Guess I’m just not on the radar at The New York Times. The latest of my unpublished letters to The Times:
To the Editor:
I was not surprised to learn that the people of Cheran in western Mexico expelled police, federal authorities and timber-thieving drug cartel thugs from their town in the mountains of Michoacan state. (“Reclaiming the Forests and the Right to Feel Safe,” Aug. 3, 2012) The people identified in the article as “indigenous” actually belong to the Tarascan, aka Purepecha, ethnic and linguistic group. While it is not incorrect to describe them as “indigenous,” to understand their politics, it helps to know more exactly who they are.
Tarascans’ history of independence goes back to pre-Hispanic times, when they successfully warred against their archenemies, the Aztecs. When Cortes arrived in 1519, the Tarascans had their own state independent of the Aztecs. The Tarascan language is a linguistic isolate, with no known link to any other language. Nearly five centuries after the Spanish Conquest, Tarascans still identify as Tarascans. In Cheran, an 8,000-watt radio station broadcasts in Tarascan to some 150,000 Tarascan speakers in western Mexico.
Early on, colonial Spanish administrators considered the Tarascans difficult. In colonial times, there were insurrections. In the 19th century, a chief instigator of the War of Independence from Spain was Father Jose Maria Morelos, part Tarascan. My studies of colonial church archives show that Tarascans preserved pre-Hispanic institutions despite Catholic efforts to suppress them.
Joel Thurtell
Plymouth, Mich.
August 5, 2012
The writer, author of Up the Rouge! (Wayne State University Press, 2009) is researching cultural change among colonial Tarascans.
