Introduction
The colonizers force people to conform to their values and beliefs. They don’t consider that the natives also have their cultures and ideals that they adhere to. Instead, the natives’ values are taken aware by instilling fear into them and making the community members initiate hatred against a specific group of people. According to Miranda, the joyas was hated by the Spanish Priests, and they and their defenders were systematically eliminated from society (257). As a result, the community members decided not to associate with them due to the fear of being killed. Therefore, Miranda demonstrates that the colonizers determine the natives’ cultures, and they only promote what conforms to their values.
Morgensen, Settler Homonationalism: Theorizing Settler Colonialism within Queer Modernities
The article illustrates how the colonizers and Western religions impose discipline and terror on Indigenous people who had their practice on sexuality. The natives were forced to assimilate into the heterosexual systems and binary gender expression. According to Morgensen, all sexual beliefs that the natives had valued for centuries were eliminated when they were regarded as nonconforming to the European cultures (120). Therefore, those who practiced the traditional beliefs of gender and their associates were publicly embarrassed or killed (Morgensen 115). In other words, they were terrorized while being forced to adopt the new practices introduced by their colonizers.
The Questions Raised By Both Articles
Morgensen and Miranda show that colonizers target non-heterosexual and non-binary gender among the natives for exclusion in both accounts. They used methods of terror such as public execution to impose their religion and practices. Additionally, the two writers allude that the settlers’ normalization of fear forced the natives to disassociate with the community members opposed to binary gender. As a result, the Indigenous groups have learned to suppress their sexual and gender expressions that conflict with religious norms. Moreover, due to the priests’ and colonizers’ violent acts, the contemporary indigenous people’s actions toward gender roles are still greatly influenced by the state and the settler society.
Works Cited
Miranda, Deborah A. “Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol.16, no.1-2, 2010, p. 253-284.
Morgensen, Scott Lauria. “Settler homonationalism: Theorizing settler colonialism within queer modernities.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol.16, no.,1-2, 2010, p. 105-131.