We are still here

Nojua ti itstokej

Láayli' yano'on waye'

Laanu nuurunu rarí’

Kaypiraqmi kachkaniku

Jiwasax wali akanktanwa

Ñaime gueteri ko’ápe

Despite centuries of colonization, repression, attempts of assimilation, destruction of material culture, persecution of individuals and censorship of language, traditional customs, practices, ways of life, cosmology and knowledge, in favor of imposing a version of christianity promoted by colonial authorities, many of the indigenous peoples from Abya Yala / Turtle island (the American continent) still exist to this day, throughout their ancestral land.

Not simply collectively, not only in reservations, and not homogeneously, indigenous peoples both resist and somehow thrive in a territory mostly overrun by colonial mentality, severed from any connection with history, in which the living memory reinvents itself in the life of every indigenous individual and those who keep the fires alive through the study and promotion of a truly decolonial education. And despite sharing a chapter of recent history that's rooted in resistance against colonial oppression, the indigenous cultures, languages, and naturally, individuals, are diverse, not stereotypes nor defined by generational trauma. For many different pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures, the gods weren't simply a political tool for tribal identification, or an attempt to explain different aspects of the universe, but actual ancestors whose deeds echo for generations, in metaphor, myth, but also memory. Many of these gods and their stories are retold today, as if they're among us still, despite the imposition of christian cults and the persecution of native languages & customs.

"We Are Still Here" is an accurately recurring phrase for the indigenous peoples of today, whom the states and colonial narratives have tried, for centuries, to depict as defeated or assimilated (or merged into later identities such as "latino", "hispanic", "american" which are often used to erase their actual roots - Nahua, Maya, Ñuù Dzahui, Hñahñù, Purépecha, Kichwa, Aymará, Awá, Mapuche, among many others).

The future is indigenous. Or else, there's no future at all.

Mixed media illustration (ink drawing on paper + digital painting) by Zamahel, 2023. Minted in 2026.