How has your journey been to reclaim your language?

[Tzintia_Montano]

Va’a-nsia!

My parents migrated from their communities in Southern Mexico. I was born and raised in Mexico City but I’ve always been in touch with my communities because we always visit in vacations and holidays. However, I didn’t know that Da’an Davi, a variety of Mixtec, was spoken in my family until I was like 19 years old, due to colonialism and to the national linguistic policies in Mexico, since my great-grandmother was forced to stop speaking it to her children. I think that knowing that changed my path of life and my attitude to face life because it felt like a big commitment to make something about it. Now I’m working to document Da’an Davi, my language. I have started to upload the recordings of some basic words and expressions in Memrise. If you want to hear how Dà’án Dàvi sounds like, here’s the link.

Well, I would like to know how your own journey has been, since I think knowing each other’s stories would be encouraging and inspiring to someone else here.

Looking forward to it!

[Lamngien22]

My own journey started with me trying to reclaim my Spanish in high school. My family and I moved to Canada when I was six, and my brother and I experienced subtle racism and bullying when it came to us speaking Spanish or celebrating our Mexican culture. So I refused to speak Spanish for years, and then in high school I realized that I didn’t want to lose the connection between my grandmother and myself when we speak Spanish together. I have also started learning Mapudungun, which is the Indigenous language of Chile. My Chilean family has always suspected that my great-grandmother was Mapuche, but there really isn’t any way to know given the very few records kept in Chile. However, learning it has made me feel closer to my Chilean roots, and it is a way for me to reclaim that side of me, including the Indigenous side that many of us in Latin America most definitely have given the colonial history of Latin America!