#unloading

I am afraid of social interactions, and I'm terrified of confrontation even more. It's why I avoid most social media and hardly ever post. This time of year has always been special, my family has observed Animecha Kejtzitakua (día de muertos) for as long as I can remember. For well over a thousand years in fact. I can't express in words what it means to us, i can't tell you the kind of overwhelming emotions I feel during this time. I'm connected to my dead loved ones in a way that i couldn't be if i hadn't been raised in my peoples culture, and not only them but an unbelievable amount of my ancestors. Cultures adjust to the times and to colonization, they have to to survive. I am aware that not all the rituals are exactly the same but the spirit of it is. Our beliefs, our view of the cosmos and our place in it, our relation to death and nature. It ties me to those I've lost that visit me and countless generations before me. Every October to November I feel so much that i feel like i am bursting at the seams. The complex interplay of belief and emotions are as beautiful as they are overwhelming, I wouldn't give it up for the world. Most people don't realize the mexican government with the support of the mestizo population tried to wipe us out for decades after the revolution. My family kept experiencing it until we left our Homeland, my parents generation. I have always loved and been proud to be p'urhepecha. I love my people and culture so much, but generational trauma is a bitch. It took so long for me to be able to say out loud to people that I'm indigenous. I have to work so hard to stop myself from crying when i think about the things that have been done to my family in the name of the Mexican nation building project, to the things the spectre of our extermination still does to my family. Animecha Kejtzitakua is sacred in every sense of the word. As I've gotten older this time of year has also taken on exasperation and anger. On this site I see people being so disrespectful, stripping my dead loved ones, my beliefs, our struggles, our loss, our pain, or joy of all meaning for their aesthetic. It definitely doesn't just happen here. People slapping our iconography on anything with no regard for what it means to us. People encouraging anybody to celebrate Animecha Kejtzitakua like they have the authority to do so. People saying it is Latino or Mexican, what they're really saying is mestizo. Not bothering to learn it is not theirs to take part in, to encourage others to take part in. Not caring that they are being part of the problem, the problem with telling people that even nicely is that they don't want to admit it, they would rather appropriate and disrespect in ignorance because they find it so much easier. I used to be afraid to tell people i am indigenous once upon a time, i am terrified of confrontation, but i am done. I am proud to be who I am and i will argue with any bigots i need to, spreading awareness. Most won't listen, it comes with being indigenous, but that doesn't mean I'll stop fighting. Juchari uinhapekua!