Column of the Americas Since 1994

By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezThroughout the years, to prove to government officials the indigeneity of Mexican and Central American peoples, I have had to resort to using the imagery of ancient pyramids. Unquestionably, it was the ancestors of Mexicans and Central Americans who built them – and who built them...

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Commentary, Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezIt was when I first stood atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan,Mexico in 1976 that I was finally able to grasp something my parentsfirst communicated to me when I was five years old; that my roots onthis continent are not simply Mexican, but both...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezMaria has a cargo. A sacred cargo. How do you translate that? It’s not something physical, but it is akin to a bundle.I cannot tell you what’s inside of it, but it is something greater than its contents. Some of the things are unknowable. Others have...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezPresident Barack Obama is an enigma. No one quite seems to know what he actually stands for. Most progressives saw in the election of Obama, a Nelson Mandela figure. Based on his first year in office, many are understandably disillusioned.Conversely, much of the right wing of...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezThe images from Haiti compel us to look at the mirror and ask ourselves, if we have a heart and a face? What we see compels us to ask if we are the human beings that we profess to be. The answer moves us to act....

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Connecting MLK’s words, Sheriff Arpaio’s policies & the Crisis in HaitiBy Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezHaiti is changing the way we look at life and the way we look at each other as human beings. All but the insane and the most bigoted amongst us understand that the people of Haiti...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

Beware of the new Sheriff in town; he’s actually an old coyote.He denigrates, dehumanizes and belittles; he’s an eater of flesh.pink underwear, pinstripes and ball and chains are his trademark.He’s actually an old sheriff who lives in another century, in the Wild Wild, West.This is...

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by Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezIt has been said that the march of history, particularly in the realm of human rights, is always forward. Embedded within this concept is the idea that despite tragedies and war, the human condition always progresses. Unquestionably, whoever created the expression did so long before our...

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By Roberto RodriguezThey will speak of peace and wage warThey will wage war and call it peaceThey will mercilessly wage war and be hailed as peacemakersNever in history anywhere in the world have leaders waged war not believing it to be a noble cause. And of course, wars are usually...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezMahatma Gandhi was once asked by a journalist: “What do you think of Western Civilization?”He responded: “That Would be a Good Idea?”It is not certain that Indigenous peoples in the Americas have ever been asked the same question, though the response can probably easily be surmised....

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SPECIAL LENGTH COLUMNBy Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezNovember 7 marks 30 years since I won my first police brutality trialin East L.A. in 1979. After all these years, I have now come tounderstand the meaning of resilience. Equally important, I now havecome to understand something that always eluded me; the knowledge...

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Column of the AmericasOct 23, 2009Leticia X is HumanBy Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezI’ll refer to her as Leticia X.She is undocumented but has been in this country since the age ofthree and is a top student at her high school. Yet, unless the lawchanges soon, she will be unable to...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezOver the past several months, conservatives seemingly made headway convincing a good portion of the U.S. public that Congress may not be able to produce a national health care plan that will not bust the budget – something that president Barack Obama has promised not to...

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Column of the AmericasBy Roberto RodriguezCongressman Joe “You Lie” Wilson has touched a raw nerve. Yet he may have also opened wide the proverbial Pandora’s Box regarding “illegals.” Not dealt with properly by the president and the Democratic Party, Wilson’s incivility could end up unleashing a new and more rabid...

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Column of the AmericasFear: It’s What’s Behind Door #221st Century Indian RemovalBy Roberto Rodriguez Upon arrival recently from Mexico City, after inspecting my passport, a U.S. immigration official at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport instructed me to “Please go to door number 2.”When the same thing first happened to...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez On the issue of immigration, President Obama is no Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio – the face of racial profiling. Neither is he CNN’s resident xenophobe, Lou Dobbs, whose mission in life seems to be to lead the nation into an ethnic cleansing frenzy. Yet...

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287G: Obama Opposes Yet Sanctions Racial ProfilingBy Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezIn Cambridge, Mass., a prominent African American professor getsarrested in his own home, and many conservatives – of all colors – are befuddled because they can’t seem to comprehend the outrage. More outraged is the fanatical right wing, which bristles...

