Comment on Is there any point for current US-based "skilled immigrants" to stay in the US?
Letme@lemmy.world 4 weeks agoNatives are pre-colonization, by definition
Comment on Is there any point for current US-based "skilled immigrants" to stay in the US?
Letme@lemmy.world 4 weeks agoNatives are pre-colonization, by definition
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Well, yes and no.
Wherever the first humans existed are fully native, if the people there descend from the first humans in a relatively straight line. Which, we all come from them, but anyone that moved away and their descendants came back, it would be hard guy else descendants in particular to claim to be natives there.
Anyone and everyone else had ancestors that colonized somewhere. Like, the mayans were descendants of colonists, just not European colonists. Same for Cherokee, Cree, Inca, Hopi, whoever. Their ancestors got here first for sure, and they colonized these continents. So, they’re native, but not pre-colonization because nobody was here until they came here from somewhere else.
So, yeah, in one context, if you only refer to the people that came after whoever got there first as colonists and pretend that that’s the only meaning of colonization, then that definition fits. But it isn’t the only definition, and it’s not the one under discussion here.
To give a different view on it, what would we call the first humans to go to Mars and stay there? Colonists, right? We’d have a colony on mars.
You can use the word native to mean the people born on mars, and that’s what you were saying, that the people born in a place are native to that place, and any further waves are called something that. But with other definitions of native, it’s impossible for there to ever be human natives on mars at all, because nobody evolved on mars that we know of.
And that’s what I’m getting at. Here in the U.S. in specific, and across the Americas in general, everyone came from somewhere else originally, regardless of how long ago that was.
Which is why I personally prefer the way Canada refers to the people that were here first, as First Nations. They conquered and colonized this side of the planet first. The rest of us need to respect that, but we also need to recognize and respect that being an immigrant isn’t a bad thing at all because everyone here is either an immigrant or the descendants of immigrants. We’re connected in that way, and should treat each other more as neighbors and family than insiders and outsiders.
Letme@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Sure, you can use those terms symanticlly to go all the way back in time, but with respect to world history, the “era of colonization” was between the 15th century and 1960. And native/indigenous people were the people that existed in their respective regions before the 15th century. By definition.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Dude, you’re off on a tangent about semantics (That’s the spelling, btw), which is not at all the point.
Which is fine, or if you didn’t keep saying “by definition” as though there’s only one fucking definition and usage. So, while I respect the inaccurate pedantry effort, I’m not interested. If you want to argue about semantics, it might be useful to actually understand what they are, and why your insistence on one single usage isn’t accurate semantically.
One aspect of semantics is the study of usages of words, or the multiple meanings and interpretation of words.
And, by definition in the common internet available dictionaries, rather than the field specific jargon you keep repeating like it’s useful for the discussion here, you aren’t using an actual definition in common usage.
So, my homie, again, I appreciate some pedantry, but you’re not just being tangential, you’re inaccurate, which means there’s no point to further interaction about this. I’m done
Letme@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The term indiginous wasn’t even used in the English language until the late 1500s, it was literally created for this purpose. Sorry homie, you are wrong, and the English language, by definition, agrees with the timeline of colonization with respect to the definition of native/indigenous people.