On the 18th of December, 2010, Voz, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Comite de Solidaridad y de Apoyo Mutuo en Portland (Committee of Solidarity and Mutual Support of Portland) got together during the Week of Action in commemoration of THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF IMMIGRANTS, in order to hold the Fifth Indigenous Forum. Participants included representatives from many different peoples of Abya Yala (Latin America). On this day we shared our space so that we could also share our struggles, realities, challenges, dreams, and visions as forcibly displaced peoples. We shared this space in order to reaffirm our identity, our spirituality, and to share our thousand-year-long history, inherited from our fathers and grandfathers. Mayans, Inca-Canñari, Nañu, Zapotecas, and our Native brothers from North America all participated in the event. Not only did we (and here I speak as a Mayan) share our stories, but we also shared with our allies our altar, where the flowers, the candles, the fruit, the incense, and the water are all important elements in our ceremonies. I should also mention that we shared a traditional dish with those who were present. 
We have convened on the 18th of every December of every year for the past five years in order to reunite. It is important to convene in order to make known that there are indigenous peoples from Abya Yala here in this country. No one says it, no one will talk about it, but here we are among the multitude, in anonymity, in the realm of the invisible, resisting triple discriminations: because we are indigenous, because we are immigrants, because we are poor, and, in many cases, because we are women. Our effort to maintain our identity will continue in a society where the whole world works to transform one’s image and one’s values in order to fit in, leaving behind mother tongues, traditional dress, spirituality, respect, and collectivity. We will go on defying the modern world, or modern life, which the First World places in our hands in order to absorb us and make it so that our peoples of origin disappear. We take this moment to thank the community that accompanied us in this event.
By Emiliana Aguilar
