Phoenix - Mexican Voyage- Halloween

Other highlights of the Museum of US included the history of the Maya people and their struggles to continue to provide value in this Country while continuously being minimized and treated poorly. The exhibit on RACE was very powerful and explains how particularly difficult it can be in a border state/city like San Diego.

Maya Peoples: Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth showed us casts of ancient stone monuments alongside contemporary stories, textiles, and art from Maya communities. Not the normal "frozen-in-time" archaeological displays of the Maya. This one provides living Maya voices, resilient culture & languages, modern ceremonies, vibrant, evolving present-day reality spanning over 30 languages and modern nations across Mesoamerica rather than a relic of the past. There are also interesting murals (see photos) and most interesting were the survival even with difficult histories.

The exhibits were all incredibly thought provoking including the “Shared Origins” exhibit that tells the story of how all our histories are connected with the indigenous people’s migration across the World for thousands of years. They brought with them knowledge, culture and genetic science to explore where we come from. As relatives and members of this society, we must advocate for everyone's right to a prosperous and stable home.

As we had begun our Around the World trip 7 months ago with the Kumeyaay ancestors and land in San Diego, we found these exhibits very interesting to learn more about colonization and the struggles. We admired and took in the message of the mural of the Kumeyaay. When Spanish expeditions reached the Californias, the monarchy ordered them to seize land and expand the empire. Their (Jesuit priests, Dominicans, and Franciscans) goals were to gain wealth, spread Christianity, and prevent European rivals from settling in the region.

Missions were more than churches; they became sites of forced labor and control that supported Spain's colonial economy and military power. Indigenous people were confined through violence and religious authority. They were forced to farm, herd animals, and make goods for missions and outposts instead of supporting their own communities. As missions grew, Native people were forced from their lands and cut off from their traditions. Stories related to Maya peoples' diversity, and contributions to humanity, and to the lasting impact that colonization, capitalism, and have on Indigenous peoples, the Maya continuity and their unbroken spirit. Interestingly, Maya Consultants came together as a group of diverse Maya people to change how their people are represented in these exhibits, They were not Maya elders but scholars, artists, and regular community members from many places and tribes (peoples) to tell their history and culture from Maya perspectives. Previously this exhibit and many others were told from the perspective of non-Maya academics depicting them as people of the past, frozen in time.

The colonialization's impact on Maya land. Do you wonder how other museums received the items they have displayed and stored in their building?
 Not always from simple donations or archeological discoveries. Colonization and obtaining these objects are the result of everything from physical violence, outlawing spiritual practices, burning Maya texts, and classifying Maya as uncivilized and inhuman and the worst part is that governing systems helps the colonial domination continue. Maya items, and ancestral remains, were often gathered through looting, grave robbing, stealing, inequitable trade, and research expeditions. Governments that occupy Maya territories sold items to museums and collectors internationally without consent, many of these are now on display in museums around the world. The people and the items have been displaced by colonization. The items we saw in an exhibit here belong to the diaspora of Maya, who have survived and thrived, despite colonial violence and forced displacement. It is sad that so many items are lost for ever and other that are recovered have histories that may never be discovered.

“Who made me think I am, who I think I am?" – was posed in an exhibit we observed about how we come to understand, define and potentially challenge colonial borders that separate "us - here" from "them – there ". The Hostile Terrain 94 exhibit has a participatory map of the U.S.-Mexico border, focusing on the deaths that have been happening almost daily since 1994 as a direct result of the Border, due to “lives lost through dehumanizing state policies”. There are 3,205 toe tags on this map. Each one represents a person who has died while crossing the US-Mexico border between the mid-1990s and 2020. The exhibit shows Arizona deceased migrants with 4,517 people (updated monthly) that have died crossing the Arizona (US-Mexican) border since 1981. As of October 2026, there are still 1,639 unidentified. On the map we saw the exact location where each migrant body has been found, along other information, “humaneborders.info (map of migrant mortality)” as a way to honor the dead, people who are now ancestors. Standing in front of this exhibit and reading some of these toe tags of what happened, allowed us to reflect and stand in solidarity with those who have lost their lives (mostly from dehydration, hyperthermia) in search of a better life. Of course, now the shift has moved to Texas, where thousands have died trying to cross the border. "Prevention Through Deterrence" is still the enforcement strategy being used.

The O'odham have inhabited a continuous area of land for thousands of years in the Southwest US and Northwest Mexico. The effects of the Catholic mission system, plantation agriculture, enslavement, war, mining industry, railroads and highways, and colonial demands for land and water have displaced and oppressed O'odham peoples. The U.S.-Mexico border currently divides O'odham land, cutting the people in half by an international border and dividing the people into reservations and non-federally recognized communities, separating families, limiting ceremonial connections, and harming natural resources. U.S. Border Patrol has incarcerated, assaulted, stalked, harassed, murdered, and deported O'odham peoples as they traveled through their traditional homelands of thousands of years, including within the U.S. reservations to maintain their religion, economy, spiritual, and cultural lives. They live under constant surveillance and harassment by border patrol occupation, check points, surveillance towers, electronic and phone monitoring. Policies that militarize and enforce the border continue state violence against Indigenous peoples.

Race is only a few hundred years old, tied to power and hierarchy among people, with one group being viewed as superior and others as inferior. This exhibition challenged understandings about race, raise questions, and initiates critical thinking. Race was also a big topic in the museum as a distinguishing bias among people, more than gender, class, age, and ability that interact, and affect how we live and how others respond to us. Social differences (education, language, culture, values, religion, income level, or type of employment) still have a big influence on how people are treated and what is expected of you. These stereotypes and biases also carry inequality across generations. We find that institutions, governments, schools, healthcare, and media pass inequality from one generation to the next and still determine access to resources and power. There was an interesting exhibit on Pacific Islanders genomes, which carry with them the memory of migration, adaptation, and also trauma. Genomics, once used to discriminate, now help clarify how colonialism affected health, contributed to current disease patterns to build more effective care, tailored to histories and verifying generational ties to territory.

We learned about California's eugenics program which was entwined with racism here. It targeted Mexican, and Black communities Eugenicists and state officials weaponized the concept of "racial degeneration," arguing that immigration from Mexico and other regions would dilute the white, Anglo-Saxon stock of the state. In the eyes of the California eugenics movement, poverty, lack of education, and non-conforming social behavior were viewed as hereditary defects rather than systemic issues. Because systemic racism Starting in the 1800s, U.S. laws and policies at the local, state, and federal levels separated people by race (housing, schools, and public spaces). California led the US in the eugenics movement, with one-third of all forced sterilizations nationwide in the late 1800s but continuing until the 1970’s with over 20,000 forcibly sterilized in state-run mental institutions, hospitals, and prisons Sadly California became a model for eugenics laws worldwide (more than 30 U.S. states passed laws on eugenics and Nazi Germany studied California as a guide).

[We ran out of time and didn’t get to the Cannibals exhibit, Living with Animals, and Monsters! exhibits.]Leer más