Van Nuys : Indigenous Rituals Showcased at College

They were not, Maria Vazquez emphasized, commemorating Columbus Day.

“We don’t celebrate Columbus Day,” the 24-year-old Sylmar resident said at Valley College in Van Nuys Wednesday. “We’re celebrating that we’re still here even though Columbus arrived 503 years ago.”

For Vazquez, Native American Day was a day to show Valley College students the rich legacy of Aztec culture through traditional dances, a day to remind them that Native Americans didn’t disappear when the explorer arrived in 1492.

“We don’t call them conquerors,” she explained. “If they would have conquered us, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Although she enjoys celebrating her culture and sharing her people’s history, Vazquez said the occasional “rain dance” question reminds her that misconceptions persist.

“It makes me aware that people still have to learn. We still have to be sensitive to the beliefs and lifestyles of people of other races,” she said.

With members of two Valley-based troupes, Nahui Ollin and Tenochtitlan, Vazquez performed several Aztec dances as a steady drumbeat filled the college’s Monarch Square. The dances paid tribute to the elderly, the sun, the warrior and the warrior’s shield, she explained afterward.

“We don’t really see it as a show,” Vazquez said. The ritualized performances, she noted, are integral to her heritage. “We were brought up that way,” she said. “Our ceremonies are part of our life.”

Before the performance, Refugio Lepe of Tarzana spoke of the indigenous people of the Caribbean who, he said, were exterminated with the arrival of European explorers.

“It’s been 503 years since my people are fighting to stay alive,” Lepe said. “So let us celebrate a day of resistance, let us celebrate a day of life.”