A Case of Mistaken Identity

Regarding Jan Breslauer’s fine article “Two Faces of Columbus” (Oct. 6):

In view of the forthcoming celebration of the 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of Great Turtle Island by the European Christopher Columbus--who began the identity genocide of our race the first time he referred to our people as Los Indios --I offer the following statements based on truth and fact.

As of 1988, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have enacted Concurrent Resolution 31 to reaffirm the continuing government-to-government relationship between Indian tribes (Pnaci Nations) and the U.S. government as established in the Constitution.

Paramount to exercising our rights to self-determination as sovereign nations is the firm establishment of our true and rightful identity as the Pnaci (pen-AH-see) race of people.

( Pnaci is a very old word--preserved with dignity by the elders of our race--meaning “anyone who is descended of the old ones indigenous to the Western Hemisphere.”)

By what criterion do people presume to employ the foreign word Indian to identify an entire race of people, when those very people have no such word in any of their tribal languages?

No other race of people in the annals of human history has had to acknowledge being something other than who they are. Show any other race that has had to suffer that indignity for one moment, let alone 499 years.

WOLFHAWK MARTINEZ

Yaqui-Comanche Elder

Torrance