These Latines Are Learning The Indigenous Languages Colonialism Stole From Them

Across the United States and the world, an Indigenous language revitalization movement is taking shape. In 2022, Indigenous representatives across the globe convened on the Cherokee Nation reservation to kick off the United Nations’ International Decade of Indigenous Languages initiative. But it’s not just this worldwide push that is fueling some to connect to the language of their ancestors. To attune themselves to parts that feel undiscovered or untouched, U.S.-born Latines are reclaiming the languages that colonization stole from them.

There are currently 7,164 Indigenous languages around the world. Around 40% qualify as endangered because there are not enough speakers to pass them down. There are 560 Indigenous languages across Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a 2019 World Bank report. One in 5 people in the region have lost their native tongue in recent decades, and 26% of Indigenous Latin American and Caribbean languages are at risk of disappearing altogether. In comparison, at the time of the Spanish invasion, there were a reported 2,000 native languages spoken. 

This stark difference is not due to a natural change but a result of violence against Indigenous people through European colonial practices, like forcing them into Spanish-only boarding schools that Christian missionaries established. The foreign diseases that Europeans brought over also decimated Indigenous tribes who took the language with them. Additionally, the dispossession of land forcibly removed Indigenous peoples, perpetually interrupting the passing down of knowledge, including language acquisition.

Today, this devastating loss of languages extends to the extinction of cultural practices and traditions, ways of being, beliefs, and knowledge of the land and spirituality that have guided Indigenous peoples for centuries. Losses like this create an increasingly hegemonic world that imperils diversity of thought, expression, and values.

And it shows no signs of slowing down. Experts predict that by 2100, we might see the extinction or near extinction of 50% of Indigenous languages, and that’s the more optimistic figure. Others believe we could see the end of 90 to 95% of all native languages by the end of the century. As a response, the UN announced its decade-long endeavor in 2019. The plan calls on stakeholders to legalize, preserve, and revitalize Indigenous languages. As this happens on a global scale, communities and individuals at the local level have become self-motivated to revitalize their ancestors’ tongues. 

Refinery29 Somos spoke with four people with roots in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean to learn why they are pursuing this goal and what it means to them to learn an Indigenous language. Their stories show that despite the challenges they face, they are eager to push through and uncover more about themselves as a result. 

Kelsey Milian Lopez is Mexican and Guatemalan. She lives in New York City but grew up in  Miami. Lopez is learning Zapotec, specifically from Istmo de Tehuantepec. Zapotec has many different variations, about 30 to 75 versions, depending on the area. “If you walk to one town it will be a different Zapotec. People are called Za, translated to cloud, so people of the clouds,” Lopez says. 

She has studied the language for two years and is still at the beginner level because the language is tonal, meaning she must expertly master pronunciations to communicate. To learn this specific version of Zapotec, she is taking private classes with a musician and language instructor, a family friend who grew up in Juchitan. 

It was a combination of things. My grandfather spoke Zapotec but never taught my mom because there is a lot of discrimination toward Indigenous people. Growing up, I was taught my cultural values and my Indigenous identity compared to what it means to be in Mexico as a nation-state. Language is a big one for us because the Zapotec language is very poetic and musical and very much connected to the land. Since I grew up with love and pride for my Indigenous identity, I learned the importance of revitalizing it.

I’m getting my PhD in ethnomusicology, and part of the dissertation is on how language revitalization is being facilitated and rejuvenated through music, so it's connected to my career, and it is something that is part of my own identity. It is the connection between language, body, and land. It’s a way of understanding our trauma and where we could go.

I want to finish the PhD and be a fluent speaker, so when I have kids, I can start teaching them our Indigenous languages. I want them to have pride and maybe long-term, they can use this pride to change policy for Indigenous people.

Aspen Evans is a Belizean and Black American who lives in Atlanta. She is learning Belizean Kriol, a hybrid language composed of Indigenous African languages and English that resembles Jamaican Patois. She’s still at the beginner level and has been learning the language for a year by following Kuchriments, an Instagram page a local Belizean started. The account features Kriol words and explains how to pronounce and correctly use them. 

A lot of families that came to the States speak it, but once they moved here, they felt they've had to assimilate and so we feel like that part has been lost. My mom was born in Belize but left when she was 1 or 2. We’re the second generation, but we never learned the language and I only learned the culture through food. Now that I’m getting older, I feel the need to learn and looking to meet other people who are also interested in learning the language. I also don’t know of anyone who has a course that would teach it, but I wish there was.

I’ve been able to connect with people in Belize because I hope to live there, retire there at some point, and be seen as someone as part of the culture.

I want to become more fluent, be able to talk to more of the local people, and connect more in that way. However, it’s hard because it's mostly spoken and not a written local language. 

Jacqueline Cruz is Puerto Rican and Bolivian. She lives in Jersey City, New Jersey. Cruz is learning Quechua, inspired by her Indigenous Bolivian dad and grandparents speaking the language. She’s currently at the beginner level and can name basic conversational phrases and items. She’s learning it by practicing with her dad about two to three days a week. She’s also referencing three books: Quechua para todos: gramática: conversación y vocabulario, An Introduction to Spoken Bolivian Quechua, and Quechua-Spanish-English Dictionary: A Hippocrene Trilingual Reference.

One day I had an epiphany listening to folkloric music. I didn’t understand what they were saying, and the scariest thing was losing that language especially because I wouldn’t be able to pass it down to my kids. This is a huge part of my life and my family's history. It's important for me to pass down that legacy. I feel this connection to learn it, and I don’t want it to die just because my parents moved to the U.S.

It has offered me insight into how my dad was raised and that there is a deeper meaning to certain words. I can truly understand the language and where my family came from. But it’s hard when it comes to the positioning of how you say things. We bond over that now. 

I want to have a full conversation with my dad and some of my uncles and pass down the language to my future kids.

Bairaniki Mayowakanex Citò Colòn is Puerto Rican. He lives in Lynn, Massachusetts. Colòn joined the Higuayagua tribe in 2019. Jorge Esteves, who was part of the Smithsonian’s Taino: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean exhibition in 2018, started the group. He is studying Hiwatahia, a mix of six different root languages that stems from the Arawak language. He started learning it in 2020 and is in between the intermediary and expert levels. 

Colòn uses the Hiwatahia: Hekexi Taino Language Dictionary and writes one sentence every morning from English to Spanish to Hiwatahia, speaks to his tribal siblings every morning, and incorporates words throughout the day. 

I’ve always connected to being Taíno and finding the Higuayagua tribe was a divine intervention to learn the language. It’s an up-and-coming group, and I like the work they are doing and what they stand for. It has been said that Taíno people are extinct, but we’re not. Now being part of this language team is honoring our ancestors.

What is this process offering you?

It offers me connection and medicinal purposes and properties that heal a lot of traumas. I’m able to use it with my family and reclaim space. I feel I’m doing my ancestors proud and keeping them alive. It’s my soul and my happiness right now. Learning this language reignites a passion to continue to do work like this and even public speaking to bring to the forefront all Indigenous issues. It gives me a backbone.

To be able to have community spaces where this language is thriving, and you hear the richness and people speaking it when you enter the room. To also have the right to have a seat at the table for Indigenous rights and have the language picked up throughout the generations.