Indigenous People

Re "Darker Side of Mission Era Emerges in Light of History," Sept. 2. The Times contradicts itself. On Page 2 of Valley / Metro is a sentimental photo piece on San Fernando Mission ("Mission Style"). I have been told by indigenous people from the San Fernando Valley that not only was the mission system brutal, genocidal and slave-oriented, it also destroyed an area that once had many lakes and great beauty. Please, enough of the despicable romantic lies about [Father Junipero]

Freed, referring to the 1954 overthrow of the government by the military, fails to mention that it was the CIA that overthrew this fledgling democracy. Its president, Jacobo Arbenz, was implementing desperately needed agrarian reform (something like 2% of the population own 70% of the land), and in 1954 that sounded too much like communism. This snuffing out of agrarian reform coupled with the continuing fight against so-called international communism has brought about the near-genocide of the Mayan people who comprise two-thirds of the Guatemalan population.

I find the statement by Autry National Center President John Gray -- "To tell everyone's story in the most respectful way, we could not have a building that referenced one particular culture or one specific time in the American West" -- rather disingenuous ["Autry Planning a Natural Look," by Mike Boehm, March 12]. He has chosen to do just that. He has chosen to tell the story of our culture, now, in this time. Gray has chosen to represent a historical era of obsequious bureaucrats offering their fawning apologia.

The Mexican Congress on Saturday overwhelmingly approved broad constitutional reforms granting autonomy and other rights to millions of indigenous people, although last-minute changes to the measure raised doubts that it will satisfy Indian rebels in Chiapas state. The lower Chamber of Deputies voted 386 to 60 in favor of the reform package three days after the Senate unanimously approved the bill.

The oldest remains of African slaves in the New World have been identified in a graveyard in Campeche, Mexico -- skeletons dating from the late 16th century, about 100 years after Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World. The use of African slaves by Spanish conquistadors has been known through writings dating from the period, but the skeletons represent the first scientific evidence confirming the practice at such an early date.

Vanessa Jimbaya became a widow at 16 when paramilitary fighters burst into her husband's compact disc store two years ago and opened fire. Four months pregnant, she decided to leave her native village of Alto Naya and trekked 12 hours down the mountain to the dusty and impoverished town of Timba. "I have never returned," Jimbaya said, holding her 20-month-old daughter, Paola Andrea. "It is not safe."

For someone who grew up ashamed of her ethnic identity, they are powerful words. "You are beautiful just as you are. Don't be afraid," Mina Sakai sings to a young, enthusiastic crowd in the language of the Ainu, the indigenous people of northern Japan. Sakai, 25, belongs to a group of young Ainu at the forefront of a revival of ethnic pride. Rebelling against a history of institutionalized discrimination, they want greater political recognition and the rescue of a culture that has nearly been wiped out by government assimilation policies and social pressure to conform.

Robby Romero learned the hard way that the adage, "write what you know," applies to musicians, too. Romero was 14 when he met Dennis Hopper in Taos. The fledgling musician took Hopper's advice to try his luck in Los Angeles and was soon opening for Paul Butterfield and hanging around with the likes of Bob Dylan, Gene Clark of the Byrds, Rick Danko of The Band amd Leonard Cohen. He also sank into drugs and drink and, very ill, went home in the early 1980s to Indian Country to clean himself out.

Re "Mauled Man May Have Been Fixing Bike," Jan. 10: Along with every other sensible person in Orange County, I am horrified by the mountain lion attacks on Mark Reynolds and Anne Hjelle in Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park. As a volunteer in Laguna Greenbelt Inc.'s wilderness parks, I know there are wild animals in the parks and respect them and their right to be there. We humans are the intruders. While I agree that the lion that attacked the bikers had to be destroyed, I am appalled by the comment of Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino that "for now, we will shoot to kill any mountain lion they encounter near the trail."