Targets of Manifest Destiny
This piece exposes the dehumanizing and xenophobic labels published by the Salvadoran government in national newspapers during the Massacre of 1932. These labels where used to justify the killing of over 30,000 Pipil. The photograph is of a Pipil taken at a prisoner's camp in Izalco. During the genocides perpetrated in 1930's, Indigenous men (as young as 12 and up) where interrogated briefly by Salvadoran National Police, asked whether they were communists or not, and then executed. The title of this piece brings light to the manipulation tactics used to control people by North American colonizers and the genocide of the Martinez’s government who is known to have imitated the North American western expansionists genocidal tactics. No matter what label the government used for Natives, their agenda was to appropriate and steal traditional commnal lands for railroads and plantations. It is not until recently, after the twelve year period of war in the 1980’s and the peace agreements signed in 1994, that people are exposing the truth about 1932 ethnocide, with over 30,000 people were killed. This painting calls for the recognizition of labels as tools of domination and control.
This piece exposes the dehumanizing and xenophobic labels published by the Salvadoran government in national newspapers during the Massacre of 1932. These labels where used to justify the killing of over 30,000 Pipil. The photograph is of a Pipil taken at a prisoner's camp in Izalco. During the genocides perpetrated in 1930's, Indigenous men (as young as 12 and up) where interrogated briefly by Salvadoran National Police, asked whether they were communists or not, and then executed. The title of this piece brings light to the manipulation tactics used to control people by North American colonizers and the genocide of the Martinez’s government who is known to have imitated the North American western expansionists genocidal tactics. No matter what label the government used for Natives, their agenda was to appropriate and steal traditional commnal lands for railroads and plantations. It is not until recently, after the twelve year period of war in the 1980’s and the peace agreements signed in 1994, that people are exposing the truth about 1932 ethnocide, with over 30,000 people were killed. This painting calls for the recognizition of labels as tools of domination and control.
