Brainstorm Week 9 - Chloe Rabinowitz

One thing that stood out to me in Million’s article was how mother earth functions in the governing of Indigenous peoples. She discusses how at the core of the governing bodies, there must be a discussion and respect for the elements of the earth, because they are spiritually equal to humans. This quote sums this idea up as, “The land, the plants, the animals and the people all have spirit - they must all be shown respect” (Million 100). This is important because it grants rights to nature in a way that the new Ecuadorian constitution could only dream of. As seen in last week’s readings, there’s a huge difference between saying that you respect earth and its rights and actually respecting it. What Million conveys is that in Indigenous nations, the earth is a fundamental aspect of their belief system, so when it comes to determining how the people of these nations must be governed, the earth is always included and protected. This plays into Ybarra’s discussion of environmentalism as a decolonial praxis for Chicanas/os. As a remedio to reject the European colonization centered societal values that were imposed on Chicanas/os, respecting the environment and connecting spiritually to the natural world is a direct rejection of so many of these Euro values. The idea that was spread by the colonizers was that their view of the world, both natural and urbanized, was the only way to look at the world and forced the assimilation/whitewashing of the Chicana/o culture that was so centered on the inclusion of environmental aspects in everyday life. For Chicanas/os to embrace these ecological-based values and belief systems, it creates a system oppositional to the Eurocentric system that has been imposed upon them.