indian identity

As I read the article "A Dialogue on Indianness" I found myself asking the same question Rachel did, what is identity? As I continued reading I realized this is a question that the Guatemalan population is struggling to answer as well. Is identity solely defined by what language you speak, what clothing you wear, or your religion. Or does identity in fact have to do with something much more than your actions, can identity be defined by your own feelings. This struggle to understand identity seems to be one of the biggest problems in the pan-mayan movement. I found one of the best answers to this question of the last page of the chapter when Virgilio stated, " For me there is not one way of being indigenous, there are so many way to be indigenous." (200) I think this quote really describes the whole mission behind the pan-mayan movement as indians struggled to define what it actually meant to be indian in Guatemala and how they could adapt their lives to still represent their "indianness" in the changing world.

One thing I found very interesting was the efforts made by PLANTAS, an organization that was established mainly to help teach older and more traditional herbal medicine. From this it seemed to become a simply for the push to more traditional Mayan lifestyle. As explained later, this organization was somewhat paradoxical as it was a new Western organization pushing for a return to older beliefs. This led me to wonder if this was necessarily a good thing. Is it really beneficial for younger generations to revert back to old way of life when in fact it may be better for them to embrace modernization. This is not to say that it isn't important to embrace their culture, but it seems that by completely revert to more traditional values, younger generations will be at quite a disadvantage to the rest of the Guatemalan youth who have accepted Western modernization. I began to wonder if all Mayans really felt this strongly about keeping traditional values, as one indian spoke about herbal remedies, "I don't really like medicinal plants, I prefer to buy a pill!" So is this pan-mayan movement really something the majority of people want or is it something that member's of an older generation are trying to push as a way to try a old onto a culture that might be becoming outdated. I agree with Sarah that is very sad to hear about cultures dying out, but its also hard for me to understand how a country like Guatemala would not want to accept modernization as a way of helping development.

Another interesting aspect of this article was the section about the youth not wanting to accept traditional Mayan culture because of what it means to them. For many of these younger Mayans, no accepting their culture is a way of escaping the past and the horrors that they associate with it. Reading a story like Antonio's (183) it makes sense that someone who dealt with so much pain and loss growing up would not want to be associated with any part of this culture if they had the choice. As Antonio stated," I am not going to follow my father... I looked for a way to distance myself and find things that were better, to have something in this world, something for me. (185). Seeing the rejection of Mayan culture from this perspective puts a whole new spin on identity, where the youth are looking to change their identity as a way of redefining their lives and leaving the past in the past.