Immigrants Who Speak Indigenous Languages Encounter Isolation (fwd link)

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*Immigrants Who Speak Indigenous Languages Encounter Isolation*

*By **KIRK SEMPLE*
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/kirk_semple/index.html>JULY
10, 2014

Laura is a Mexican immigrant who lives in East Harlem, a neighborhood with
one of the largest Latino populations in New York City. Yet she understands
so little of what others are saying around her that she might just as well
be living in Siberia.

Laura, 27, speaks Mixtec, a language indigenous to Mexico. But she knows
little Spanish and no English. She is so scared of getting lost on the
subway and not being able to find her way home that she tends to spend her
days within walking distance of her apartment.

“I feel bad because I can’t communicate with people,” she said, partly in
Spanish, partly in Mixtec. “I can’t do anything.”

Laura, who asked that her last name not be revealed because she does not
have legal immigration status, is among hundreds if not thousands of
indigenous people from Latin America living in the New York region who
speak neither the dominant language of the city, English, nor the dominant
language of the broader Latino community, Spanish.

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http://nyti.ms/1zt0Qae
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