were complicit in the oppression of other native peoples - like when Mexico participated in the colonization of the SW. I don't think it is fair to indigenous peoples from indigenous communities in Mexico or Pueblo peoples to deny those differences or that complicity and privilege of the mestizo.

That said, I still believe that we do have a right to reclaim our indigeneity and that it is not completely our fault that we have lost connections to our past tribal identities (otomies, nahua, mixtecos, huichol etc...) The way that indigenous tribal identities were deconstructed in Mexico was very different than the process in the United States or Canada. The relationships between those different governments and their policies towards native peoples whether indigenissmo in Mexico or assimilation & termination in the U.S., left us with different outcomes and differently shaped identities. That combined with migration, loss of land, a revolution that created an "Azteca" Mestizo nation, and other political and social dynamics - including racism in the U.S., took a lot away from us in terms of our identity, language and culture. I absolutely believe that we have a right to reclaim our identities and to resist letting the dominant culture define us in relation to their white colonial identity. I also believe that we should de-colonize and check our internal colonialism. Some of us begin to police identity as we start to reclaim our identities. We become the indigeneity police. That is a lot like adopting the white man's rules of blood quantum and the one-drop rule - defining indigenous peoples according to colonial rules that were created to destroy tribal identities and native peoples just doesn't make sense. Why would we define ourselves and each other under those same rules? Tribal sovereignty and self-determination call for indigenous peoples to define tribal identity and membership according to our own customs and traditions. So, why would you use the casta system to define each other or yourself? Why would you buy into blood quantum rules and the one-drop rule? Under the blood quantum rules my daughter may not be native in some tribes, native in others and she is black under the one-drop rule. Those racist colonial systems created to destroy and enslave us do not work and part of our own liberation and de-colonization process needs to include serious interrogation of our own compliance, adoption and acceptance of these ideas.
THAT is why I have problems with the discussions that have come out of the responses to the Ask a Chola bronca. Don't misunderstand me - I agree - I am pissed that the white woman played a chola. THAT is not what I am responding to. I am bringing forward a different voice. One that I heard from another guera chicana. So, I decided to finally assert this voice and to stop shunning my lighter sister in favor of my darker sisters - for fear that she makes me look white - and to aguantar the messy and hurtful response that this conversation may bring out so that we can work it out and understand each other - but mostly so my daughter and someone else's daughter won't have to aguantarlo tanto.
En Lak Ech