“Las Del Istmo Son Muy Cabronas”: Teaching an Indigenous Language in a Language Teaching Preparation BA Program

Abstract

ABSTRACT Language teaching preparation programs in Mexico have been part of the modernity/coloniality legacy favoring so-called “modern” languages (e.g., English and French) over Indigenous languages. The alleged neoliberal benefits these languages bring and their connection to “modernized” individuals and cultures overshadows the learning of Indigenous languages, whose speakers struggle with the colonial difference, the discourse that transforms otherness into inferiority. Situated in Oaxaca, the most culturally and linguistically diverse state in Mexico, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of an ongoing, longitudinal, critical-ethnographic-action-research project that has documented the recent inclusion of the Indigenous language Diidxazá/Isthmus Zapotec as part of a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree program in language teaching. Adopting a decolonizing theoretical lens and using vignettes co-constructed from participatory classroom and extra-curricular activity observations, photographs, and video recordings, ethnographic field notes, and on-going dialogue in formal and informal debriefing sessions, this paper presents the story of Kiara, the first Diidxazá teacher in this BA program. Based on an iterative analysis of the data, this paper addresses three main themes: (a) Indigenous teachers challenging the coloniality of being; (b) (Indigenous) women repositioning themselves; and (c) reflective activism decolonizing language teaching.