SouthWestern Pennsylvania Pow Wow

Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center's Cultural Program

29th ANNUAL POW WOW Pow-Wow Preview 2007

This event will be held September, 29th & 30th 2007
Noon to 7:00PM (Rain or Shine)

There will be Singing, Dancing, Drumming, Native Foods, Demonstrations, Arts & Crafts,
No Alcohol or Drugs Allowed!!!!

From PA Turnpike, Take exit #48 (Allegheny Valley). Go south on freeport road towards Pittsburgh. Go to the 3rd traffic light by Giant Eagle and turn right on Rt. 910. Once on route 910 get into left lane . Follow 910 approx. 6 mi. to traffic light turn left onto Saxonburg Blvd. go approx. 1/2 mi. and look for parking signs for the Pow Wow events.

For information beyond the what is on the this page please Email powwowies@hotmail.com
120 Charles Street Pittsburgh, PA 15238Telephone (412) 782-4457 X202

http://www.cotraic.org/

E-mail: mailto:estansbury@cotraic.org

"Explorations in Black and Tan"

Explorations in Black and Tan
Series Continues
By Carol Amoruso, Hispanic American Village Editor

Editor's Note: We follow up our discussion of troubled black-brown relations in Los Angeles with a continental drift eastward, giving a look at New York, where, to date, there have been no significant flare-ups. We’ve borrowed our title from Duke Ellington’s suite, Fantasy in Black and Tan, reasoning thus: Latinos come in all shades from black to tan, their skin having much to do with how they relate to each other and to African Americans. In addition, Ellington and his music, jazz, were a magnet for the city’s early Latino settlers. Together they bred Latin jazz, a lasting, superlative melding of affinities.

In the days before there was such a thing as a Latino in New York, “Latinos” were Puerto Rican. There was a smattering of Cubans, some stragglers from Mexico and the Dominican Republic, but their numbers were negligible compared to the 100,000 Puerto Ricans in the City at the time of the Second World War. A mass migration began at the end of the war, and by 1960, there were a million Puerto Ricans in New York.

Blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York found and fostered commonalities early on as they celebrated their African cultural and blood ties. Often they lived side-by-side, shunted into the more run-down service-deprived neighborhoods. Most whites fled when Puerto Ricans moved in, while in the black ghettoes, there was no place for them to go should they have wanted to get away.

At first, it seemed as if the population at large didn’t quite know what to make of these incoming folks, most somewhere between black and tan. Dexter Jeffries, professor of African American and other literature and writing at Borough of Manhattan Community College, tells us that his step grandfather, a “brown Cuban,” came to New York from Havana in the 30s, immediately found work, despite the hard economic times, and felt privileged and assimilated. But just 20 years later, Piri Thomas felt “hung between two sticks,” growing up on the mean streets of East Harlem. Thomas is shamed on the street when he doesn’t own up to his blackness yet shunned by his own brothers since they could “pass.” He spends a number of drug-addled years in el Barrio and in prison trying to sort it all out:

"I looked at Brew, who was as black as God is supposed to be white. “Man, Brew,” I said, “you sure an ugly spook.”
Brew smiled. “Dig this Negro calling us ’spook,’” he said.
I smiled and said, “I’m a Porty Rican.”
“Ah only sees another Negro in fron’ of me,” said Brew.*"

Accounts of those days may be somewhat romanticized yet truthful in revisiting shared interests--especially music--and poverty, marginalization from the mainstream society, a nascent politicization, negritude, all insuring an early black-brown brotherhood. Says Jeffries: ” …the coalition back then, it was spiritual. It was political. It was racial.” But Rigo Andino, PhD candidate at the University of Binghamton, New York, and a Nuyorican, offers a more nuanced take. By the 60s, he says, Puerto Ricans basically had to choose between three identities -- nationalist Puerto Rican, Afro-Puerto Rican, and black:

The black Puerto Rican… has historically had relationships with the black community, sees himself as being part of the black community, but at the same time, he reifies the Puerto Rican culture: “ I’m black, but I’m Puerto Rican.” Then there’s the one who says,” We have African blood in us, but we’re different. We’re Puerto Rican,” and they’ll uphold that to death. And then there’s the one who says,” I’m not black, I’m Puerto Rican,” to a certain to degree, having more of a white identity than the other two. So, it’s in terms of the individual Puerto Rican. You even had Puerto Ricans fighting alongside blacks against other Puerto Ricans.

