Indigenous Languages: Urban & Transnational Realities, Contexts &Characteristics of Indigenous Languages

May 10, 2016 

Fifteenth Session UNPFII

Intervention addressing outcomes of the Expert Group Meeting on Indigenous Languages: Urban & Transnational Realities, Contexts & Characteristics of Indigenous Languages

By Marcos Aguilar (Azteca-Mexicano), Tlayecantzi - Executive Director 

Semillas Sociedad Civil (Indigenous Peoples Community-based Organization)

Tlaquiltihqueh totahuan, tonahuan, to nihuan ihuan to huehuetquemeh.

Good morning brothers and sisters, and ancestor guardians of these lands. 

My name is Marcos Aguilar (Azteca Mexicano). I am the Executive Director Tlayecantzi of the ONLY indigenous community-based autonomous school in the county of Los Angeles, California, Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory. Our school is located in nican chanehqueh Gabrielino Tongva territory, now known as Los Angeles. 

I along with my son Tecpatl Kuauhtzin and our Performing Artist in residence Anna Gatica participated in the Expert Group Meeting on Indigenous Languages in January in the status of observers. I would like thank The Permanent Forum members and experst for taking up the important crisis facing indigenous languages around the world. I would also like to thank Grand Chief Edward John for joining a statewide student summit held at our school which inquired into among other things, the youth hunger for maternal language in the face of English only educational policies in the US. 

The urban context survived by transnational communities of indigenous peoples is one also survived by youth and children under such duress that local educational authorities have declared the state of life of mostly all inner city youth as one akin to post-traumatic stress syndrome. Indigenous youth and children in particular bear the burden of these realities as they lack individual autonomy over their lives as minors and they collectively lack access to the resources necessary to overcome challenges they face. 

We would like to reaffirm and urge the implementation of ALL recommendations to States in the final report of the International Expert Group Meeting on Indigenous Languages; with particular attention to: 

"(c) Take adequate constitutional and other legislative measures for the recognition of indigenous languages and develop policies and programmes that strengthen the daily use of indigenous languages at all levels, in public and private institutions, within and outside indigenous communities;

    (d) Ensure adequate funding for the preservation, revitalization and promotion of indigenous languages and cultures, recognizing the cost of implementing programmes and projects in remote areas;"

However, our central question remains unanswered. How can the UNPFII advance the rights of indigenous children when guidelines proposed in the 15th Session of the UNPFII actually seek to restrict the inalienable right of Indigenous Peoples to self-recognition and self-determination specifically calling for the requirement that Indigenous Peoples only be recognized if they are determined to be, “ genuine and based in the land and territories of Indigenous peoples and should have the requisite proof of this”?

In Los Angeles, over 224 languages are spoken today of which dozens are indigenous languages including Nahuatl-Mexicano, our language, which is represented by dozens of regional varieties spoken today throughout Aztlan, Mexico, El Salvador and Nicaragua, as well as Zapoteco and various Mayan languages. Over a million indigenous children attend Los Angeles public schools of which the vast majority are indigenous persons. Yet, as an example of the impact of overly restrictive policies of identification of indigenous children, in Los Angeles Unified School District, of over 650,000 students, slightly over 900 (nine hundred) children are recognized as Native American. 

Additionally concerning, is the utter lack of outreach to indigenous parents, either to better identify indigenous children or to consult Indigenous parents in a process of free, prior and informed consent over the education and financing of the schooling of their children. Moreover, it is also alarming that no known public agency of the state concerns itself with conducting an accurate census of the number of children who speak an indigenous language or whose home language includes an indigenous language or whose heritage language may be an indigenous language. Consequently, possibly hundreds of thousands of children and families throughout the state of California, a state which is traditional territory for over two hundred sovereign indigenous nations, and home to hundreds of indigenous languages from throughout the Americas remain invisible, without regard to internationally affirmed rights to education, language and culture. Certainly, the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery upon indigenous children today and the languages they speak or are prevented from speaking by the policies, pedogogies, curricula and personnel of public schooling remains as the single most defining commonality among all indigenous children, their families and communities.

We note in this context that our concerns for indigenous language rights and revitalization cannot be seriously considered without a sobering and honest assessment of the impact of acts of genocide by agents of state governments in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, particularly calling attention to the case of the massacre and disappearances in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico of Indigenous student teachers of the Teachers College of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico. These very student  teachers were to become the teachers in remote villages, pueblos and even in inner city schools attended by indigenous children forced into migrating to cities outside their homelands and even outside their home countries. This is why constitutional measures recognizing the inalienability of the sovereign rights of Indigenous Peoples, and by extension Indigenous parents over the education and cultures of their children are imperative.

Lastly, the February 2016 Report of the expert group meeting on the theme “Indigenous languages: preservation and revitalization” omits any reference to the fluid, historic and complex transnational urban context presented by Indigenous Peoples from Mexico living outside of land bases and pueblos in East Los Angeles. Likewise, the report omits any reference to the impacts of state violence or acts of genocide perpetrated by agents of states such as Mexico presented by our delegation and others. Also notably absent was any representation of Indigenous Peoples from Africa or the African diaspora. Certainly the call to action regarding the demise of languages must address the genocide of the speakers of these languages as well.

Xmoqueztehuacan Anahuamaxtihqueh...

Tonacayotl toquiliz ixuayo ponilizcayotl - our people are seeds, even when we are buried we will flower.

-- 

Marcos Aguilar | Tlayecantzi 

Head of School 

Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory

an IB World School

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Semillas Sociedad Civil - Executive Director