Yaqui tapes a treasure for UA researchers (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

SURVIVORS' ACCOUNTS OF WOES IN MEXICO ARE BEING DIGITIZED

Yaqui tapes a treasure for UA researchers

Becky Pallack Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Friday, May 28, 2010 12:00 am

While there are thousands of Yaqui speakers in Sonora, Mexico, there are
only 50 to 60 left in the U.S., mainly in Arizona. The Yaqui language is
also known as Hiaki and Yoeme.

Several University of Arizona researchers are working with a set of
tape-recorded interviews in the endangered Yaqui language describing
firsthand accounts of tribal persecution by the Mexican government.

Maria Florez Leyva, a native speaker of Arizona Yaqui, was working with
associate linguistics professor Heidi Harley on the grammar of the language
when she mentioned her tapes.

Harley said she could hardly believe it when she learned Leyva had been
working since 1969 to document the history of persecution of the tribe. She
had stored away interviews with tribal elders who recalled childhood
memories of deportations by the Mexican government.

There are no other known first-person accounts of that period in Yaqui
history, Harley said.

Access full article below:
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/college/article_548b2543-1d8d-5264-973e-58da5943f2a2.html
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