Pushing the issue of identity was the Young Lords Party, which took many of its cues from the revolutionary Black Panthers. Although short-lived--internecine fighting and the toll taken by police infiltration and harassment led to their early dissolution--the YLP dedicated themselves to fostering Latino pride, activism--most notably against police brutality--and community service. (One of the Lords’ greatest achievements was the take-over of Lincoln Hospital, a South Bronx hell-hole, forcing the administration to establish a drug rehabilitation center.) The Young Lords and Panthers eventually made alliances with white street revolutionaries. The oppressor now was not the honkey, but the “system”; the focus became less one of Puerto Rican negritude than of class struggle.

Today, the city is the mosaic first imaged to by its first black mayor, David Dinkins, elected with massive Latino support. There are “Hispanics” and “Latinos” now, when once there were just Puerto Ricans, making the way browns relate to blacks a much thornier issue. Having been granted a pigeon-hole, all the City’s Latinos—German Argentines, Dominicans, black Ecuadorians, Peruvian indios—would, by definition, have to have much in common with African Americans, lending currency to Professor Jeffries’ definition of race:
Race is informing the dominant culture that you’ve accepted the title they’ve made up for you. It’s either words or labels intended to make the dominant culture comfortable with who you are.

In truth, the many groups under the Hispanic catchall relate differently to African Americans, and African Americans see the various Latino ethnicities in differing lights as well. Moreover, people as individuals see others under personalized lights, and views will change depending on many variables. The dynamic is thus more complex and fluid, and unpredictable.

In 1995, with a population of over 600,000, Dominicans surpassed Puerto Ricans as the city’s largest Latino group. They are finding the racial equation here different from the one they lived under in the Dominican Republic. Although 85% of all Dominicans have black blood, back home, because of murderous racism bolstered by the DR’s history of dictatorship, if they can’t pass for white, they do their best to be “indios.” As Afro-Dominicans are frequently identified here as black, and many youths are copping to African American youth culture, many self-identify as black. At the same time, a great number of Dominicans still reject their blackness. In an article I wrote for the Hispanic American Village in 2002, I interviewed Dominican aestheticians, specialists in hair relaxing, proud of their ability to make black seem white. Observed one, "…we do not say that we are black. We invent a lot of names for our skin, like indio claro, indio lava[d]o or indio canela, but never black. So, the idea is to make you look white if you are black. They teach us that in the Dominican Republic."

Back on the mean streets, questions of race often give way to those of turf; there is rising street gang activity pitting Dominicans against African Americans in the Bronx.

The new Latinos come mostly from the Latin American mainland where the culture is more “indio” and European. Many are undocumented and fear informants and stigmatization, and they may see Americans less along color than nativist lines: who’s “American” and who’s foreign. Says Jeffries, after observing enclaves of various incoming Latino groups settling into his predominantly African American neighborhood, “They have their own world, even if it’s only half a block…It seems they don’t have intercourse with anyone. And I think to them a black person represents two things: an American--it’s no question of race, they’re just gringos. And another barrier would be the language.”

Mexicans at this point have assumed the highest profile of all Latinos in the city, with unofficial numbers soaring over the last ten years to over 300,000; they are the face of restaurants, convenience and greengrocer shops, and construction sites. Despite the racist implications of Mexican president Vicente Fox’s recent remark, one would have to concede that there is some truth in it: Mexicans, for whatever economic and social reasons, will take on jobs at least no, or few, naturalized Americans, black or white, will. And when one thinks of potential tensions between blacks and browns, referencing the incidents and tensions in LA and the mistrust that seems to be growing in the South as Mexican workers flood in, one wonders what’s in store for the New York area where, in addition to the numbers, they are beginning to spawn out into diverse neighborhoods, and have begun to organize, seeking decent wages (the average Mexican worker’s yearly in come is only $10,000), and working conditions. Also potentially explosive is the rapid rise of Mexican street gangs.

The question that seems most difficult to answer is whether tensions between black and brown, or between any two groups for that matter, result from the inability or unwillingness to bridge cultural differences, or the stress put upon them by their life situation, which itself is a product of forces from above and a system that encourages division.

