Preserving a language, safeguarding a culture (fwd)

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Preserving a language, safeguarding a culture

BY JONATHAN CLARK/The Herald Mexico
El Universal
Lunes 03 de enero de 2005
Nuestro mundo, página 1
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=8578&tabla=miami

A Oaxacan woman completes a Ph.D. on her indigenous language with an eye
towards bettering overall conditions for her community.

In 1980, when she was only 8 years old, Emiliana Cruz was sent from her
home in San Juan Quiahije in the southern mountains of Oaxaca to the
state capital to work as a servant. With the Spanish language becoming
more and more necessary for indigenous people in Mexican society people
like the 28,000 strong Chatino community to which Emiliana belonged it
became a common practice for indigenous parents to send their children
to work as servants in the cities so as to learn the country's sole
official language.

Emiliana found work in Oaxaca city with a family that agreed to enroll
her in evening Spanish classes. But during this time spent working and
studying, she felt herself losing contact with her own family and
community.

Slowly, she adapted herself to the values and conventions of the city,
for the situation surrounding her allowed no room to speak her native
Chatino language or to practice her own cultural traditions. "Living in
this different environment," she recalls, "I struggled to continue
believing that my culture and traditions had wisdom and knowledge."

Yet still, she couldn't forget the mandate that she had been given upon
her departure for the capital.

"Although my parents sent me to the city for better opportunities,"
Emiliana says, "they also told me never to forget where I came from."

She never has. Throughout a journey that has taken her from San Juan
Quiahije to Oaxaca city to Washington state and now to Austin, Texas,
Emiliana has kept her vision keenly set on the Chatino community of
Oaxaca and the greater plight of the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

"From early childhood, I saw my father working on indigenous issues, and
this had a strong influence on me," she says. "My desire for better
conditions for indigenous people has always persisted."

Then, in 1989, Emiliana's father, the Chatino intellectual and rights
activist Tomas Cruz Lorenzo, was killed by landowners during a campaign
for sustainable forest exploitation in the mountainous Sierra Sur
region of Oaxaca. He had been actively involved in community
development and indigenous rights throughout his life, and it was a
role that his daughter was quick to inherit and embrace.

Emiliana chose an academic route from which to focus her efforts. In
1994 she emigrated to Washington in search of work, later attended
community college to improve her English skills, and then completed an
undergraduate degree at Evergreen State University. Now she is a
doctoral student in linguistics and linguistic anthropology at the
University of Texas, where her research program is aimed at
documenting, describing, and preserving the Chatino language. In doing
so, she is at the same time documenting and preserving her indigenous
culture.

"The primary force that motivates me in striving to keep the Chatino
language alive is that the language is not just a verbal form of
communication," she says, "but rather it is intimately connected with
the cultural reality of the Chatino people and their complex history,
dynamic cultural development, and diversity with all its own richness."

DECLINING USE

It is difficult to say exactly how many different indigenous languages
are spoken in Mexico. Some sources put the number in the 50s, others in
the 60s. But according to Enrique Fernando Nava, professor of
linguistics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and
director of the newly created National Institute of Indigenous
Languages (INALI), there may be as many as 150 different languages
spoken nationwide.

"Zapoteco, for example, is not really one language but rather a family
of languages," he explains, referring to the largest linguistic group
in Oaxaca. "The same is true of Mixteco and Chinanteco and many
others."

But while the precise number of individual languages may be uncertain,
one fact is clear: the number of people speaking indigenous languages
is in rapid decline. And according to Emiliana Cruz, this phenomenon is
due to prevailing attitudes in the dominant mestizo (mixed-race)
culture that devalue indigenous language and culture.

"In Mexico, indigenous languages are not considered valid for education
and for written communication because they are thought of as incomplete
and are looked upon as simply dialects or sub-languages," she says.

Indeed, Mexicans including many indigenous people themselves often refer
to the languages as dialectos , or dialects. Professor Nava calls this
terminology "a form of racism" that conveys an idea that the indigenous
languages are somehow inferior to Spanish. And this attitude results
not only in the virtual exclusion of the languages from the educational
system and public sphere, it also discourages speakers from passing
their linguistic tradition along to younger generations.

Azael Pérez, 28, who now runs a business consulting firm in Oaxaca city,
was raised in the Zapotec village of San Antonino Castillo Velasco. And
while the older members of his family all speak Zapoteco, he laments
the fact that neither family members nor the schools he attended
instructed him in the language. He says that now as an adult, he would
very much like to learn Zapoteco, but he admits that it has been very
difficult to motivate himself for the task.

"The truth is, it really wouldn't help me at all in my day-to-day and
professional life," he says. "It would just be something that would be
nice so that when I go back to the village to visit with my
grandparents and aunts and uncles, we could talk in Zapoteco."

THE SOLUTION

If Mexico is going to preserve its indigenous languages, says Nava, the
nation needs a fundamental change in attitude in both its mestizo and
indigenous societies to recognize the importance and value of
indigenous culture and linguistic tradition. And that means creating
opportunities where the languages can be used for a wider range of
purposes than simply conversing with grandparents.

First, he wants to see a greater effort from the larger mestizo
community to integrate indigenous languages into the mainstream. For
example, he would like for indigenous languages to be used more often
in areas such as advertising and on food labels. Popular entertainment
produced in indigenous languages would also be a step in the right
direction, for after all, Mexicans watch a great number of
English-language T.V. programs and movies subtitled in Spanish, so why
not a program in Nahuatl with Spanish subtitles?

In addition, Nava says there must be a stronger societal commitment to
promote public bilingual education in all of the nation's indigenous
communities and at a higher level of quality than currently exists.

But, he adds, it is not only the responsibility of the larger mestizo
society to affect these changes; Mexico's indigenous people must also
assume a more active role in language and cultural preservation.

"It is very important that the indigenous people themselves work to
preserve their own culture and language," he says, "and so at INALI, we
would like to see that each community has its own professional linguist
to undertake this work."

This is where people like Emiliana Cruz come in.

And as she continues to do the important work of documenting the Chatino
language, Emiliana says that she can see how preserving her language
and combating linguistic marginalization in Mexico can contribute to
hers and her father's goal of better overall conditions for indigenous
people.

"The larger culture propagates the dominant language for the purpose of
achieving national integration," she says. "But because indigenous
people do not have access to the same educational systems as
non-indigenous people, individuals lose their native language while
still not achieving a high level of education." Consequently, she says,
Mexico has created an undereducated and perpetually impoverished class
of people.

So as she furthers her own efforts to preserve, dignify, and promote
wider usage of indigenous language, Emiliana says she has a message for
her fellow indigenous peoples of Mexico: "Go to school and use
education to teach and inform others about the importance and unique
value of indigenous languages and customs."

To all Mexicans, she says. "Our language is a language and not dialect!
(Let's) preserve human cultural diversity and nurture respect for this
diversity. Recognize that indigenous people are under-represented, and
are thus discriminated against both individually and institutionally."



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