Changing Times
These two women live within walking distance of one another in Amatlán, and yet they live in different worlds. One is a mother and grandmother who works in the house and the field all day. She is also a traditional curandera (healer). Many of her children have moved out of Amatlán to bigger cities in search of work.
The other woman is a young, single twentysomething who studies at a university in Morelia, a city with over half a million people and located roughly four hundred miles from home.
Amatlán is changing, and so are its kids. What's more, this change is happening rapidly, in the space of a generation. Click through the buttons to find out what is causing these changes and what it means for the way people communicate in Amatlán.
The other woman is a young, single twentysomething who studies at a university in Morelia, a city with over half a million people and located roughly four hundred miles from home.
Amatlán is changing, and so are its kids. What's more, this change is happening rapidly, in the space of a generation. Click through the buttons to find out what is causing these changes and what it means for the way people communicate in Amatlán.
Language Loss and Identity
This summer, I studied the effect of language loss on the ethnic identity of adolescents living in Amatlán. Despite government and grassroots efforts in Mexico to maintain indigenous languages and cultures, Spanish has greater social and economic power. Many young Nahuas from Amatlán are moving from their subsistence-based village to Spanish speaking cities where they can make more money (Sandstrom 1991). Others attend college at the relatively new Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVI). One of the university’s goals is to preserve indigenous language and culture, though classes are taught in Spanish. Amatlán's schools no longer teach Nahuatl. Young Nahuas are changing the way they use language and changing their way of life; it makes sense that their ethnic identity is changing, too. It is important to study this shift away
from native languages and cultures because it is creating what anthropologist Alan Sandstrom calls a crisis in indigenous identity (1991:347).
from native languages and cultures because it is creating what anthropologist Alan Sandstrom calls a crisis in indigenous identity (1991:347).
meTHODS AND gOALS
The goal of this project was to discover the effect that the loss of Nahuatl had on the identity of young people in Amatlán.
I used participant observation and conducted interviews in Spanish with children, teens, and young adults from the village and La UVI. I lived with my informants from day to day, and I directly observed their language use and language attitudes. This allowed me to see how
adolescents truly use language in various contexts and how their presentation of self/identity varies depending on the language they choose.
Semistructured interviews with individuals or small groups of teens concerning their language use and their feelings about one language over another were also useful. The interviews illuminated how students feel about the language they speak and their identity. The semistructured format provided a basic guideline for conversation, but it is less formal and allowed room to expand on interesting or relevant topics outside of the questions I prepared.
Participants were young people aged twelve to twenty. All were Nahua native to Amatlán.
I used participant observation and conducted interviews in Spanish with children, teens, and young adults from the village and La UVI. I lived with my informants from day to day, and I directly observed their language use and language attitudes. This allowed me to see how
adolescents truly use language in various contexts and how their presentation of self/identity varies depending on the language they choose.
Semistructured interviews with individuals or small groups of teens concerning their language use and their feelings about one language over another were also useful. The interviews illuminated how students feel about the language they speak and their identity. The semistructured format provided a basic guideline for conversation, but it is less formal and allowed room to expand on interesting or relevant topics outside of the questions I prepared.
Participants were young people aged twelve to twenty. All were Nahua native to Amatlán.