OCHOA-WINEMILLER

RACIALISM, DRUGS EDITION & MIGRATION CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN AND THE RACIALISM, DRUGS Racialism, Drugs, and Migration: Contemporary Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean provides students with a collection of curated readings that focus on modern challenges within these regions.

The anthology is divided into three distinct sections. Section I features a RACIALISM, DRUGS, & MIGRATION focus on ethnicity and racialism, with readings that address the nationalization of ethnicity, Black politics in Latin America, Mexico’s indigenous resistance to globalization, and the myth of racial democracy & MIGRATION in Brazil. In Section II, students read articles about the history, production, and trade of drugs within Latin America, as well as the effects of the War on Drugs on Latin American females and the CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN environment. Section III speaks to issues related to migration and transnationalism, including the migration of indentured Indians from to the Caribbean, return migration to the Caribbean, issues related to poverty and inequality in Mexico, and more.

Designed to encourage discussion, critical thinking, and reflection, Racialism, Drugs, and Migration is an ideal resource for courses in ethnic and cultural studies.

Virginia Ochoa-Winemiller is a professor of La�n American, Caribbean, and U.S. La�no studies at New Jersey City University. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Louisiana State University. As both an archaeologist and cultural geographer, Dr. Ochoa-Winemiller has conducted research in La�n America including several places in the Yucatan Peninsula, , and Honduras. Her research interests include spa�al analysis, geographic informa�on systems, ethnic and food geography, ethnoarchaeology, po�ery analysis and produc�on, prehistoric households and domes�city, se�lement pa�erns, social stra�fica�on, and origins of urbaniza�on in Middle America.

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EDITED BY SKU 83008-1B Virginia Ochoa-Winemiller, Ph.D. Racialism, Drugs, and Migration

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

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Edited by Virginia Ochoa-Winemiller, PhD

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3970 Sorrento Valley Blvd., Ste. 500, San Diego, CA 92121 Contents

Introduction vii

SECTION I

Ethnicity and Racialism 1

Reading 1.1 Regenerating the Race: Race, Class, and the Nationalization of Ethnicity 3 Greg Grandin

Reading 1.2 B lack Politics in Latin America: An Analysis of National and Transnational Politics 35 Ollie A. Johnson III

Reading 1.3 Indigenous Mexico: Globalization and Resistance 59 Thomas D. Hall, James V. Fenelon, and Glen David Kuecker

Reading 1.4 The Myth of Racial Democracy in Brazil: Constructing New Ethnic Spaces for Afro-Brazilians 87 Emily Jullié

SECTION II

Drugs: History, Production, and Trade in Latin America 101

Reading 2.1 Coca: The Leaf at the Center of the War on Drugs 103 Caroline S. Conzelman, Coletta A. Youngers, Jim Shultz, Caitlin Esch, Leny Olivera, and Linda Farthing

Reading 2.2 Latinas and the War on Drugs in the United States, Latin America, and Europe 131 Juanita Díaz-Cotto Reading 2.3 The War on Drugs in Colombia: The Environment, the Treadmill of Destruction and Risk-Transfer Militarism 149 Chad L. Smith, Gregory Hooks, and Michael Lengefeld

Reading 2.4 U S and Mexican Cooperation: The Merida Initiative and Drug Trafficking 173 Yasemin Tekin

SECTION III

Issues in Latin America: Migration and Transnationalism 187

Reading 3.1 From Tainos to Africans in the Caribbean: Labor, Migration, and Resistance 189 Jalil Sued-Badillo

Reading 3.2 The Migration of Indentured Indians from India to the Caribbean 205 Lomarsh Roopnarine

Reading 3.3 R eturn Migration to the Caribbean: Locating the Concept in Historical Space 223 Dennis A.V. Brown

Reading 3.4 Migration vs. Development? The Case of Poverty and Inequality in Mexico 239 Agustín Escobar Latapi Introduction

As regions, both Latin America and the Caribbean have historically overcome many social, political, and economic issues that transformed their countries and people (See Figures 0.1 and 0.2). A multidisciplinary approach is needed to contextualize and critically reflect on the internal impact of these problems and the role that the global community has played in generating and/or resolving some of them. Nevertheless, the origins, complexity, and overarching effects of many of these issues have remained largely misunderstood. This anthology aims to provide an overview of three topics critical to historical and modern Latin America and the Caribbean: racialism, drug-re- lated activities, and migration. An overview of both ethnicity and race is critically important to understanding mul- ticulturalism, creolization, cultural hybridity, representation, identity, and population mobility in both Latin America and the Caribbean. Usually perceived as mixed and spared from racial and ethnic conflict, instead these regions had a conflicting history of contentious policies and cultural attitudes that contextualize current cultural and social changes as well as population mobility. European conquest and colonization introduced the ideology and politics of race or racialism to the . and peonage became the conducive agents to control a Native and African population already devastated by war, disease, and relocation. Those who could not flee resisted by selectively incorporating the new and the old to create a hybrid cultural landscape that has managed to preserve many African and Native cultural traits. As such, cultural resistance was the force challenging oppression and the aftershocks of the European enterprise of colonization. After independence, the political agenda of nation-building aimed toward homogeneity. New identities such as , Ladino, and Creole emerged as the preferred means of representation of a mainly mixed but whitened urbanite population. Indio, , and Mulato became othering categories for an impoverished and uneducated population singled out by skin color, an outdated Native culture and lifestyle, and the burden of servitude. Although slavery had ended and the state rec- ognized the rights of Natives and Africans, racism and discrimination still prevailed. In modern times, descendants of both Natives and Africans have been constitutionally recognized as minorities with cultural and, in most cases, land and resources rights. At the same time, economic neoliberalism and pseudo-democratic political ideologies

