AWASQA

  • Medellín Is Also Black

    Medellín Is Also Black

    Colombia, 2026. Medellín is a place that has inspired songs such as “Me voy para Medellín” by El Combo de las Estrellas, “Medellín” by Madonna, and even “Medallo City” by Maluma, all of which praise its natural beauty, culture, and nightlife. However, the fantasy conveyed by the international music industry disappears just a few streets…

  • Mural de persona afrocolombiana escuchando una caracola

    Medellín Is Also Black

    Colombia, 2026. Medellín is a place that has inspired songs such as “Me voy para Medellín” by El Combo de las Estrellas, “Medellín” by Madonna, and even “Medallo City” by Maluma, all of which praise its natural beauty, culture, and nightlife. However, the fantasy conveyed by the international music industry disappears just a few streets…

  • Hopi Tribal musicians and dancers. Photo: Kevin McCann

    150 Years of Friendship Between the Navajo and the Irish

    This month, tens of thousands of Irish people are donating to a $5 million fundraising campaign to help the Navajo and Hopi tribes battling the Coronavirus. Irish donors see this as a long-overdue payback for the gift of $170 sent by the Choctaw Tribe to Ireland during the famine. My own reason for donating was…

  • LA Indigenous Movement in Solidarity with African American Struggle

    Originally published in: Medium Statement in Solidarity with African-American, Afro-Mexicano, Afro-Indigenous and Black relatives everywhere but especially in the USA by American Indian and Indigenous Peoples organizations in Los Angeles, California May 30, 2020 Policing, politics, and pandemics The police murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department was an outrageous…

  • #WeCantBreathe: A Call for Solidarity Against a Broken World System

    The world is reeling. The indignation of people in the United States is a desperate cry for justice in a society that has finally revealed historical systemic racism and inequity. The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor under the hands of the police force, is proof of the ongoing social and economic…

  • Irma Pineda: To Reconcile with Mother Earth, We Must Reconcile with Ourselves

    We spoke with Irma Pineda Santiago, a Zapotec from Juchitán, Mexico, who speaks Diidxazá and is the Latin American representative for the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She talks about the effects of the pandemic on Indigenous populations, the recovery of ancestral knowledge—and its practice, in the midst of the pandemic—and the resilience of…

  • Artesanías Aramara

    Deer Eyes, Circle Mind: Reflections on Pandemic & Philanthropy

    There is the old adage of the elegant deer—perhaps white-tailed, perhaps antlered—who the scientist kills for study, to hold the crimson heart, to peel back eyelids and see the earth reflected in orbs of night. Once dead, gone. No more spirited flight, deft movement, dainty leaps through tall grass, lightness alert. This metaphor is not…

  • Physically Distant but Socially Close: Indigenous Resilience and COVID-19

    Ideas to adapt our cultural practices and love our people in new ways Native people have cared for one another through greetings, food, dance, ceremony, and much more. These cultural practices have sustained our people through many hardships and joyful moments. We value and care about our families and communities and have always adapted to…

  • Ka Kuxtal Much' Meyaj A.C

    Indigenous Health Manuals, A Contribution to the Pandemic

    One of the primary sources of ancestral knowledge, treasured by humanity, is herbal medicine. Traditional indigenous medicine has its main foundation in the learning and millennial teaching of the healing power of nature, mastery in the use of infusions, poultices, mixtures , and remedies created with various plants, barks, leaves, roots, petals, juices, that applied…

  • Los Ultimos Hijos del Monte. Foto: FAPI

    Paraguay: Facing Hunger, Poor People Help Themselves

    Paraguay is mostly a mestizo country: 97% of the population speak and understand Guaraní and Spanish, their two official languages. The strong linguistic presence of the Guaraní indigenous language (it is the only country on the continent that is bilingual in a native language) is not enough for it to consider itself an indigenous country.…