... meant to be "Indian". There were lots of different groups of indigenous people in Mexico before the revolution, many even fighting each other and all of them affected to some extent by cultural "mestizaje". When the Spanish colonised Mexico they decided to group all the people that already lived there, and termed them as "Indians". What it meant to be "Indian", was to be exploited and oppressed by the Spanish. Terms like these require analysis, and need to be looked at how they have been created historically. Columbus thought he got to India, and called the people he discovered Indians. This is a great example of historical/social play on race. Some academics believe that ethnic groups are forged, historically and socially usually through exploitation and oppression. The "Indians" are a great example of this. It is only recently that some kind of "Indian" identity has started to be felt from ...

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