Despite the particular forms of mestization and cultural syncretism in our region, the prejudice and racial discrimination that we continue to experience negatively affect primarily the native indigenous population comprised of more than 80 indigenous groups that include at least 12 million Mexicans and 6 million Central Americans. With regard to the population of African descent, it is necessary to assign this group a higher priority in governmental projects and programs, and also to link their demands with those of indigenous peoples, promoting and strengthening the first historic initiatives aimed at establishing networks and strategic alliances among persons of African descent and indigenous populations in the fight against racism and discrimination. Other minorities of Asian origin, while constituting only some hundreds of thousands of persons, as well as other even smaller communities of migrants, including Spanish, Jewish, Lebanese, Turkish, Hindu and other persons, are also the object of discrimination because of their ethnic origin. These realities have recently been intensified as a result of the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the increase of poverty among the broadest sectors of the population. Exclusion, an exacerbated form of racism, has led to a brutal, ongoing increase in extreme poverty among indigenous populations.
Racism exists in all societies around the world in one form or another.
Social discrimination tends to be associated with economic discrimination. Development theory and practice have gradually incorporated social, environmental and gender concerns, but cultural issues have yet to be addressed. Today, it is vital that the role played by culture as the basic driving force in the pluralistic, democratic development of individuals, peoples and countries be acknowledged and accepted. Preserving and promoting the cultures of indigenous populations and people of African descent involves the need to create new concrete foundations for reducing the inequalities in their relationships with other societies and cultures. In order to fight the roots of discrimination and marginalization which have become more pronounced as a result of the prevailing processes of globalization we demand that the governments of our region acknowledge the autonomy of indigenous peoples and African descendants in their respective Constitutions, since only in this way will it be possible to guarantee their own forms of social and political organization, and their access to the use and enjoyment of resources for their development.