Raíz

No one wants to look at the truth because it is not pleasant.

Tony asked us to put ourselves in the shoes of the indigenous people from the times of the Conquest. A way in which I can attempt to relate is by studying a cultural conquest that has affected my lifetime. If the Spanish replaced the Mesoamerican caste system, then to me the US has replaced the Spanish in some sense. The triumph of westernism, democracy, liberty, and freedom is something that I feel has affected almost all countries in the world and caused a form of conquest. The education that I recieved, the society I come from, and my limited understanding of history have told me in the past to hate todo lo "gringo". Red, White, and Blue will maybe always be colors of menace and fear for me that contrast with the Green, White, and Red of the patriotic colors. However, if there has been a conquest of any sort, it is so complete and nearly absolute that I do not even understand to what or where my hatred and resentment is directed to. At what point in our history, culture, lifestyles, etc. can we clearly see where Americanisms stop and our own world begins? I know the difference is there but there is still a lingering feeling of loss and a gradual, inevitable change. I imagine indigenous people were faced with this confusion and ambiguity. A violent cultural suicide and foreign domination that lead to a confusion of the human, the nation, the society, the culture, and the transcendental.