“This is a period of exploration,” says Jeffries, referring to the way the new Latinos process their coming to know African Americans. His vantage point, teaching at a college with a black and brown student body, has allowed him over the years to monitor a whole range of attitudes and issues of young New Yorkers. “Right now, I can tell there’s still an innocence,” he says. “It’s still a period of ‘I am here. I’m still open. I haven’t shut down yet.’ But, I know what can happen in a few years. Or a few turns of events.” Jeffries’ fear is that the immigrants will be tainted by negative stereotypes of blacks proffered by the media, or by one bad experience, most notably the “black connection with ‘crime,” and this would give rise to major antagonisms. (Jeffries himself is half black, half white, with Latino cultural roots. His autobiography is Triple Exposure from Dafina Books, 2003.)

I also spoke with Tony Rosado, a Dominican American restaurant manager for 30 years, who prides himself on maintaining a very diversified kitchen. Mexicans can be compared to no other group, he volunteers, owing to their motivation, their “submissiveness,” and to how rapidly they learn kitchen skills. Rosado observes an overall resentment of Mexicans, with African Americans the most vocal. Mexicans, on the other hand, are loath to engage that resentment. Blacks resent the fact that Mexicans will “do a lot for less:” work longer hours and for lower pay, not complain, and either not stand up for or be unaware of their rights. In the ambit of the restaurant kitchen, adds Rosado, African Americans and Caribeños share “good vibes’ and have more in common, with Caribeños seen as homegrown citizens with kindred musical tastes and other commonalities, including (by now) language.

I recently interviewed a group of “new Latino” workers, mostly Mexicans (8 of 10, with one Peruvian and one Ecuadorian), seeking their input on the topic. All but two worked in construction, the others in restaurants. The men were in general agreement, expressing no open hostility towards blacks, offering no typically stereotypical remarks, although one got a rise from his colleagues when he referred to American blacks as “desmadres”—messed up; a few said they had African American friends, although none said they lived in heavily African American neighborhoods. All felt, however, that blacks remained aloof when sharing a job site, separating themselves from the other groups of workers. They talked about even the poorest African Americans’ willingness to pass up a grunt job, like the $8 per hour indignities the Mexicans were more than likely forced to take. Explained one worker with, yes, some resentment, while reaching into his own lowly status, “They [African Americans] feel more American. They feel they don’t have to do the work that immigrants should do.”

The Latinos didn’t feel there was much competition for jobs, because most blacks in construction come in at much higher pay rates, many of them being unionized. Professor Jeffries has a curious twist on why he agreed there was little job competition: Many black workers are so disaffected, after so many years of not getting ahead, they don’t even look for jobs, but depend on the underground economy to sustain themselves.

It is hard to predict, based on anecdotal accounts, observations, “vibes” and long-standing trends, that this city, a mosaic so precariously cemented together, will be spared deeply-affecting racial disharmony. Our Nuyorican observer, Rigo Andino, posits two ways to avoid confrontation. The first is in familiarity: in living side-by-side, by going to the same schools, the same clubs, by dating, by awareness of how similarly the overall culture treats both groups. “That starts breaking down walls,” he says. But, he also suggests that Latinos who have been here longer, the Caribeños, must come together with the “new Latinos,” “backing away some from their identification with, ‘Yo soy negro,’ to emphasize the culture they share with the “indios.” And their shared “hispanidad.”

* Down these Mean Streets, Piri Thomas; first pub. 1967 by Random House; Vintage Books Edition, 1997

The Nigger-Reecan Blues

(Pictured at right is poet Willie Perdomo)

