Hi I'd like to join the forum

[amorYcohetes]

Hi fellow posters, thanks for all your work and research on this site.  I joined b/c I wanted to respond w/possible resources to someone researching the 2012 misconceptions, and I thought I'd introduce myself first.  My name is María Christina Blanco and I'm Bolivian-American, I consider myself a latina of indigenous descent, as I am mestiza (mixed European and Quechua/Aymara ancestry). I was born in the States to a white American mother and Bolivian father.  I live in Boston, MA and I'm a mom and a community health worker, and also a have-been/hope-to-go-back student working on a bachelors degree in public health.  My work/studies are about culture & community development and organizing as a resource for health (ie traditional midwifery, community health workers, stuff like that.) I believe that we as people and communities have the resources to create good health from our cultural knowledge, traditions, and power to organize for justice, and I think that to do that we need to listen and learn from each other in a respectful way that values self-determination.  I could ramble on & on and reprint my Facebook rant about latino racial identity and the census and so on but I'll spare you  :D
One resource I'd like to repost here, though, is the antiracist essay written by the white author Rev. Myke Johnson called "Wanting To Be Indian:  When Spiritual Searching Turns Into Cultural Theft,"  on google docs at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AkBP6hep78IYJ%3Awww.a2u2.org%2Fpictures%2Fpdfs%2FWabanaki+article.pdf+%22wanting+to+be+indian%22&hl=en&gl=us.  (A link posted on this forum in 2005 is no longer active.)  It really influenced me as a young adult, and maybe it would be helpful to point out to posters who are new to these issues...

[Defend the Sacred]

Welcome, María. I knew Mykel when we both lived in Boston in the eighties. I lived in JP and I think she was living in Dorchester. We all sort of shifted around among households in those neighborhoods :-)

[amorYcohetes]

Hey, cool!  I live in JP.  If you're not still here, you prob wouldn't recognize it now LOL - when rent control ended in the early 90's many of the inner city neighborhoods whose housing and development needs had been chronically ignored totally, suddenly saw a ton of luxury housing development  ::)  And then there was of course Governor Romney who sold off NAICOB's land in the early 2000's...  But anyway, I came across Rev Johnson's essay through the Women's Theological Center (now Women Transforming Communities), although we were not involved at the same time.  Interesting to learn of the connections.  Thanks for the welcome  :)

[Sparks]

One resource I'd like to repost here, though, is the antiracist essay written by the white author Rev. Myke Johnson called "Wanting To Be Indian:  When Spiritual Searching Turns Into Cultural Theft," [Dead link] (A link posted on this forum in 2005 is no longer active.)  It really influenced me as a young adult, and maybe it would be helpful to point out to posters who are new to these issues...

New link just posted in the 2005 thread: Myke Johnson's essay 'Wanting to Be Indian'.