Latin American Identity

Global identity politics rest heavily on notions of ethnicity and authenticity, especially in contexts where indigenous identity becomes a basis for claims of social and economic justice. In contemporary Latin America there is a resurgence of indigenous claims for cultural and political autonomy and for the benefits of economic development. Yet these identities have often been taken for granted.

In this historical ethnography, Baron Pineda traces the history of the port town of Bilwi, now known officially as Puerto Cabezas, on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua to explore the development, transformation, and function of racial categories in this region. From the English colonial period, through the Sandinista conflict of the 1980s, to the aftermath of the Contra War, Pineda shows how powerful outsiders, as well as Nicaraguans, have made efforts to influence notions about African and Black identity among the Miskito Indians, Afro-Nicaraguan Creoles, and Mestizos in the region. In the process, he provides insight into the causes and meaning of social movements and political turmoil. Also includes important critical analysis of the role of anthropologists and other North American scholars in the Contra-Sandinista conflict, as well as the ways these scholars have defined ethnic identities in Latin America.

As the indigenous people of the Mosquito Coast continue to negotiate the effects of a long history of contested ethnic and racial identity, this book takes an important step in questioning the origins, legitimacy, and consequences of such claims.

Also, the agro- industry played major roles to create tension in the society, which lead to increase the gap among the people. The multi- race community mad put the indigenous in complicated position to be

recognized.
This is go back to colonizing era, when the Spanish and portages created new social structural system in Latin America. In this new structural of the community the indigenous where at the bottom level.
The colonizers brought labors from overseas in form of salvers, which created multi- cultural society. Post colonialism, it was the rise of identifies movements. Indigenous tried to gain more political, cultural, ethnical recognitions. The ideology of casteno’s played important role in term of race, cultural, and progress as a preparing for revaluation during Cabezas’s period.
In the new Nicaragua, the Indian, Afro- Caribbean race was conceder as obstacle toward nation development. Black and Indian were in critical situation. They have been discriminated by local Nicaraguans and at governmental levels. Politically, racial ideology used as language to explain the nationality and civilization in the country.
All theses factors and complication of mixed identity created unstable country not only at the social level, but economical and political. This instability is representing a direct threat to the country at all levels.