Cafecito Quechua

Our working group has created Cafecito Quechua as a way to bring together the Bay Area’s Quechua-speaking community so as to share language and culture in conjunction with Stanford’s third year Quechua program. Our hope is to highlight the presence of the Quechua community in the Bay Area and to educate the Stanford community through weekly conversation lessons and guest speakers open to all. We believe a weekly gathering of Bay Area Quechua-speakers at Stanford will support indigenous language preservation efforts, since many Quechua speakers feel stigma against speaking their language and don’t feel comfortable telling others they speak Quechua for fear of being looked down on.

Cafecito Quechua will serve as a safe space for Quechua speakers, young and old, to proudly share their language and culture. We also believe Cafecito Quechua will be a great resource to the Stanford community as a whole. Though there is funding for Nauatl and Quechua special language classes, there is not much more support for indigenous languages in terms of educating the Stanford community about their history and current status. We hope Cafecito Quechua will fill the gap of approaching Andean history and culture from an indigenous perspective.

We believe our language lessons, for example those on family, home, and music, will appeal to students with no former knowledge of Quechua, and the discussions after will be rich topics for both Quechua and non-Quechua speakers to discuss. We also hope our presentations on topics like Andean food, clothing, and music will appeal to both Quechua and non-Quechua speaking participants. It is our vision that Cafecito Quechua will provide a means of discussion Andean culture, history, and diaspora through an indigenous lens.