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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

To all my brothers and sisters of Italian descent, this post in no way diminishes you and all of the wonderful things the Italian culture and diaspora offered and offers to the world. This is just about truth of this particular man and his voyages and their impact on those already on Turtle Island.

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

But, it is time to teach the facts. And while those facts are being taught, we need to tell the real facts about the Indigenous cultures that were in the way of “this progress” and the lies that are still told to justify what was done to them.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

Ok, so Christopher Columbus was the first European sanctioned by a kingdom to put foot in the Americas and brag about it back home in a way that changed Europe.

Are we really so impressed? Maybe in that it did lead to a land rush from multiple European countries that in a way changed the world.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

Ok, so Christopher Colombus was the first European to discover the Americas.

Fact: There is ample evidence that Scandivians (Norse) landed in the Americas well before Columbus.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

We were taught in school that Christopher Colombus discovered the Americas.

Fact: There were already people here that had cultures, governments, and societies that did not need to be discovered.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

Indigenous Peoples versus Columbus Day has become controversial (again in that first posted this in 2020).

However, it is somewhat a reckoning with real facts.

Forgetting even all the complexities of his character and treatment of those he encountered, it really comes down to the following:

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

That reach provides representation and perspectives that were previously hard to find in mainstream media.

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2h

Hispanic Heritage Month Day 28
When Maria Hinojosa saw herself as one of the few Latinas or even Latinos in media, she wasn't discouraged by it. Instead, she started her own media company with podcasts like LatinoUSA creating a space for Latinos in media and highlighting underrepresented voices.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 3h

Everything you depend upon from food to sources of medicine, to your breath comes from the very things you let them tear down for their profit ...

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · Nov 19

Better Way to Be in the World Page 12
Relearn that we are part of and not separate from nature and act that way

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 16h

Current admin, doing something stupid and wrong, be like: " quick, blame it on the [choose one - trans, black, Latino, immigrant, poor, homeless, far-left, political foe, women]" and then spinning the prize wheel

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 1d

not due to some inherent limitations that society told them they had. In seeing them as people instead of the self-fulfilling prophecy that society writes on poor kids knowingly and unknowingly, he inspired 20 years of young students to work hard and master complicated math subjects.

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 1d

Hispanic Heritage Month Day 27
Ganas, he told his students they needed, inspiring the film Stand and Deliver. Jaime Escalante was a Bolivian born teacher who cared for his students, mentored his students and showed them that they were poor because of circumstances and

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 1d

You can decide to live in someone else's script that tells you about a "reality" not there or you can work with others to guide your ship via facts to find truth.

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · Nov 19

Better Way to Be in the World Page 11
Seek evidence based truth, adjust your assumptions, admit when you're wrong, repeat

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2d

They don't vote the same. In the simplistic way they try to represent the group with a tag, like in all other cases with other groups that are so tagged, they are so much more and varied than that common tag. Try to learn more about the beauty in the diversity of the actual people behind the tag.

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2d

different Native tribes, descendants of slaves brought over from Africa, people who came from the Iberian peninsula, and more recent immigrants from around the world. They have different dialects of Spanish. They have different cultural variants including music and food.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2d

Hispanic Heritage Month Day 26
More modern times and the press use the term Latino, Hispanic, or LatinX as if it is one homogeneous group. People who identify in these groups indeed have the same root in a common colonial start but otherwise represent a mix of a number of

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2d

And in times of turmoil it is not just more critical to express gratitude but also to come to terms with what is really important vs superfluous in your life (your true needs).

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · Nov 18

Better Way to Be in the World Page 10
Express Gratitude for all that you do have

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2d

Representation Matters and generations have benefitted from their roles on the street.

Thank you Sonia and thank you Emilio.

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2d

Hispanic Heritage Month Day 25
In times when accurate representation of Latinos/Hispanics was rare, we got to see ourselves in Maria and Luis on Sesame Street. We heard not just Spanish, but types of food, a concept of culture, and an.idea that we also belonged.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 2d

Make the better choice

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · Nov 18

Better Way to Be in the World 9 Seek Peace...there is not a binary choice between two warring sides, but there is a choice between war and peace

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 3d

The land remembers. The water remembers. The wind carries our names. And as long as we breathe, we will keep telling the whole story — the one that begins not with discovery, but with belonging.

—Kanipawit Maskwa

Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 3d

We must keep speaking our languages, planting our medicines, walking softly on the land that still remembers us.

So I say this: we will not disappear because a proclamation forgets us. We were here before Columbus, and we will be here long after the politicians are gone.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 3d

Today, when the government once again chooses to remember the colonizer and forget the Indigenous, it is not surprising — it is just a reminder that our work is not done. We must keep teaching the children who they are.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 3d

I do not speak these things to divide us. I speak them because truth must be spoken if there is ever to be peace. We do not need to hate Columbus to honor our own story. But we must not let his name stand above the countless ancestors who greeted him with open hands and were repaid with chains.

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Rob Torres @zorratowers.com · 3d

It forgets the women and children who suffered, the languages silenced, the songs that were not allowed to be sung. It forgets that this so-called discovery began a long night for our peoples, one we are still waking from.

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