I've commented many times on the mindset amongst Original people that our experience in a predominately white Judeo-Christian society produces. It can only be understood as a form of "schizophrenia" if we are to use Euro-psychological terms. This is because we live in a society of contradictions. We are constantly told one thing and shown another. We go to hospitals to tend to our health needs and are given the worst food. We send our children to karate class only to encourage them to not fight. We prosecute urban pharmaceutical entrepeneurs but not the corporate ones. We are told to work hard and go to school and have a family when society and it's trappings are in direct opposition to any of that. There are jobs, cheap, low wage jobs which hardly afford someone to realistically go to school or maintain a healthy family without working two or three of them. And we then become trapped in the chasing of illusions all with the "managers" of society's determination for us to become more mindless and better producer/consumers. We are told we can be anything we want. But our overall living conditions show otherwise. So we have become schizophrenic in many ways. This is one of my reasons for my refusal to refrain from using the "n-word". Our schizophrenic tendencies begin to manifest so within all the strides we make and progress we achieve we still do "nigga shit". We have a subconscious voice that speaks to us from a different quandrant of the brain, a voice that stirs the restless of colonization in all of us. So I can't take a so-called the movement seriously. And the reason is because I understand the reality and the depths of the conditioning of America and White Supremacy. I'm not shamed nor afraid to call it what it is. The movement to ban the word "nigger" is more so perpetrated by the middle class as a baby boomer's (house nigga mentality- that is those bought out and pacified by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's) reaction to the frustrated and agitated outspokeness of the young, the "field niggas". I appreciate the effort to put a blockade on buffoonery in entertainment. However, we still act like buffoons in other areas and sectors of society. It appears that our image in entertainment is all we care about, considering our history as entertainers for white folks.

The schizophrenia isn't "race" based, as in so-called African American versus Latinos and one wanting to be like the other, as the poem below may allude to. The poem from Willie Perdomo actually speaks to a truth, that there is no difference between so-called African Americans and so-called Latinos. We both have ancestors in Africa and in Native America. We are both Original people and are in fact ONE people-ONE race, in light of Allah's understanding. After all there are only two people on the planet according to our (the Nation of Gods and Earths) paradigm- the Original people and the Colored people. People of color and non-people of color. The schizophrenia is based in us living other than who we are. Remember it is largely due to environmental influences that we see each other as completely different. Yet, these environmental influences encourages a preference for things Euro-centric and the yearn to kindle an affinity for Euro-centrism and those who usher it. I-self have been called "too black" by some Latinos because I don't "sound" Latino. They thought I sounded "black" and also because I enojy hip-hop music and/or wear my clothes etc. Unfortunately, they are ignorant to their history and the "Latin" contribute to hip-hop from day one. And as well, they being unfamiliar with who I am, were ignorant to my upbringin' in a predominately African-American neighborhood which fostering a clearer understanding of our relationship to one another. Whereas other Latinos may only know of their African-American brothers and sisters from BET or what they held on to from bad experiences. And the same goes for African Americans and their perspectives on Latinos, and their isolation from us. However, my life experience allowed me to understand and appreciate Original peoples our are various cultural manifestations and expressions beyond the limitations of typical Latin upbringing. For instance, to take a light skinned Latino and understand him or her as no different from a "high yellow" brother or sister from Louisiana and the only difference being in the language they speak. Other than that, both peoples are the results of Indian, African and the mid-atlantic malay that mingled the slave traders and masters blood in us.

Nigger-Reecan Blues

by Willie Perdomo (for Piri Thomas)

Hey, Willie. What are you, man?

No, silly. You know what I mean: What are you?

I am you. You are me. We the same. Can't you feel our veins drinking the same blood?

-But who said you was a Porta Reecan?

-Tu eres Puerto Riqueno, brother.

-Maybe Indian like Gandhi Indian.

-I thought you was a Black man.

-Is one of your parents white?

-You sure you ain't a mix of something like

-Portuguese and Chinese?

-Naaaahhh. . .You ain't no Porta Reecan.

-I keep telling you: The boy is a Black man with an accent.

If you look closely you will see that your spirits are standing right next toour songs. You soy Boricua! You soy Africano! I ain't lyin'. Pero mi pelo eskinky y kurly y mi skin no es negra pero it can pass. ..

-Hey, yo. I don't care what you say - you Black.I ain't Black! Everytime I go downtown la madam blankeeta de madesson avenue sees that I'm standing right next to her and she holds her purse just a bit tighter. I can't even catch a taxi late at night and the newspapers saythat if I'm not in front of a gun, chances are that I'll be behind one. I wonder why. . .

-Cuz you Black, nigger.

I ain't Black, man. I had a conversation with my professor. Went like this:

-Where are you from, Willie?

-I'm from Harlem.

-Ohh! Are you Black?

-No, but-

-Do you play much basketball?

Te lo estoy diciendo, brother. Ese hombre es un moreno!

Miralo!

