LARED XICANA INDIGENA | Xicana Indigenous Woman's Network

Our Purpose & Intention....

La RED Xicana Indígena, which originated in 1997, is a network of Xicanas indígenas based in Arizona and California, who are actively involved in political, educational and cultural work that serves to raise indigenous consciousness among our communities and supports the social justice struggles of people of indigenous American origins North and South. As Xicanas living in the United States we self-identify as indigenous women with native origins in the Southwest United States and/or México, but also understand our project to include women whose indigenous origins may reside throughout el Caribe, and Central and South America.   Our name, which means “network” in Spanish, further signifies (in English) our alliance with all Red Nations of the Américas, including nations residing in the North.

La RED recognizes Xicano and MeXicano peoples to be a pueblo made up of many indigenous nations in diaspora who through a five hundred year project of colonization, neocolonization and de-indianization have been forced economically from their place of origin, many ending up in the United States. Politically, we recognize that we stand with little legal entitlement to our claim as indigenous peoples within América; however, we come together on the belief that, with neither land base nor enrollment card -- like so many urban Indians in the North, and so many displaced and undocumented migrants coming from the South --, we have the right to “right” ourselves; that is, to attempt to put la Xicana Indígena back into balance with her origins and work vigorously from that site toward the decolonization, economic independence and cultural integrity of our communities.   To that end our members support projects, which encourage self-sustaining economies, such as community gardens that produce traditional medicines and provide for the nutritional needs of local communities.

As Xicanas Indígenas, we also see as part of our project to re-envision our families apart from the Eurocentric model of the privatized patriarchal family and to draw example from the tribal structure of our indigenous antecedents ( i.e. the extended family including blood relations and relations of shared affinity). We recognize women as the carriers of the knowledges of our various traditions, especially within the realm of the sacred. As such, we understand our mission requires efforts to re-instate the traditional leadership of women within our communities, especially the female elders’ role as members of tribal councils and as ceremonial leaders.    Members of La Red are actively involved in ceremonial practices drawing from Northern and Southern traditions. We continue to organize gatherings with respected teachers and elders to educate young women in the meaning of various ceremonial traditions, to train them in the necessary practices of those traditions, and to encourage their leadership. Fundamentally, we believe it is our right to recover, reclaim and recontextualize our ceremonies for the future generations, with a deep respect for the origins of those spiritual practices as best we can uncover them. Again, without the legal recognition of Xicanos as indigenous peoples, we see as part of our mandate to struggle for religious freedom and the right to practice our ceremonies, as is legally entitled to our northern native counterparts.

As Xicanas Indígenas we affirm the right to self-determination in all aspects of our identities, including ethnicity, sexuality and gender and actively support projects that honor the sovereignty of the female Indígena body.   To that end, we find as part of our mission to advocate for and support the rights of gays, lesbians, transgenders and two-spirit peoples and recognize them as critical contributors to the health and balance of our communities. Further, we commit ourselves to interrupting acts of sexual violence committed against our young women, with a special focus on those perpetrated by the men of our own communities.

As many members of La RED are educators and artists, we see the cultural project of de-colonization as critical to our work within the network. We understand that the project of raising consciousness among younger generations of Xicanas/as requires us to create works that re-collect our history and re-envision a future as indigenous peoples. This includes film, visual arts, performance, and imaginative literature. Further as educators, we see it as our task to create alternate environments for learning and alternate approaches to study that can more closely reflect an indigenous point of view and one which subverts the neocolonial project of the corporate-funded Academy.

As Xicanas, we reside in both worlds -- north and south – and envision ourselves as a kind of conduit for this meeting site between two continents separated by an equally genocidal history – that of the English-speaking vs. Spanish-speaking conquistador.   Our direct participation in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) since 2001 is reflective of this meeting site, where La RED sponsors the participation of representatives of various MeXicana migrant rights organizations and Indigenous tribes to present their human rights concerns to the Forum.   La RED stands in solidarity with the indigenous struggles for sovereignty throughout the hemisphere and many of our members work actively with groups in the United States to support various indigenous campaigns in the south, such as the EZLN’s La Otra Campana. La RED is also a member organization of the ENLACE Continental de Mujeres Indígenas, since 1997 and the Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indígenas (FIMI) since 2001.

Fundamentally, we understand our Mission as Xicanas Indígenas to do our part to fulfill the prophesy of the Eagle (of the North) coming together with the Condor (of the South). We do so by working for social justice and raised indigenous consciencia spanning from the most personal site of the familias in our own communities to the hemispheric level of a growing continental and global indigenous peoples movement.

Submitted 4.4.07 cm
Revised 4.5.07 cm/rg

GRACIAS, TLAZOKAMATIC, THANK YOU