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Nine years into the new millennium and conservatives and Republicans -- with straight faces – insist that it is they who should define the nation’s racial debate and that it is their views that are fair and objective and part of the U.S. mainstream. Nowhere is this fallacy more evident...

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Running for Our Lives: Victory for Ethnic StudiesArizona WatchNew America Media, CommentaryRoberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezPosted: Jul 07, 2009TUCSON -- A grueling spiritual run from Tucson to Phoenix in defense of ethnic studies—in 110-plus-degree heat—culminated in a resounding victory in front of Arizona’s state Capitol.The victory, however, had already taken place...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezArizona is the New South and the New South Africa. It is the home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio – where racial profiling is official policy. Now, Tom Horne, the state superintendent of schools, wants to eliminate ethnic studies… another form of racial profiling.Arizona is a...

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Sotomayor Falls in Journalism's Blind SpotNew America Media Commentaryby Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezPosted: Jun 02, 2009The president’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S.Supreme Court has come during a most awkward time in the history of U.S. journalism, which many analysts claim is in serious decline, ifnot on life...

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Special Length ColumnBy Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezIt is apparent that regardless of who is in power, conservative ideals are firmly entrenched not simply in the American psyche, but are an integral part of U.S. policies. One could blame liberals for not having a backbone when combating conservatives, but chances are...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezAs the Republican Party continues to be soundly rejected by the U.S. electorate at the polls, some of its leaders have decided that the Party of Lincoln needs an extreme makeover. Actually, they appear to believe that the GOP simply needs to change its image, as...

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http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/opinion/115187.php

TUCSON CITIZEN
Elders' struggle points to need for housing policy change
ROBERTO DR CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
Published: 04.25.2009

At the close of a maiz exhibit put on by my class at the University of Arizona last year, Maria Garcia, co-owner of La Indita Restaurant, addressed my students.

As she spoke about the importance of maiz to...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezPresident Obama is not to be confused with former president Bush… yet on the issue of immigration, failure to act today essentially meansthat we continue to live under BushObama policies. This holds true for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also.On April 16, this crushing news...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezWhile President Barack Obama has been reluctant to pursue legal means to prosecute possible war crimes and abuses by the Bush-Cheney administration, he has quietly and incrementally begun to undue most of its damage.The quiet part of Obama’s counter-offensive has begun with thecreation of his “peace,...

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New America Media, Commentary ...

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By Roberto Dr.  Cintli RodriguezSPECIAL LENGTH COLUMN: A condensed version of this column appears in Wednesday’s Feb 25, 2009 Tucson Citizen at: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/opinion/110866.php My mother, a healer, gave me explicit directions: Pray for Consuelo to the four directions. At that, my wife and I, along with her mother and father, Artemesia...

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Dr. Steve Casanova, Jan. 22, 2009: PresenteBy Dr. Patrisia Gonzales & Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezAfter a battle with cancer, on Jan. 22, 2009, Dr. Steve Casanova, 59, passed into spirit world. A descendant of the Canary Islands and an elder of Tap Pilam Nation (Coahuiltecan), he was born and raised...

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http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/Columns are filed either under latino and/or IndigenousMore details shortlyWill send info as to how to get newspapers to carry the column.XColumn@gmail.com...

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BY ROBERTO RODRIGUEZIn Columbus and other Cannibals, American Indian scholar, Jack Forbeswrites about a disease that afflicts the West, an illness he refers toas: soul sickness. It's the belief that God has especially chosenWesterners to bring civilization and enlightenment to the rest of theworld. While it permeates all of Western...

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BY ROBERTO RODRIGUEZObama's first challenge will not be the unresolved Middle East crisis.Nor will it be Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo or the economy. Hisprimary challenge will come in coming face to face with theBush/Cheney doctrine of permanent worldwide war. Unless Obamarenounces it on inauguration day, this doctrine will continue to beU.S....

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BY ROBERTO DR CINTLI RODRIGUEZThe President ducked two shoes in Iraq recently, just as he willinexplicably also be able to walk away from his office, without theworry of ever having to duck Nancy Pelosi's heels – without everhaving to face impeachment by a complicit Congress.The mind-boggling reason she continues...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZWhen president-elect Barack Obama is sworn in, one of his first ordersof business should be to order the cessation of the construction ofthe walls along the 2,000-mile U.S./Mexico border.One of the legacies that President George W. Bush will leave behind isa bizarre patchwork of walls that...

