Op-Ed: A Critique of the Central American Bicentennial
“This historical negation of blackness or Afro-descended elements in Salvadoran culture was part of a concerted effort by criollo leadership to have the nation-state conform to larger trends and expectations of civilization, modernity, progress, and racial hierarchy. From the moment of independence from Spain in the 1820s, liberal Central America sought to establish the “indohispanic” or “mestizo” as integral to the project of nation-building. In essence, this process of colonial mestizaje allowed indigeneity a tenable place in post-independence nationalisms, which was recuperated through mestizo ideologies celebrating the achievements of pre-Columbian civilizations such as the Maya in Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. Insofar as it provides territorial legitimacy to the project of settler colonialism, indigeneity is an acceptable, if later minimized, component of the heritage of the nation-state. Blackness and negritude have fared otherwise, however, fundamentally considered external, outside, and foreign.”
Intro
Every 15 de Septiembre, I looked forward to getting up early to go to the market and cultural fair hosted in my parish’s parking lot in Jamaica, Queens in New York City. Usually, people would sell homemade Mexican or Guatemalan food, but on the weekends after 15 de Septiembre, this simple market would teem with festivities as mariachis were hired and the display of Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Honduran, and Nicaraguan flags were everywhere. It had the extra flair of hispanohablante nationalism celebrated with music, food, and increased turnout. While not an incredibly nationalist family, it was something more exciting and personal to mine than the 4th of July.
This year, I’m writing this article that questions and renounces celebrations on 15 de Septiembre on the year that marks el bicentenario—200 years of the states of El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. While this break up at the beginning felt sad and confusing to my neoliberal understanding of identity politics, it was a reflection of my privilege and ignorance to have been able to find joy in the celebration of the Guatemalan nation state to begin with. Mestize sadness such as mine is incomparable to the violence and erasure faced namely by Black and Indigenous folks who scoff at the “independence” being celebrated September 15th. The bigger heartbreak was realizing how several identities of mine as a racialized sexually active queer woman from a low-income and campesinx famly would subject me to violence in my homeland and will make me susceptible to it whenever I visit.
My awareness of the oppressive foundation of Central American states is a recent one and very much linked to my rejection of Latinidad. Like many others, the homecoming to this national and social identity became a refuge; once I had rejected assimilation into US whiteness, the Guatemalan national flag also became an expression of pride defiant to the American Dream. As I became critical of the 4th of July for its genocidal and oppressive foundations, the 15th and 16th de Septiembre, Independence Days that signal the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month, became my time to shine. It was a relief to find your people and take pride in your culture. It felt freeing and authentic.
But, it was also romanticized.
As I was intoxicated by Latinidad and Guatemalan nationalism and learned about my roots, the parallels within the different parts of the Americas hit me; Central America came into possession of the states through genocide of Indigenous folks and the land was exploited as the states enslaved Black and Indigenous populations that eventually evolved into exploitation of workers under global capitalism. The language that “united” so-called Latinxs, Spanish, is not symbolic of unity, but rather of the tragic eradication of hundreds of languages and cultures. As the daughter of low-income, racialized, campesinx families in Guatemala, I knew that my family and lineage was part of historical processes of exploitation and abuse. This became more glaring as I recently found out that the land that my family has cared for centuries had been owned by a Spanish family for a part of it, who eventually divvied legal possession of it amongst the families who had been working it, including mine, tugging on the national history of indentured servitude.
Historical Background
Millions of lives in Central America have been hurt by its current states through poverty, racism, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, and other forms of violent discrimination and disenfranchisement, stemming from violent imposition of colonial governance that started before 1821. As elaborated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
“Visions of independence and nation-building among criollo elites (Spaniards born in the Americas) and wealthy mestizos (people of mixed Spanish-[Indigenous] descent) are fostered by a strong interest in their own culture and history in the Americas. Insurgencies and revolts persist throughout the century. Many [Indigenous] groups join uprisings and fight for local goals. In 1821, independence from Spain leads eventually to the formation of separate nations: Mexico ends the monarchy and establishes a federal republic. Guatemala separates from Mexico, and Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador break away from Guatemala. Independence from Spain brings some improvements to [Indigenous] peoples, among them the abolition of mandatory labor for state and church, and the payment of tribute. Demands for political, cultural, and economic autonomy, however, are fruitless. Liberal regimes in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, in an effort to accelerate commercial growth in the second half of the century, increase the splitting-up and sale of [Indigenous] communal lands, which results in the rapid growth of an impoverished, increasingly rebellious rural proletariat.”
