THE ASIAN ORIGINS OF LATIN AMERICA

DR. JUAN A. CARMONA 

These next two essays will focus on Liberation Theology from an Asian context.  We begin by talking about the Asian origins of Latin America.

Like it happens often-times with other parts of history, especially North American history, the approach that has been taken traditionally-speaking, is to write history from the standpoint of the conquerors. altogether ignoring the conquered, or, at the very least, relegating them to secondary status in terms of their contribution to civilization and historical development.  In this essay, we will deal with Asian origins of this region, for as Dr. Ivan Van Sertima points out, there were people of both African and Asian descent here, thousands of years before the European colonizations of the West.  We will view, even if in summary fashion, the pre-European presence in the Americas in order to understand the thrust of Liberation Theology.

Marshall C. Eakin, Professor of History at Vanderbilt University gives us a gist of this pre-European presence in the Americas. He states, "The 'first Americans' arrived in a series of migrations from the Asian continent across the Bering Straight possibly far back as 40,000 years ago.  The last wave of migrants was the Eskimo or Inuit, who traveled across the frozen expanses of the Arctic about 4,000 years ago.  Archaeologists have long debated the dates of the earliest arrivals, with more traditional and conservative scholars arguing against any clear proof of migration before about 12,000 years ago.  Although not an archaeologist, I believe that there is growing evidence, especially from Chile, that the dates should be pushed back at least 20,000 years ago.  All agree, however, that by 10,000 years ago, humans occupied most of the Americas from Canada to Tierra del Fuego.  The islands of the Caribbean and the plains of Southern South America were probably the last major regions to be populated, only about 2,000 years before the arrival of Columbus.  In contrast to the striking diversity of their languages, Native Americans were extraordinarily homogenous in genetic or biological terms.  The blood type of most Native Americans, for example, is O, a type common to more than 80 percent of them.  For reasons that are not entirely clear, these early migrants did not bring with them the diseases of the Old World.  Some have hypothesized that the cold Arctic passage served as a type of 'filter,' killing of dangerous microbes.  None of the Native American populations had exposure to diseases that ravaged the Old World: influenza, smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, plague, typhus.  For this lack of exposure and immunity, they would pay a very high price during the European invasion and the conquest  which went along with the invasion (Marshall C. Eakin, The History of Latin America: Collision of of Cultures. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2007, p.27)."

When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, he believed that he had reached the 'Indies,' something of a generic term for Asia in his day.  He called the natives 'Indios," and this work stuck, entering into the vocabulary of many languages.  The term 'Native American' has gained wide acceptance in the last few decades, but it is also problematic.  The term 'America' is also Euro-centric.  It is a name given to the New World by a German cartographer in the early sixteenth century to honor Amerigo Vespucci, one of the best-known early explorers.  Most native groups before the Conquest simply called themselves 'the people' and they saw the rest of the population around them as the 'Other,' to use the parlance of contemporary academics.  There is no 'politically correct' term to be employed. One of the  most radical groups of the 1970's,  for example, were called 'the American Indian Movement.'  One growing movement now promotes the term 'indigenous peoples.'  It is one of the great ironies of the early twentieth century that the term 'Indian' has now become a generic label adopted by native peoples all across the Americas to create a sense of solidarity. In effect, they have accepted the  lumping of all native peoples together, something the Europeans artificially did in the sixteenth century to peoples supposedly no sense of common identity or solidarity (Ibid. p. 28).

Whether these pre-European trans-oceanic contacts were fundamental to cultural developments is a matter of debate.  There are some who hold to the view that the native peoples of the Americas were too ignorant and unfit to have produced what were clearly the remains of incredibly sophisticated civilizations. They also tend to believe that the Native Americans were incapable of creating great cultures on their own (Ibid., p. 29).

I conclude by stating that we can no longer subscribe to the notion that Latin American came into 'civilization' as a result of and after the European conquest.  The African and Asiatic origins of Latin America need to be weighed if we are to talk about a theology which deals with the oppression of the people of this region during and after the European conquest.  The notion of white 'cultural superiority' needs to be deconstructed, demythologized, and dismissed for once and for all.  The theology that we are dealing with did not emerge from the European ivory towers of comfort and speculation, but rather from the colonization and subsequent subjugation of the people of Latin America.  

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.  

Dr. Juan A. Carmona 

Past Professor of Theology

Tainan Theological College/Seminary