Mira yo no soy moreno! I just come out of Jerry's Den and the

coconut spray off my new shape-up sails around the corner, up to the Harlem River and off to New Jersey. I'm lookin' slim and I'm lookin' trimand when my homeboy Davi saw me, he said: "Como, Papo. Te parece como un moreno, brother. Word up, bro. You look like a stone black kid."

-I told you - you was Black.

Damn! I ain't even Black and here I am sufferin' from the young Black man's plight/the old white man's burden/and I ain't even Black, man/a Black man/I am not/Boricua I am/ain't never really was/Black/like me. . .

-Leave that boy alone. He got the Nigger-Reecan Blues

I'm a Spic!

I'm a Nigger!

Spic! Spic! No different than a Nigger!

Neglected, rejected, oppressed and depressed

From banana boats to tenements

Street gangs to regiments. . .

Spic! Spic! I ain't nooooo different than a Nigger.

"Native Costume" and Literary Perceptions

- Below, a poem from Martin Espada. This one was featured in a book entitled "Muy Macho", a collection of essays about challenging machismo in latino cultura. Espada's poetry, for me, captures the Borikua experience in much the same way that Piri Thomas' "Down These Mean Streets" did and impacted me in much the same way. Today's mathematics being build or destroy, we can examine the "positive" and "negative" of our experiences, especially here in the wilderness of North America, Amekikia, through the constructive criticism of literature. Regardless to what some skeptics may pose, the "pen" is truly mightier than the "sword". Being able to manifest ideas from the intangible to the tangible through the influence of literature is what governments do and reveals the importance of "propaganda" in their cause. It is just as important in ours. Literature creates the space for one to articulate and expound, add on to ideas to allows others to be inspired or motivated for change, or take that which was proposed in the author's words and magnify it. I, as a writer, have come to understand the importance of words and have thus dedicated my time to maintaining my blogs as spaces for my engagement with "freedom of speech" and the decimination of proper education. This is my contribution, regardless to however futile it may seem. What I do serves a purpose and influences people beyond what many may think. I may chose not to be on the front lines of the march or protest. However, I am protesting through my writing which is equally as dangerous and just as productive. And yes, actions do speak louder than words, for those who are quick to act and seldom take the time to think about it. The ability to form words, thoughtful and intelligently and transmit the idea through vibration into sound is an 'act'.

In the end, it's all about building and destroying, the balancing principles of the universe. Either build or BE DESTROYED. That means contribute and add on or destroy yourself, because that's what's at stake. And that means adding on in any way that you can and not necessarily how others do. It takes all kinds of people to run a 'Nation', from a garbage man to politician. And literature and those who create it as just as important. Literature is one medium that allows a people to take control of how they are percieved by the larger society. This is how we've been orientated to other cultures and peoples more intimately in grade school. We become involved with the characters and settings in stories and poetry which plant those mental seeds that grow into our adult perspectives. And predominately Euro-centric literature will lead to a Euro-centric mindset and outlook on people of color, mostly importantly, ourselves.

"He likes the devil because the devil put fear in him when he was a little boy."- 8th degree, 1-36, English C. Lesson No. 1

---------------------------------

My Native Costume

When you come to visit,

said a teacher

from the suburban school,

don’t forget to wear

your native costume.

But I’m a lawyer,

I said.

My native costume

is a pinstriped suit.

You know, the teacher said,

a Puerto Rican costume.

Like a guayabera?

The shirt? I said.

But it’s February.

The children want to see

a native costume,

the teacher said.

So I went

to the suburban school,

embroidered guayabera

short sleeved shirt

over a turtleneck,

and said, Look kids,

cultural adaptation.

Racism in the Kiskeya

-The following article has a lot to do with the mental colonialization imposed upon the Dominican people. For years, Dominican Republic President Rafael Trujillo executed a viscious rule over the island. In particular, his regime was most memorable for murdering thousands of Haitians and darker Dominicans in pursuit of "whitening" the population of the DR. This is what we would call "Yakub's Rules and Regulations", within the Nation of Gods and Earths. That is, those social rules and regulations used as standards for conducting relationships which produce or further 'white supremacy'. There is a great movie that highlights those terrible times, entitled "In the Time of the Butterflies", starring Marc Anthony and Salma Hayek. What Trujillo did was entrench the people's mindset in that of fear and repression. He strove to whitened their society in order to reconnect them their 'motherland', that is, Spain. To do this he needed to erase the visible elements of mainly African and strong Indigenous prescence in the country. He even encouraged immigrants from Spain and France to come and work in order to redirect the development of society with a Euro-centric focus and drive. A similar campaign took place in Puerto Rico during the mid to late 1800's and early 1900's.