vii viii | Racialism, Drugs, and Migration The Caribbean Region FIGURE 0.1 Introduction | ix The Latin American Region FIGURE 0.2 x | Racialism, Drugs, and Migration

in Latin America and the Caribbean continued to highlight the need to integrate these minority groups and merge them with the state national identity. For the most part, the success of this state-supported nationalistic agenda has been based on the overall rejection of Garifuna, Maya, and Nahuatl ethnic identities and subsequent replacement with “mestizo” national labels such as Belizean, Guatemalan, or Mexican. Furthermore, the unrelenting forces of globalization have accelerated culture change, threatening the preservation and authenticity of Native and African legacies that, along with revamped forms of racialism, are leading to current waves of casual and covert racism, culture appropriation, land and resource seizures, ethnocide, and genocide. Latin America is a crucial geographic zone for drug production and trafficking. The Andean countries of Colombia, , and Bolivia are the world’s main cocaine producers, while Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean have become the prin- cipal corridors for transporting drugs into the United States and Europe. As a result, the countries of the region have suffered various consequences of drug trafficking and U.S.-led eradication and interdiction efforts commonly known as the War on Drugs. The failure of the War on Drugs program has been evident by its inability to suppress both the supply and demand of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines. Drug production and trafficking areas have led to an upsurge of violence, corruption, impunity, erosion of rule of law, and human rights violations caused by the emergence of powerful organized crime groups and drug cartels. As a result, more than 60,000 people have died in Mexico in prohibition-related violence since 2006 (Krache, 2013). Today, drug-related violence is one of the main push factors driving migrants from Central America to Mexico and the United States. In the last 30 years, Latin America has transitioned from an immigrant to an emi- grant region. Most of these migrants come to the United States, but the direction is slowly changing to include Europe and as new destinations for the migrant flow. Today, Latin American immigrants represent about 53% of the 38 million foreign-born residents in the United States (Passel & Cohn, 2009). Historically, the demand for low- wage labor in the United States has been a constant force driving migrants searching for economic opportunity. However, the composition of Latin American and Caribbean migration is changing rapidly to include a more diverse population in terms of gender, education, skills, and socioeconomic status. Another persistent issue in immigration continues to be the integration of the migrant population into dominant U.S. soci- ety. Historically, policies, opportunities, and barriers to successfully integrate Latino migrants have been shaped by factors such as economic depression, the war on drugs, and terrorism. In recent times, public opinion polls, the media, and academic studies continue to indicate a rise of discontent and intolerance toward Latino and Caribbean migrants in the United States. Driven by economic depression, social anxiety, and a xenophobic political rhetoric infused with threats of deportation, immigration is at the center of an increasingly hostile sociopolitical climate and must be examined to assess its impact for past and future immigrant generations and to understand the Introduction | xi

opportunities and barriers associated with the successful integration of Latin Ameri- can immigrants into U.S. society. This anthology aims to contribute to the discussion of racialism, drug-related activ- ities, and migration issues in Latin America and the Caribbean, both in and outside the classroom. The underlying principle behind the selection of readings and their organization is the inclusion of multiple disciplinary approaches and voices to the cur- rent debates surrounding these regional and global issues. By incorporating multiple voices, the goal is to encourage civil discussion, critical thinking, and reflection rather than rote memorization. To aid the reader’s exploration of this textbook, readings are organized by topic, with each section including pedagogical tools such as keywords, topic-related questions, and additional suggested readings to follow up on the topic.

