From Indio to Mestizo... to Indio

Abstract

In September 1990 the Aymara population of La Paz triumphantly welcomed representatives of the ethnic groups of eastern Bolivia after their 35-day 700-kilometer march from Trinidad in the Department of Santa Cruz. Their strenuous March for Territory and Dignity was these groups' expression of protest against the increasing destruction of their living space. With the help of public pressure they were able to impose on the government their demands for self-determination. In May 1990 in Ecuador, thousands had responded to the call of the Confederacion de Nacionalidades Indigenas del Ecuador (Confederation of Ecuadorean Indigenous Nationalities-CONAIE) for a march on the capital that culminated in the occupation of its cathedral. In Guatemala 100,000 indigenes demonstrated in October 1991 in Quetzaltenango, which they call Xelaju. It is obvious that since the end of the 1980s Indianist and ethnic-cultural movements in Latin America have been growing and demonstrating a vitality and combativeness rarely before imagined. Anibal Quijano (1989: 45-46, 49-50) argues that for an understanding of Latin American societies it is of prime importance to recognize the significance of ethnic identities. The emergence of indigenous populations protesting against their miserable situation and social discrimination, demanding their rights, and demonstrating a new Indian self-confidence is just a small part of what has begun to happen at the social base. This article is an attempt to describe some of the essential aspects of the development of these movements in Bolivia. The indigenous movements of the eastern Bolivian lowlands, on the one hand, and the Indianist, traditionalist and campesino movements of the highlands, with their increasingly