The DR's Dark Secret

Racism Against Black Dominicans Has Become Epidemic on the Island

By JULIO TAVAREZ

The New York Post (August 9, 2007)

August 8, 2007 -- When I read last week about the U.S. Embassy inthe Dominican Republic censuring Loft, a nightclub in the Naconeighborhood of Santo Domingo, because of the club's policy ofdiscrimination against black patrons and employees, it brought backsour memories of a recent trip I took to the island.

Dominicans are known the world over for our great baseball players,our beautiful beaches and our friendly people.

But there is something of a dirty secret that we sweep under thedrug. Racism against black Dominicans, rich or poor, happens everyday, and not just in clubs.

On my vacation, some friends I decided to check out a night spot called Tribeca, in Santiago. Apparently, it was the hot spot. When we arrived, there was no line. As we waited, people began lining up behind us. Slowly they were allowed in. We weren't. I asked a bouncer why and he said one of the owners instructed him not to let us in.

Puzzled, I checked our attire. We were dressed similarly to people being let in, so it wasn't what we were wearing. We weren't drivinga Mercedes, but we weren't rolling in a Hyundai, either - we had a decent ride.

Then, it dawned on me. It wasn't our clothes or our car. The only difference between the people that were given passage and us wasthey were light-skinned with European features while we were dark-skinned with African features. We were the wrong color.

When I told my friend, he just said, "That's how they are here,let's go somewhere else."

I was shocked. I had heard stories of people not being allowed intocertain places in the DR because of their complexion, but it hadnever happened to me.

I had heard the myth of the black Dominican baseball player who wasn't allowed in a club, bought the place and fired everybody.Stories like these are rampant, and seem like urban legends.

But this was no legend.

Acts of racism are commonplace in the Dominican Republic. Dark-skinned Dominicans have been told where they belong, and it seemshave accepted it.

Immediately, I began paying attention, as I do here in the United States, to billboards, television commercials and programs.Billboard after billboard featured not one dark face. In television commercials and programs, dark Dominicans were barely present andmost of the time weren't even shown at all.

It was as if we didn't even exist. In a country where more than 80percent of the population is mixed with an African descendant, onewould expect that at least some mixed-race actors would be used incommercials, but they don't make the cut, either.

The unrelenting oppression of African culture and the discrimination against those that are, either partly or fully, descendants of the African people, continue to pull our country deeper into depths of poverty, ignorance and despair.

Racism is nothing new in Latin America. The question is what are wedoing about it? Tego Calderón, in a Tempo column last year, wrote that we needed a civil rights movement for Latino blacks. I agree. We no longer can continue to sweep this dirty secret underthe rug.

Julio Tavarez is the director of the Passaic County Chapter of theLatino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey

National Institute for Latino Policy

101 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 313

New York, NY 10013

http://www.latinopolicy.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Latino_Policy

Angelo Falcón, President and Founder 212-334-5722 Fax: 917-677-8593

mailto:917-677-8593afalcon@...

Vicente " Panama" Alba http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Official_Taino_Nation_News/post?postID=Y7kzbfQGlW2_JkYhb_Te7byWMhc3DKOViT2JmAGz-afLVG5HixNOsgYA61OXa8HZIcZER2hXfmIgh6hW (917) 626-5847

"if you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are comrade of mine."

"Let's be realistic, let's do the impossible"- Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Taino DNA and Identity

mtDNA and Race in PR -- EL NUEVO DIA (Boriken/"Puerto Rico")
(Edited and clarified by Henry Quirindongo-August 29, 1999)
By Gladys Nieves Ramirez -

MAYAGUEZ - Two short studies revealing that a considerable percentage of Puerto Ricans have indigenous American Indian blood have persuaded doctor Juan C. Cruzado Martinez to make a sample experiment with the purpose of measuring genetic contributions through the maternal lineage of the three ethnic groups that predominate in Puerto Rico. In addition to the native American Indian, the study will identify the percentage of Puerto Ricans that have black and Caucasian (white) heritage. In the study, which (began) in August, (1999.) Martinez (received) a scholarship grant of $270.000 from the National Foundation of Sciences of the United States. Martinez, who is a professor of Biology of the Recinto University of Mayaguez (RUM), explained that the experiment will examine the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the mitochondria (mtDNA) that is transmitted solely through the mother. From the volunteers, six roots of hair are taken that are treated in the laboratory so that the DNA is released. Each ethnic group has an mtDNA distinguishing, marker indicated.

