I will tell you a few stories about things I have learned in my work with Indigenous communities, language activists and educators over the past four decades. Why stories? I’m an ethnographer…
As a young student, I was quite determined to do research in South America. (I am not sure why, but it may have to do with the fact that I was born in the mining region of Bolivia, where my father…
English + Español
Quechua, a 1000-year-old indigenous language, is an official language of Peru. One out of every nine Peruvians speaks the language. In the rural areas, the figure soars to six out of every ten…
English + Español
In October of 2019, Ecuador was thrust into the international spotlight. For nearly two weeks, a multitude of protesters in the capital of Quito demanded that President Lenín Moreno repeal…
English + Español
English class is super-cool, 15-year-old bilingual student, Ricardo, told me. Not so much Quechua, an indigenous language offered at his public high school in a valley town of Cuzco…
In mid-October 2019, Ecuador’s indigenous peoples suddenly left home and became the most numerous and visible marchers in a massive national protest, ostensibly against rising gasoline…
The first time I encountered ancestral Colombian Amazon cultures, I was struck by how people from different ethnic groups used Spanish as their common language, but used their traditional language in family gatherings or in work within their own communities…