REFERENCES

Krache, M., (2013) Think again: Mexican drug cartels. Foreign Policy, 203: 30–33. Passel, J., & Cohn, D. (2009, April 14). A portrait of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2009/04/14/a- portrait-of-unauthorized-immigrants-in-the-united-states/ s e c t i o n i

Ethnicity and Racialism

L atin America and the Caribbean are regions shaped by ethnic and racial conflict. Throughout their history, indigenous and Afro Latin American pop- ulations had been the target of racialized politics and discriminatory attitudes from Ladino elites concerned with building homogenous and progressive nations. Ladino and Mestizo elites argued that, for the most part, indigenous and Afro-Latin Americans’ attempts to become autonomous nations in full control of their resources and economic future have only fueled violent upris- ings and the fragmentation of the nation-building plan. Instead, these groups were encouraged to discard their ethnic and racial identities and fully embrace the state-sponsored national character. Today, the outcome of such efforts is the prevalence of issues related to identity, self-representation, and visibility among the Native and Afro-Latin American population. The readings in this section present a sequential overview of several aspects of ethnicity and racialism by focusing on examples from Guatemala, Mexico, and Brazil. Readers will learn about the role of ethnic and racial identity in increasing political visibility and the development of both local and global social movements. Grandin’s (2000) article discusses the role that political and economic alliances between the Maya K’iche elites and the Ladino population played in the formation of the modern Guatemalan nation and identity. The Maya views on race and nation were incompatible with the Ladino notions of assimilation and progress, leading to violence and genocide since the 1950s. Johnson III (2007) focuses on identity and visibility as two relevant issues that Afro-Latin Americans must face in politics. The lack of neutrality in state

1 2 | Racialism, Drugs, and Migration

census has limited societal representation of Blacks, hindering their political partic- ipation and ability to improve socioeconomic conditions. Focusing on the Zapatista movement, Kueker (2009) addresses Mexico’s racialism issues and indigenous social movements resulting from their participation on a global economy. The rise in 1994 of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), a Maya indigenous movement aiming to resist and neoliberal economic reforms from the Western world, is presented as an example of the struggles that these groups still face today. Triggered by the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the EZLN perceived the treaty as an “assault” to indigenous customary tradition of communal land tenure—a neoliberal death sentence to their way of life. Julie’s (2012) article is the last in this section, addressing the myth of Brazil as a racial democracy, an invented tradition designed to incorporate Afro-Brazilians into White public space. Under this tradition, Samba and Carnival became politically correct mnemonic devices of her- itage and Brasilidade. Nevertheless, the myth failed and Brazil turned into a racial hierarchy riddled with prejudice and racism and where identity became a subjective self-assessment.

KEYWORDS

Africans, Afro Latinos, autonomy, Black women’s network, Brazil, Carnival, castas, comunidades indigenas, Congresses of Black culture, , Ecuador, ethnicity, EZLN, Guatemala, global south, indigeneity, Indios, informal racial discrimination, K’iche, macehualization, Maya, , Mexico, , Mulatos, national identity, naturalization, patronage, political activism, poverty, race, racial categories, racialism, racial democracy myth, racial hierarchy, racial quotas, Samba, scientific racism, social inequality, transnational advocacy networks, violence, VisBrasil, White supremacy, Zapatista movement. s e c t i o n i i

Drugs: History, Production, and Trade in Latin America

I n prehistoric times, plants native to Latin America such as ayahuasca, coca leaves, peyote, and psilocybin mushrooms were considered sacred with multi- ple religious and medicinal uses. The hallucinogenic properties of these plants were significant to the performance of rituals, divination, and healing sessions. Access to these hallucinogenic drugs was mostly limited to priests and sha- mans. In the 15th century, the arrival of European Christianity changed the perception of these plants and led to the disregarding of their ritual function and healing properties—instead transforming them into illegal substances associated with demonic rites. Nonetheless, European colonizers incorporated these hallucinogenic plants into their repertoire of recreational drugs along with Old World drugs such as cannabis and novel to the New World. In 1860, Albert Neiman first isolated cocaine, the main psychoactive alkaloid, from coca leaves. Though initially used as a medical local anesthetic, cocaine’s recreational popularity changed it into a global commodity by the 20th century (Conzelman et al., 2008, pp. 182–186). Cocaine, cannabis, opiates, opioids, and amphetamine-type stimulants have become global commodities in the inter- national market of illicit substances. Today, Latin America and the Caribbean are considered major illicit drug producers and drug-transit regions in the world (International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 2018, p. 5). The readings in Section II provide a holistic understanding of the history, environmental impact, biases inherent, and ensuing sociocultural impact of the production and trade of illicit drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Conzelman et al. (2008) briefly discuss the history of the coca leaf and its

101 102 | Racialism, Drugs, and Migration

transformation from a traditional symbol of indigenous heritage to an illegal drug and global commodity in Bolivia. Diaz-Cotto (2005) examines how gender, ethnic, and racial biases inherent to the criminal justice system are directly contributing to the increasing number of Latinas’ drug-related arrests and incarceration in Latin America and the United States. The negative environmental impact of illicit drugs production and the “War on Drugs” military strategies aimed to deter it are the subject of Smith, Hooks, and Lengefeld’s (2014) reading. Finally, Tekin’s (2015) article provides an over- view of the Merida Initiative, a Mexico–United States counterdrug policy designed to curtail the drug-related violence and instability in Mexico and Central America.

