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Seeing Indians: A Study of Race, Nation, and Power in El Salvador

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Throughout most of the twentieth century if you asked mainstream Salvadorans about their country's indigenous populations they would have told you that their country was fully mestizo. Virginia Tilley's remarkable book not only shows that the idea of a country without Indians was patently incorrect, but also why a discourse of ethnic homogeneity was in the interest of the dominant classes. Her discussion of the mechanisms used by the state to make the indigenous minority disappear from the national consciousness is illuminating. In the process of telling the story Tilley provides sophisticated and clear discussions of the conceptual complexities of race and ethnicity. It is not surprising that this excellent work was selected as book of the year by the Central American Conference of Anthropologists in 2006.

We as Salvadorians know that we are of indigenous descent and many of us keep our culture alive, the reason why before the 1990's we didnt outwardly practice our traditional religions our dances etc. is because the government was full of oligarchs who denied our existence. How many statues of Pedro de Alvarado are there in El Salvador??? NONE! You see the celebration of our cultural heritage everywhere from murals to festivals.

those who espoused the traditions of our people did not get recognized at a salvadorian independence day celebration until september 15th 2009 thanks to the fact that we have the FMLN in power!!!


the speakers of our Pipil language went to fewer than 200 elderly speakers in the 1980's to over 3,000 people most of which are in elementary and high school plus some college students!

what we faced in El Salvador was cultural genocide, and denial from the government. In fact last year the census figures were distorted in order to say that 9% of the population is white! that is a complete fabrication because I have been to El Salvador many many times and am from there and a white person is rare!!! the figures should read 10% full blooded Indian!!!!! if you dont believe me go to panchimalco, izalco and the remote areas of morazan plus many other places!

Naja Ninemi PIPIL tik Cuscatlan! (I AM PIPIL FROM CUSCATLAN!)

This book examines what should be an interesting subject, that El Salvador decided there were no Indians left and thus read the indigenous people out of history and politics. But when one delves in deeper they find that this is not exactly the case and that some aspect of this book is itself anthropologically dishonest and racist. El Salvador didnt dedice that Indians dont exist rather the state decided to stop classifying people as 'Indian' becuase it saw how racial and ethnic classificiations had to led to ethnic and racial strife in other places(most recently in Rwanda). Therefore in an attempt to unify the country and perhaps make people realize that class and ideology divide them more then race, race was simply abolished as a definition. It was largely immaterial anyway because most people in EL Salvador were, like Mexico, of mixed ancestry and racial conciousness was mostly a western invention. Therefore the attempt of this book to go back and 're-create' race in order to make people identify themselves by skin color and thus encoruage racism, is quite strange for a book the purports to think the very policy was racist.

Race is largely a western cosntrust invented in the wake of Darwinism. Rather than critique El Slavador the country should be praised for ending racial division and instead enshrining tolerance, which is why the country never suffered the tragedies of Guatemala and elsehwere.

Seth J. Frantzman