The professor maintained that for the first study, taken in the past academic year, he examined mtDNA of 56 people, 23 of residents of districts who have an indigenous known background, like Indiera Alta and Indiera Baja, of Maricao, and Miraflores, of Anasco. The other volunteers were workers of the RUM that affirmed to have Indian ancestry on the part of the mother or a grandmother. 70% of the examined registered mtDNA of indigenous origin. As that study was skewed, since they only looked for people who could possibly have indigenous ancestry, Martinez said he had made an additional study in which he examined 38 people selected (scientifically) at random. Of that group, 53% was positive for indigenous mtDNA. Surprising results "The results surprised us by the high indigenous percentage, because it says in history that the Indians were quickly exterminated by diseases. We are finding that, but more true, that they were assimilated and that can have many implications. For example, one can eliminate a race without exterminating it. It can be eliminated (to a large degree culturally as well as genetically), when assimilating", the professor expounded. He stated that the experiments examine the history of the bloodline of Puerto Rico solely through the maternal lineage. It added that furthermore, he intends to study the genetic contribution through the paternal lineage, which can take over the chromosome and since the Spanish colonization was mainly of men, it expects that the Caucasian contribution to the genetics of the Puerto Ricans is greater than the native by paternal lineage. (This also applies to he> Black slave men who were introduced there.) "Now we are going to make a study much more complete because the study will be representative of all Puerto Rico and we will gather from the different social strata," Martinez said. The statistical error is going to be relatively low," affirmed Martinez. For that study Martinez and a group of Biology students will visit 800 homes in different zones of Puerto Rico. For the sample volunteers of eight towns of larger populations will be selected. They are San Juan, Bayamón, Ponce, Carolina, Caguas, Mayaguez, Arecibo and Guaynabo. In addition, they will look for samples in Cayey, Corozal and Barranquitas, in the central zone; in Aguadilla, San Sebastián, Moca and Hormigueros in the west; in Yauco, Juana Diaz and Penuelas in the south; in Toa Baja, Vega Baja and Vega Alta in the north; and in Humacao, San Lorenzo and Loíza in the east. The towns were (scientifically) chosen at random, pointed Martinez. He emphasized that it will be the first time that an experiment of this nature in Puerto Rico (or anywhere else) has been made.

The Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School

The Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School

In the last two years of the nineteenth century and opening years of the twentieth, victorious in the Spanish American War, the U.S. government approved a series of grants and actions aimed at “Americanizing” the residents of their newest possession, Puerto Rico. In the process, at least 60 Puerto Rican children were sent to be re-educated at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where the motto was, "Kill the Indian, save the man." Founded in 1878 by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, the purpose of the Carlisle School was to create a new mainstream identity for Indians, to change them into something "acceptable" for the society of the times.
It all began after the Indian Wars, when Captain Pratt was put in charge of a group of Indian prisoners who had been virtually exiled to Florida. There, Pratt engaged in reform practices still followed today in our prison system

- Read the entire article at http://www.kacike.org/SoniaRosa.html

"The Last Puerto Rican Indian"

"The Last Puerto Rican Indian is beautifully written with a multiplicity of voices that capture both profound sadness and passionate defiance. Rich with spiritual meaning, Bobby Gonzalez brings us closer to the indigenous men, women and children of the Americas as he harmonizes between the past and the present, traveling great distances in time from before the conquest, through mass genocide and the resistance, to the contemporary and beyond. Affirming the enduring strength of our heritage, González declares, 'The Last Puerto Rican Indian has not yet been born.'" - Iris Morales, community activist/former Minister of Information, the Young Lords Party

Visit Bobby González' website at http://www.bobbygonzalez.com/
Also available at http://www.cemipress.com/