To reiterate, the visions of Independence and nation-building pertinent to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico (as well as all countries in so-called Latin America) were those of Spaniards born in Americas and violently assimilated people of Indigenous descent, motivated by their interest in their own criollo culture and history. This came at the expense of Indigenous folks, but also of Black folks, who remained legally enslaved for years after Independence until 1824 and in Panama until 1851; even with the eradication of slavery and segregation, anti-Blackness has still been a prominent feature of the Central American state.
In 1932, Black and Indigenous folks, along with campesinxs, led an uprising that resulted in a massacre of 10,000 to 40,000 people known as La Matanza. Aside from the imprint this colonial terror inflicted on the collective memory of these communities, dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez legally etched it in the Race Laws of 1933. In the 1933 Migration Law, the Salvadoran state prohibited the migration of racialized people, including any Black person. Meanwhile for people in El Salvador deemed to have “African features”, they became targets of discrimination and if close to the border, they were expelled from national territory. As Professor Jorge Cuéllar explains the historical amnesia and erasure that exists of Black communites in El Salvador, but is also applicable in the countries celebrating their “Independence” today:
“This historical negation of blackness or Afro-descended elements in Salvadoran culture was part of a concerted effort by criollo leadership to have the nation-state conform to larger trends and expectations of civilization, modernity, progress, and racial hierarchy. From the moment of independence from Spain in the 1820s, liberal Central America sought to establish the “indohispanic” or “mestizo” as integral to the project of nation-building. In essence, this process of colonial mestizaje allowed indigeneity a tenable place in post-independence nationalisms, which was recuperated through mestizo ideologies celebrating the achievements of pre-Columbian civilizations such as the Maya in Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. Insofar as it provides territorial legitimacy to the project of settler colonialism, indigeneity is an acceptable, if later minimized, component of the heritage of the nation-state. Blackness and negritude have fared otherwise, however, fundamentally considered external, outside, and foreign.
While the presence of Indigenous peoples could not be ignored and thus was absorbed, the lower numbers of Afro-descended peoples reinforced blackness as an ethnic identity that existed “outside” of Salvadoran territory; thus, due to its statistical insignificance and peripheral presence, blackness operated as a racial and identitarian exteriority that was never made palatable or comprehensible to the project of Salvadoran nation-building.”
For a continuation of this anti-Black behavior, one can also examine Costa Rica’s ban on its Black population of Limón from entering its Gran Área Metropolitana, which holds the national capital of San Jose, until 1948; before then, they had to obtain legal permission to leave Limón province, and were not recognized as citizens. In the present day, the Garifuna community and their allies both in and out of Honduras demand answers from the Honduran state as to the whereabout of five Garifuna leaders from Triunfo de la Cruz that were last seen put into trucks by armed men in police uniforms alongside investigators from the Police Investigations Directorate.
Conclusion
As dozens of trans women have been killed across Central America this year...
As women are banned from abortion in any cases and criminalized to the extent that women who suffer miscarriages are jailed…
As we enter the 66th month since Berta Caceres was assassinated by the Honduran state…
As thousands of Indigenous folks in Guatemala today resist colonization in the #ParoPlurinacional…
As Afrodescendants in El Salvador and the rest of the region take up the space they deserve…
As COVID-19 emergency funds have been disappeared, prompting the people to ask #DondeEstáElDinero…
As Costa Rica boasts 456 families foreign to the land as their “founding families” and tout themselves as a “La Suiza Centroamericana” and “Costa Rica blanca”...
As corrupt and neoliberal presidents from Giammattei, Bukele, Orlando Hernandez, and Alvarado Quesada make deals with foreign corporations and investors to sell off the land...
As Giammattei, Bukele, Orlando Hernandez, and Alvarado Quesada, and Ortega continues to repress its people…
As neoliberal dreams of ZEDEs and Bitcoin spread…
I do not celebrate the so-called Independence Days on September 15th, much less el bicentenario, but stand in solidarity with our communities who dare to imagine and demand for sovereignty and humanity in the construction of a free Central America.
Sussan García is the founder and director of Central American Disruption.