LALS 050. Indigenous People of Mexico and Central America

In 1492, Native American isolation from Europe and Africa ended in the region of the Americas now known as Latin America. This course offers an introductory survey of past and present indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica, i.e., Mexico and Central America beginning with pre-Columbian cultures, and then considering the major transformations during the period of European colonialism, which led eventually to different contemporary Indigenous population configurations and concentrations in each country in the Mesoamerican area. Despite 500 years of colonial and nation-state domination, indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica continue to assert their basic human right to resist cultural hegemony. The remainder of the course will be devoted to contemporary Mesoamerican indigenous populations with particular attention to issues of cultural resistance, gender, land and resource rights, health, religion, and economic self-determination. Students will gain familiarity with the diversity of indigenous Mesoamerica and to understand how indigenous peoples in the region have persisted, changed, and negotiated in political, economic and social contexts.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Eligible for LALS
Catalog chapter: Latin American and Latino Studies

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