Sangre Indigena Artist Collaboration
“Im just trying to go back, go back to my roots”
An interview and collaboration with Sangre Indigena artist, Jose Flores.
For artist and activist Jose Flores, art is a channel for him to reconnect with his Indigenous Guatemalan heritage. He is a big-tech employee by day, but his artwork and the activism that comes along with it are what “really fulfill his heart.”
Jose grew up in New York, surrounded by populations that identified as Hispanic and/or Latinx but with much less awareness of the Indigenous identity. Growing up, he remembered, “my mom has a very native last name, but we never considered ourselves native and I never kind of understood why, and it’s because you have to almost shed some of that culture to get ahead.” In Guatemala, colorism, racism, and discrimination towards Indigenous populations are commonplace, and Central American immigrants did not leave those sentiments behind when crossing the border.
Jose has critically looked at not just the previous lack of Indigenous pride in his own early life, but how and why this discrimination has come to be. He explains, “When you’re doing a lot of this work of reconnecting to Indigenous roots, especially people of Maya descent, the information that you find is archeology, it’s ancient, and that information has been colonized in a sense because scholars don’t pay attention to the oral tradition of Indigenous people.”
He notes the importance of language and word choice and often uses quotations to highlight the nuanced variances between often-misused words such as Hispanic and Latinx. He explains, “When you do your history & research, you come to understand that words have a lot of weight, and sometimes they’re purposely chosen, so, for example, Hispanic really comes from Hispanic, the Iberian peninsula, and we were labeled that because we were colonized by the Hispanics.” He acknowledges that when you speak on the importance of word choice it’s easy for people to categorize you as “just a liberal” or a “negative Nancy,” but it’s “important because it’s done a lot of mental and psychological effects on people.”
The lack of a genuine Indigenous voice in many chapters of history has lead to the erasure and inequity we see today. One of Jose’s most recent artistic efforts is fighting a proposed project that would take over sacred Mayan grounds.
More than 2,000 years old, El Mirador is a network of temples that were ceremonial centers built for sacred practice. However, more recently, archeologist Richard Hansen and his supporters have attempted to gain control over the territory to convert it to a tourist attraction, including a hotel and electrical train ride through the ruins (Vice News 2020). Hansen’s proposal, which would be funded by a $60 million US Bill backed by several Republican senators involved in security and tourism development, has been denounced by Guatemalan archeologists, conservationists, and public officials (nacla 2020). The bill contains multiple factual errors identified by the academic community and would eliminate the existing concession system that allows Indigenous people to live off of the forest in exchange for guarding it against loggers and drug traffickers. Hansen’s proposal disregards the best interest of Indigenous people that have lived on the land for centuries, and “many Guatemalan archeologists reject Hansen’s findings and accuse him of racism” (nacla 2020).
Jose’s design is a project to bring both fundraising and awareness to the situation, with the goal of keeping the rights of the sacred lands in the hands of its original inhabitants.
At Highland Support Project, our goal is to support Indigenous people to stay on their land, with their community, and in their culture. We’ve loved collaborating with and learning from Jose as we work towards these goals together.
Jose Flores has also been generous enough to design the brand-new print below just for Highland Support Project. All proceeds from sales will go towards our emergency Hurricane Eta relief.
In this piece Sara Curruchich, Maya Kaqchikel Singer holds a bundle of corn. The corn are pictured in their four different colors and are wrapped in textile with the ancient Maya glyphs of the four directions. These four colors symbolize and corresponds to the four Directions, Four Elements, Four seasons, Four Colors of Corn, Four Races of Humans on the Earth.