Stand Up and Fight

In 1975 a watershed moment captivated Mexico as Indigenous peoples from across the country came together for the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples. The congress was a federal government initiative intended to preempt an independent Indigenous movement but Indigenous groups circumvented the intended containment policies of the congress and made bold demands for political self-determination. Through research in previously untapped archives, Muñoz is able to trace the political history of the Indigenous leaders and government officials who redefined the ways Indigenous peoples engaged with governments. She illustrates the fluid and evolving power relationships of the key players with a focus on the twelve years of populism in the last decades of the twentieth century.