Mexican folks as a whole express outrage at the racist remarks coming from the mouth of Donald Trump and similar feelings held by some of his supporters.
Yet many are blind to the bigotry that permeates their own society, even here among lakeside’s ethnically diverse communities.
The country’s indigenous people have been targets of scorn and discrimination ever since Spanish conquistadores landed on its shores nearly 500 years ago. As light-skinned European invaders and the mestizo offspring they engendered grasped on to political and economic power, pure-blood native people were relegated to the bottom of the social ladder where the majority remain to this day and age.
An article recently published by two print media outlets reveals deeply ingrained prejudices that prevail in our own area. Penned by local reporter Manuel Jacobo under the title, “Hay un racismo latente en Chapala,” the story opens with an account of a woman descended from a Mezcala family who experienced an ugly confrontation with the proprietress of a Chapala beauty parlor. She had taken her daughter there for a hairdo and make-up appointment in preparation for a photo session to capture her quinceañera (15th birthday) portrait.
When a discussion over the styling ensued, the salon owner became irate, lambasting her dark-skinned customer in offensive terms with the question, “So what is it you want india?” The exchange escalated in tone until the beautician ran the client and her daughter out of the place.
Another example of the prejudices held against indigenous people comes out in a section of the article describing an anthropology student’s visit to the tourism office in Poncitlán, Mezcala’s municipal seat. His purpose was to gather information on Mezcala for his university thesis. Talking about the townspeople, the department director told him flatly, “You know they’re sort of savages. They have different facial factions. They look like monkeys.”
In a conversation with Jacobo this week I learned that he too is a native of Mezcala. He shared disturbing tales of the types of discrimination commonly suffered by the people of his hometown and other isolated indigenous villages along Lake Chapala’s shores.
For generations these native inhabitants have not had access to the same education and employment opportunities afforded to mestizo populations of more developed towns. They are thus forced into a hard-scrabble lifestyle dependent upon subsistence farming on communal land and fishing in Lake Chapala’s waters.
Many have never ventured far from home for fear of racist treatment they might face elsewhere. In some places, Jacobo says, his people are labeled with the derogatory term chantes, identifying their place of origin. Until the last few years, they were ordinarily refused seating at food stalls in the Poncitlán market, allowed only to purchase carry-out foods.
This is a just reflection of the shocking reality experienced by the estimated 11 million indigenous people who make up roughly ten percent of Mexico’s population. It’s an eye-opener for those of us who think that bigots only reside on the north side of Trump’s promised border wall.