A moving perspective on being an indigenous American today | Edyka Chilomé | TEDxTWU

this poem Ave dedicated to Berta Caceres a woman in D Hanna lenka Kim frasassi swims on her face and at dawn for her work with her town when Pachamama is at her house yesterday at 1:00 a.m. for her work against corporate greed with her solidarity with her people on this earth Berta Cáceres present a Memory the day I found out that my mother and my mother's mother earned 20 cents an hour in their lives was the same day I realized that the descendants of those who survived the worst genocide known to mankind were still expected to be enslaved slaves in a culture that would force them to live on 20 cents an hour, that is, a dollar a day, only to be called illegal immigrants the maids to clean the houses of human women who have the privilege of asking for equal pay I remember the first time I tried to kill myself I was 8 years old trying to find a place to exist between my mother's tired tears and the blue-eyed American hate it was before knowing that my net worth could increase if i straightened my hair remained silent and barely ate 10 years later i wonder if my brown body already had a price when the capitalists decided that my wild wild life was less profitable than the land they would never get to really knowing my children's children will they recognize the

indigenous

faces of their grandmothers and the appropriate patterns found on white clothing I wonder if in seven generations we will still have to sell the remaining pieces of our wounded souls to secure another Day or my kids will still be taught that their native traditions are primitive, but going back to buying their clothes from corporations like Forever 21 is somehow okay.

I wonder if Euro-Americans will continue to be guaranteed access to our cultures and ancient temple lands without connecting them to displaced and exploited brown hands. you cook i wonder if in seven generations my descendants will look down at their brown skin and ancient eyes and remember that they are children of maya who remove the earth and sow the seeds honored the water and protected the tree born from the breath of healers and dreams children of spiritual warriors who fought for life to be free I wonder if their lives will continue to be defined by numbers and their bodies they are migrant bodies they will continue to be detained enslaved and wanted by millions in the name of liberal progress and freedom I wonder if

being

equal to their competitors in this nihilistic game will only force them to be so vain and forget forget to look at the vast horizon the sun in the sky and the beauty that lies in the wounds of our grandmother's memories I wonder thank you