Importance Of Our Cultural Identity

Importance of our cultural identity

Introduction

Thus, the hard course of our history as a country free of colonial ties faces us to a terrible reality where they begin to cook ideas intertwined with their own issues but clearly dominated by a spirit still emanating from the way to work in the past, with classes and classes and Castes, with division between those who felt almost pure descendants of Europeans and those who dominated power for many years and who saw with contempt everything that meant traditions of the original peoples and much less than the descendants of these peoples.

Even with independence, our "indigenous" peoples would continue to be seen as something that was not wanted and that it would be preferable to forget or not take into account. Except for those traditions emanating from these cultures that either resisted disappearing or that were necessary to conserve for serving as a means of domination.

Thus, after many gestation processes, the Nation as such arises until the second half of the nineteenth century and it is then that they begin to rediscover the vestiges of local ancestral cultures and they are tried to give importance to achieve identity and national union surrounding them, but always under the tutelage of the State and serving more to political interests than for a claim of them and much less give them a relevant positioning within state public policies.

All of the above has generated today’s Mexico, the Mexico that is proud of its native past but that refuses at the time of integrating these cultures and their peoples as the same.

It really feels proud of syncretism created by years of domination and cultural imposition and original cultures or traditions that for various reasons managed to survive.

Developing

The importance of conserving our cultural identity 

Before talking about indigenous cultural identity we must start that the concept of culture can be understood as a logically structured set of habits, customs, knowledge, traditions, guidelines and norms of socially inherited behavior through time to adapt to a specific society. And within this concept we can distinguish it in various manifestations such as descriptive, historical, regulations, psychological, genetics and structural culture.

From the above we must understand that the components of it is the culture itself that allows us the type of food, behavior guidelines, type of housing, art; derived from habits, customs, knowledge, traditions, etc. of each original town.

These two elements are the basis for the construction of their own cultural identity, those that allow us to identify ourselves as an integral part of a social conglomerate, of a people, of a nation, but the most important thing is that this themselves generate in us feelings of identification and respect towards the community of which we are part.

The two main factors or components that define the identity of a people, whether cultural or general Hereditary factors intervene, and quite a lot, in many complex behaviors, including cognitive abilities, personality and psychopathologies.

 On the other hand there are social factors, which are the ones that largely determine the identity of the peoples, such as the values ​​that determine their way of being and guide their behavior that involve feelings and emotions; the traditions that can be defined as the agreements that a community considers to be constituted as an integral part of its uses and customs.

 Tradition is usually generically about knowledge and also on selected socio-cultural principles or foundations, which, considering them especially valuable or successful They consolidate. The symbols understood as the perceptible representation of an idea, with traits associated by a socially accepted convention. 

It is a sign without similarity or contiguity, which only has a conventional link between its signifier and its denoted, in addition to an intentional class for its designated; the beliefs that is the state of the mind in which an individual involves the knowledge or experience he has about an event or thing; When objective, the content of the belief presents a logical proposition, and can be expressed through a linguistic statement as a statement; behaviors, environment, etc.

Cultural identity is integrated by our way of dressing, speaking, acting, feeding, our homes as we said before. But it is also determined by external factors that in the case of our country and region have mainly due to the colonization and domination of a colonial power of the past. This domination can be total or partial, in the case of our country it was almost total and meant a clash between two cultures La Mesoamericana and the Spanish.

 That point represented a blockade of the natural historical development of the original peoples. To this we must add the acculturation arising from exchanges, loans and convergences with other cultures of the region or the world. Finally, but not least, it is the aspect of diffusion, this has to do with the way in which one culture has been disseminated on another or the conjunction of others on the originals giving them greater emphasis when positioning them in the collective imaginary.

To more clearly understand this aspect of domination on the original cultural identity of the Mexican people we must understand that this practice was based on a technique of affirmation, values, traditions, ordinances, etc. of the Spanish culture about the indigenous, to achieve this were based on the denial of its ancestral history to be able to destroy indigenous cultural identity. 

For this, two fundamental elements had the Castilianization, which was nothing more than end He learned they were relegated; And on the other hand, perhaps the strongest weapon of the conquest and domain, the evangelization that practically meant the destruction of indigenous culture, ending its beliefs in terms of deities and imposing something new and as its way of life was environment To his religion he broke the fundamental foundations of these societies.

This type of political and cultural domination of the colony unleashed that this new society in formation was divided, on the one hand the Spanish colonial elite and the native bourgeoisie where the first one was clear about its cultural concepts and the second that was trapped between the past and its Present, which appeared as something they should aspire to, but they wanted. 

And finally the popular masses, who resisted changing their customs, uses and traditions, but something equal to or greater to the processes of Castilianization and Evangelization would reach: miscegenation: miscegenation. However, the latter, the popular masses, found a way to somehow preserve certain elements of their ancestral culture through syncretism as a survival strategy. This is the combination of elements of both cultures without the dominator understanding the meaning they really had for the dominated people.

Thus, with the passing of the times or years, many years, the problem of national culture in our country has had a complex course and with concepts or ideas in some cases even contradictory such as wanting to rescue the past but suppress the indigenous or to the original peoples through the predominant idea that we are a mestizo nation and that the only culture emanates from this crossing.

Ideas around the original peoples have also emerged and what to do with all this, such as incorporationism, which is nothing other than losing their identity and joining that mestizo Mexico forgetting their roots. On the other hand there are those who oppose it and advocate the conservation of these cultures by integrating them as equals but without a well -defined plan for it. And there are also those who see them as something that must exist and it is good to keep but without being integrated into society as the same.

In a country where the national unity prevails or wanted to prevail as something glorious to have such a rich and clear past sample is the official language, but in addition, in many cases, indigenous peoples are seen as rest of the past, as Lastres or obstacles to development. Education in our country is a clear example of cultural contradictions where the same prevails, the native but without recognizing the importance of those who created it and more emphasis is placed on our history and culture from independent Mexico. Nor have educational programs for indigenous peoples be designed in their original language, saved some cases.

It must be said that in our country there is discrimination, but it is not just the color of the skin, it is a discrimination of classes that takes a greater singularity in the treatment given to the indigenous people by those who do not They are either by those who forget that part of their historical past but above all family has origin in indigenous families. The worst thing that happens is that many of the natives when they advance in their studies, especially when they study professional careers, want to forget or deny their roots perhaps as a survival measure and not be socially relegated. 

Although there are also cases of original surname changes in the Mayan language for its equivalent in Spanish, an example becomes a star. But not everything is lost, many of those who have the opportunity to have a better education have gone from rejection of their origin to acceptance and of course to the pride of their roots.

conclusion

The keyword is the first acceptance of the original peoples themselves, of their descendants; Also by Mexican society, that they are an integral part of our country without the need to change them and if they value them increasing the real pride for our culture without putting labels or asking them to cease to be indigenous to be Mexican, that is segregation and discrimination in addition to be denial of all of us.

We must be convinced that we live in an interculturality, in great cultural diversity and that we must learn from this to move forward, to develop but always based on the elements that make us strong and unite us, we must stop talking about indigenous rights must be rights Of the Mexicans, because that as I said is to put them as different, we are all equal and respect them as any other person is respected, much less persecute them or remove their lands, their arts, their languages.

The above has to be accompanied by clear public policies around the issue and not be a populist instrument to achieve government or political objectives, with a process of integration and acceptance without this meaning the loss of its culture but quite the opposite of the axis where this country is based to find the greatness that these peoples ever achieved. The rescue and conservation of our indigenous cultural identity begins with the recognition of the equality of all Mexicans and leaving aside classifications or stratifications and this must be the true basis of national identity.