Fear can really stop you

I want to talk about fear. The fear that I have been feeling for the past month since I arrived to Buenos Aires. My project is about ethnic discrimination and social exclusion against the indigenous communities. As I said before, all I know about this topic I learned once I started doing my project in Buenos Aires. I am scared of expressing my thoughts and opinion because I am scared of offending someone. I am scared of sounding (or being) paternalistic. Today I read that being paternalistic is a way of discrimination.

It is harder when you are not really sure what you are talking about. I didn't know how to use properly the words "pueblo" and "comunidad" because they are synonyms in spanish. However, they refer to different things. So I had a hard time asking people from which "pueblo" indigena they are from. Pueblo indigena refers to the bigger indigenous group of people (I still have problems to explain what it is!). Examples of pueblos indigenas are the Mapuche, the Quechua, the Aymara, the Huarpe, the Guaranis, etc. A pueblo indigena is divided into communities. For example, there are Mapuche communities in Argentina and Chile, but the pueblo indigena Mapuche is only one! One nation!

I am scared of being misunderstood, of being rejected. This is what stops me from writing. The last thing, I want to do is to hurt anybody, to make somebody feel bad. However, the topic of discrimination against the indigenous people is so touchy that I am scared of making a mistake. I feel that maybe if I knew I have indigenous blood, things could be different.

However, there is one thing for sure. I still have to say what I think and not be afraid because fear can really stop you. I think it is a process of learning how to talk about this topic. The other day, I was talking to Carlos Martinez Sarasola, an anthropologist who specializes in the ethno-history of the indigenous people of Argentina. He told me that the only way to do fieldwork and build relationships with the indigenous people is to establish an equal relationship with them, and I agree with him.