Week 9 Brainstorm

Both of these readings really highlighted the deep and fundamental relationship between Indigenous and Mexican people and nature. In Dian Millon’s “Indigenous Matters” I was particularly taken aback by the concept of indigenous knowledge and the connection between this knowledge and indigenous places. Million put it nicely by saying “Indigenous knowledge cannot be separated from the people who hold and practice it, nor can it be separated from the land/environment/creation” (98). This intertwining of the people and land makes sense as indigenous beliefs about the aliveness of matter and spirits has led to place being defined as  “an expression of the vibrant relationships between people, their ecosystems, and other living beings and spirits that share their lands” (98). When your livelihood and spirituality are so focused on the environment and land around you, being an advocate for environmentalism like the buen vivir seems obvious! Mexicans too, are supporters of the environment. As Latinos, they are part of the American ethnic group most concerned with environmentalism. As the border crossed many Mexican Americans, ties to land like Aztlan became more powerful than nationality. In fact, this connection is so deep rooted that, according to Priscilla Solis Ybarra is her article “Goodlife Writing”, “Mexican  American literary study has rarely considered its works  envi­ronmental  because the human relation to nature is so fundamental to nearly every work that it becomes impossible to distinguish from other concerns” (24). Being environmental is the norm for many Mexican Americans. Additionally, Ybarra says that “While  the  American project of environmentalism denotes an explicit quest to find alternatives to exploitative approaches to nature, Goodlife writing shows how the Mexican American and Chicana/o culture enacts values and practices that include nature all along.” (7). This quote really sums up what the idea of buen vivr is, and how Mexican Americans exemplify it: living will and protecting the earth instead of exploiting its resources.