Linguistic Co-responsibility Between Indigenous Peoples and the Mexican State: There is a Stretch Between What is Said and What is Done

A meeting was held in Mexico City on February 27-28, 2020 to proclaim that 2022-2032 was a Decade for Indigenous Languages (The Declaration of Los Pinos (Chapoltepek)). Many officials, indigenous leaders, and a few artists came to be part of the final photo. They were all sad (some in tears) to recognize the reality of language loss in Mexico. They offered compelling speeches on the importance of stopping this "tragedy" of the loss of indigenous languages, but also, under the motto of the Zapatista National Liberation Army "Nothing for us without us". The participants stated their commitment to work on the application of and compliance with international norms and standards to protect indigenous peoples. 

In this presentation, Professor Emiliana Cruz Cruz will talk about the little resonance of this Declaration in Chatino communities, since they are not included in the decision-making, consultation, planning and implementation processes of linguistic projects in favor of their right to bilingual and intercultural education. Instead, what is being built are autonomous and community projects of the Chatino languages.

Emiliana Cruz Cruz was born in Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca, Mexico. She is a linguistic anthropologist and a Professor-Researcher at CIESAS-CDMX. Her trajectories of research are diverse and interdisciplinary, emphasizing education, linguistic rights, territory, documentation and linguistic revitalization. She has received the Distinguished Community Engagement Award from the University of Massachusetts for her Chatino Language Documentation Project. Cruz’ extensive experience with community collaboration is the mark of her work. She is a founding member of the collective "Dialogues between Indigenous Academics," which does what/ Her more recent publications include “evitemos que nuestro futuro se nos escape de las manos: tomás cruz lorenzo y la nueva generación chatina,” a product of collaboration amongst Chatinos; and Theoretical reflections around the role of fieldwork in linguistics and linguistic anthropology: Contributions of Indigenous researchers from southern Mexico.