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BY ROBERTO RODRIGUEZElder Maria Garcia is a bundle of energy. She is small brown woman inher 70s, yet she is anything but frail. There's a lot of fire in her veins. At a hip-hop concert done on her behalf recently (sponsored by the Tucson-based Tierra y Libertad human rights oganization),...

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By Roberto Dr. Cintli RodriguezOn the spur of the moment, I decide to take part in an eight-milepilgrimage through the desert, commemorating the deaths of migrants inthe Sonoran desert. It is but a few days before the nation's historicelection, long past summer, yet it is still in the scorching 90s....

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZSen. Barack Obama's resounding victory is a generational victory. Asone friend told me, it is 400 years in the making. In that sense, thatexplains the tears and the dancing in the streets across the nationand across the suddenly very small world we live in.In this state...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZRegardless of whomever wins the presidential election, the nextpresident has to not simply reverse the unilateral military policiesof president Bush, but he also has to symbolically act to gain therespect of the community of nations.The truth is, it is not simply Bush's military policies that have...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZFor perhaps at least the past generation, the so-called immigrationdebate has been code for scapegoating and getting rid of the"wetbacks" – which of course in this country is but another code wordfor Mexicans. Anybody brown, really. It could be called the hiddennarrative, yet how hidden is...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZNot long ago, while preparing for the Law School Admission Test and while organizing against the relentless attacks against the Raza Studies Department – one day, Consuelo Aguilar woke up, barely able to speak. We all thought it was stress from studying for the test and...

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BY ROBERTO RODRIGUZRepublican Sen. John McCain – a self-described straight-shooter and an honorable man – lies. He lies often and often lies dishonorably.Sometimes he personally doesn’t do the lying, but he does not object to his underlings orchestrating a campaign based on vicious lies. But the Republicansenator does indeed do...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZSPECIAL LENGTH COLUMNThe Huehuetlatohli are ancient guidances, in this case, for the modern world we live in.In barrios across the country, only one thing tops the smell of chorizo con huevos in the morning… that is, the taste of chorizo con huevos in the morning. Chorizo...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZWhen conservatives mock, belittle, ridicule and deride a Democratic politician, this is not something that qualifies as news. Similarly, when conservatives serially prevaricate about Democrats and liberalsand their views and positions on the issues, ditto. When conservatives also do the opposite of what they preach –...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZMost journalists who work for corporate media actually do ask pertinent questions. The problem generally is their inability to follow-up with incisive questions after a politician is non-responsive, deflects a question or outright lies. As such, onquestions of war and peace, and other critical issues, mainstream...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZThere are three things regarding Sen. John McCain that are indisputable: he was a Prisoner of War for five years; he is a senator from Arizona running for president of the United States; and if he wins, he will be the oldest American ever elected to...

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By Patrisia Gonzales, Ph.D.Patzin (respect worthy medicine in Nahuatl) is a monthly feature on Indigenous medicineWe place you inside the earth, ombligito, that which connects mother and child, the first ceremonial tie of life. Nesta Geronima, your umbilical stub is your amarre to life. On a bed of rosemary and...

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BY ROBERTO RODRIGUEZHaving recently returned from a national journalism conference, I was reminded how most national mainstream journalists nowadays fail to ask the most basic of questions of powerful corporate executives or government officials. This is especially true in regards to issues of war and peace, where many journalists and...

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By Roberto RodriguezPiñata-Gate. Or the Great Piñata caper. What shall we call it?Protestors in early July beat up a piñata in Tucson in the likeness of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and all of a sudden, we are now facing the End Times.At least if Sheriff Arpaio gets his way,...

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BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZScapegoating appears to have become the U.S. national pastime. Despite the deaths of thousands of brown peoples on the border and despite the rise of draconian laws massive nationwide immigration sweeps that rip families apart, scoundrel politicians have been waging an intense psychological war that has...

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By Patrisia GonzalesPatzin, "respect-worthy medicine" in Nahuatl, is a monthly feature on Indigenous medicine.Miriam Aviles-Reyes was pulled over by Tucson police while driving brown, pregnant and without papers in December 2007. In this era where the border has been extended into city streets, the uterus of Indigenous...

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