REFERENCES

Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. (2018).International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. Volume 1. Washington DC: United States Department of State. Conzelman, C. S., Youngers, C. A., Shultz, J., Esch, C., Olivera, L., & Farthing, L. (2008). Coca: The leaf at the center of the War on Drugs. In J. Schultz & M. C. Draper (eds.), Dignity and defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s challenge to globalization, pp. 181–210. Berkeley: University of California Press.

KEYWORDS

Aymara, Bolivia, bright value, cartels, climate change, coca leaf, cocaine, Colombia, commodification, corruption, counterdrug policy, courier, dark value, drug offenses, drug trafficking organizations, ecological damage, ethnicity, Europe, financing of vio- lence, gender, global drug market, herbicides, heroin, insecurity, Latinas, mandatory sentencing laws, military initiative, marihuana, Merida Initiative, methamphet- amine, Mexico, Plan Colombia, racism, risk-transfer militarism, smuggling routes, transnational crime, treadmill of destruction, trueque, United States, War on Drugs, water pollution. s e c t i o n i i i

Issues in Latin America: Migration and Transnationalism

L atin American and Caribbean migrants have become a recurrent topic of today’s political discourse. Nevertheless, few understand the push-pull factors involved in the process of migration and the sociocultural effects of transna- tional migrants when returning to their homelands. The earliest migrations to Latin America can be traced to around 20,000 years ago with dates and migra- tory flows still being debated as the archaeological record is updated with new findings. The inhabitants of the Caribbean region arrived in multiple waves around 7,000 years ago, departing mostly from the rimland area of Latin Amer- ica. In the 15th century, the arrival of European colonizers prompted native migratory flows resulting from famine, diseases, the system, forced labor, and religious persecution. Dwindling native populations led to the subsequent forced migration of African slaves and afterward of Indian indentured laborers in the early 20th century. As a result, the multicultural makeup of Latin American and Caribbean populations was transformed by the influx of a myriad of migrants from , Asia, and Europe to these regions. In modern times, the direction of Latin American and Caribbean migratory flows echoes the geography of political and military struggles, racial and ethnic discrimination, religious persecution, economic inequality, and drug-related conflicts pushing local rural populations searching for safety and opportunity into urban areas or international destinations. In recent times, an influx of migrants from underdeveloped countries is driving the increase of policies, fueled by and extreme nationalism, aimed to reduce the migra- tory flow to developed countries such as the United States. Examples of these

187 188 | Racialism, Drugs, and Migration

policies include the establishment and subsequent overpopulation of temporary migra- tory camps alongside borders, the parent-children separation at these camps, a surge of deportations, increased funding to expand border walls and resources, rising fees for applications required to legally migrate, and a decrease of approvals for those legally seeking asylum and refugees, as well as for higher-educated workers, to mention some. In particular, undocumented migrants have been the most affected, facing a more dangerous and costly path ridden with crime gangs, diseases, and xenophobia before arriving to the border of their final destination. Section III gives readers an understanding of the push factors and historical strug- gles that continue to trouble Latin American and Caribbean immigrants, emigrants, and transnational migrants to these regions. Sued-Badillo’s (2011) article provides a brief history of the Caribbean Taíno who, as the native population, struggled along with the African slaves to survive and resist the European colonization of the region. The indentured Indian migration to the Caribbean and rimland area of Latin America is the subject of Roopnarine’s (2018) reading. In this article, the author discusses the nature of the migrant population, the reasons behind their recruitment into inden- tured labor, and the perils of the sea voyage from India to the Caribbean. Return migration to the Caribbean and its transnational impact are the subjects of Brown’s (2006) article. Transnationalism, as defined by Basch et al. refers to “a process by which migrants, through their daily life activities create social fields that cross national boundaries” (1994, p. 8). Latapi’s (2012) reading focuses on the relationship between poverty and migration among Mexican migrants. The low impact that remittances have to reduce income inequality of the poor and the cost of lost labor to Mexico are some of the high points of Latipi’s discussion.

REFERENCES

Basch, L. N., Schiller, G., & Szanton-Blanc, C. (1994). Nations unbound: Transnational projects and the deterritorialized nation-state. New : Gordon and Breach.

KEYWORDS

Amerindian slavery, Antilles, Arawak, Borinquén, caciques, Caribbean, Caribs, caste defilement, chiefdom, Cimarrones, conucos, Coolie, cultural vector, encomienda, gold mining, Haiti-Quisqueya, indentured laborers, India, inequality, , ladino slaves, Mexico, migration, , poverty, , push-pull model, quinto real, remittances, return migration, sugar, , Tainos, , zamindari.