Tlapalli in iquin onitlacat: in tlateomatiliztli de tlalnamiquiliztli ; When I was born Red: the Ceremony of Remembering
2014 Summer. ; Research analysis within American Indian Studies establishes social change practices concentrating on American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian communities--Indigenous communities recognized by the United States Government. Chican@ Studies inquiry locates a similar approach to scholarship, except social change becomes strategized in reference to Latina/o communities; more specifically, Mexican-American communities. In the American Southwest, Xikan@ racial representation is observed by outside Indigeneities as Indigenous to North America. However Xikan@ ethnic representation is scrutinized due to its palimpsest features--a counterbalance to Spanish, Mexican, and American colonization. The purpose of this study is to identify a Xikan@ Indigenous identity and determine the factors that situate othered or sub altern Indigenous identities in the peripheries of Indigeneity. As exemplified through auto-ethnography and traditional storywork, the creation of a Xikan@ methodological approach can articulate the need to maintain hemispheric approaches to Indigeneity, while respecting the uniqueness of local epistemologies such as Xikan@ Traditional Knowledge (XIK).