Testimony before the Select Committee on Biliteracy and Dual Immersion Programs in California

"We don't only speak two languages. We speak Nahuatl, Zapoteco, Mixteco and Mayan languages too."-M.Aguilar

SENATOR TONY MENDOZA, Chair

“Biliteracy and Effective Learning Strategies in an Internationalized California”

By

Marcos Aguilar, Head of School, Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory,

A State Board of Education authorized autonomous community-based public charter school

on

December 1st, 2015

Excelsior High School 15711 Pioneer Blvd., Norwalk, CA 90650

Esteemed members of the Select Committee:

RECALLING, that in 1965, the United Nations adopted an International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination that entered into force in 1969 by international agreement. Importantly this Convention clarifies that: “Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination, provided, however, that such measures do not, as a consequence, lead to the maintenance of separate rights for different racial groups and that they shall not be continued after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.”

AFFIRMING, that Article 7 of the Convention called for the adoption by member states of, “immediate and effective measures, particularly in the fields of teaching, education, culture and information, with a view to combating prejudices which lead to racial discrimination and to promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship among nations and racial or ethnic groups, as well as to propagating the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and this Convention.”

EMPHASIZING, that almost fifty years later, and in many ways even farther from the eradication of racism, it is important to distinguish among the historical and global contexts we still confront to identify the sources, barriers, opportunities and junctures with which to construct an updated understanding of the realities of racism in all of its meanings, expressions and institutionalized forms.

UNDERSCORING, that in 2001, The UN convened a World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related intolerance also issued a Declaration affirming among many other things a clear international commitment to the ongoing elimination of racism.

CITING, that we now live, “in an era when globalization and technology have contributed considerably to bringing people together,” the Declaration goes on to call for the materialization of, “the notion of a human family based on equality, dignity and solidarity,” (p.4).

AFFIRMING, that as a part of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Indigenous By the General Assembly of the United Nations, this body recognized that Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.

FURTHER RECALLING, that the UN DRIP also calls upon member States to take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected and also to ensure that indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.

EMPHASIZING, that the UN DRIP further acknowledges, “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning,”

VIEWING WITH APPRECIATION, that the UN DRIP notes, “Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right to all levels and forms of education of the State without discrimination,”

UNDERSCORING, that the UN DRIP highlights the role of its member States declaring that they, “shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language,”

REAFFIRMING, that the Nahuatl language, popularly known as Aztec or Mexicano, has been spoken since time immemorial and has a well documented linguistic and cultural relationship with languages indigenous to California even as it is rooted today in the Mesoamerican region of present-day central and southern Mexico,

CONCERNED, that without purposeful intervention, people of Nahuatl language and culture are at risk of linguistic extinction. It is noted that today, while there are over 1.5-million speakers of the Nahuatl (also known as Azteca or Mexicano), only 15% of the Nahuatl speaking population is monolingual and this figure is in rapid decline.  As greater numbers of indigenous Nahua migrate from our people’s traditional villages to urban settings - in Mexico or in California - our maternal language is being gradually supplanted by Spanish (and/or English) as the dominant language(s) and as our indigenous language gets replaced, so comes the threat of the loss of an ancient and rich culture,  

DEEPLY CONCERNED, that Indigenous youth in particular are impacted by the loss of culture and language resulting at times in habits of self-harm, abuse, suicide, and fratricide in the form of gang violence,

CONVINCED, by the United Nation’s Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination calls, “to make the twenty-first century a century of human rights, the eradication of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the realization of genuine equality of opportunity and treatment for all individuals and peoples,”

WELCOMING, the Select Committee on Biliteracy and Dual Immersion Programs in California call for the study of “Biliteracy and Effective Learning Strategies in an Internationalized California”,

Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory, an Indigenous Peoples’, community-based, autonomous public charter school, hereby adds our organizational community voice to the call for an expansion and enrichment of educational opportunities to deepen the education of our next generation through maternal languages, indigenous languages and multilingual learning,

We further DECLARE TODAY that towards the eradication of racism particularly as this experience impacts Indigenous Peoples in relation to others drawing upon local, state, national and international standards of justice, that multilingual education be welcomed as a strategy to overcome decades of educational, social and political injustices aimed squarely at Indigenous Peoples including Mexicano (Mexican American Indian) Peoples living in California, it must be acknowledged that California’s First Peoples practiced multilingualism as a manner of diplomacy and cultural respect among Native Nations since time immemorial,

We NOTE further that that the impacts of xenophobic and anti-Mexican, anti-multilingual, anti-educational political and ideologically backward actions, policies and laws in the State of California have set our children and consequently civil society back decades with regards to relations among communities, people and sovereign indigenous nations,

THEREFORE, WE CALL UPON THE HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THIS SELECT COMMITTEE and the GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, towards seeking truth and reconciliation with a discriminatory past and present for Indigenous Peoples from both within and beyond the State of California, to study the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as it relates to questions of language, culture, children and education,

WE FURTHER CALL UPON THIS ESTEEMED BODY to uphold autonomous examples of multilingual education organized by Indigenous Peoples and communities such as Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory, not simply as a means by which to promote “biliteracy” but as a step towards advancing locally organized and controlled educational solutions created for, by and with Indigenous Peoples,

LASTLY, WE STRONGLY URGE THE MEMBERS OF THIS ESTEEMED BODY to commit itself and the State of California to taking effective measures, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, “in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language,” with all due haste.

XQUEMAN TIHQUITOS KA, MASQUEH TEPIZKANAUATILISTLE TICMATIS 

ITITLAN TIKA

“Nunca te rendirás, aun cuando sientas que se te acaba la vida.”