The ‘problem of the Indio’ is a settler predicament: Sophia Martínez Abbud, ‘”Playing Latinx” as Settler-Colonial Reenactment’, MELUS, 2026 | settler colonial studies blog

The ‘problem of the Indio’ is a settler predicament: Sophia Martínez Abbud, ‘”Playing Latinx” as Settler-Colonial Reenactment’, MELUS, 2026

02Jun26

Abstract: At its core, this is an article about the “problem of the indio” in a transamerican context of migration, and about accounting for the political role of Indigeneity in contemporary Latinx and Latin American literature. The figure of “the Indian” has been a central concept for national literatures in the so-called Americas since the nineteenth century, and its role becomes further complicated when considering converging Indigeneities across the United States and Mexico and their unique nationalist literary traditions. In Latin America, varying traditions of indigenismo have attempted to integrate Indigeneity into national identities through paternalistic programs designed to “modernize” Indigenous communities. Similarly, as Phillip Deloria, Jr. argues, American literature becomes recognizable through the act of “playing Indian”: an appropriation of cultural traits and narratives to create settler myths that justify claims to colonized territory. Recent attempts to (dis)entangle these colonial histories and their interactions have given rise to the framework of Critical Latinx Indigeneities, which I heed throughout the article. Given the rising popularity of migration narratives in an age of global displacement, the stakes of engaging with the framework of Critical Latinx Indigeneities become more pressing as border surveillance and transnational migration intersect on Indigenous land.

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