Sweeping South America: indigenous pride

Andean languages are making a comeback as long discriminated-against cultures push for acceptance.

from the April 3, 2007 edition

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That is why Supa has made it one of her battle cries. Seventeen percent of Peru's residents speak Quechua as a first language. In her home Huallaccocha, outside Cusco, residents address one another in Quechua on the streets and in local stores. Some don't speak Spanish at all.

But it is a different story along the coast, where most of the political and economic power lies. In July, Supa made headlines when she swore her oath of office not on the Bible but in the name of Incan deities. She is also working on a law to introduce indigenous language education to public schools. "If we don't have an identity, then the rest won't value us," Supa says.

"The town is so proud of her," says Carlos Huaman, Supa's cousin and a farmer in Huallaccocha, where homes are made with mud and straw, and the streets turn into mud slicks in the rainy season. "She can help the indigenous."

Not everyone has celebrated giving more space to indigenous culture. Last year in Bolivia, plans to replace Roman Catholic education in public schools with a course that would place more emphasis on indigenous faith, as well as to require that all schools teach native languages, was scrapped after citizens balked – despite the fact that well over half of the population speaks a native language, according to the national census.

But the Bolivian Education Ministry is pushing to nearly double its native language programs to some 5,000 schools. Currently 2,830 have such programs, up from 540 in 1990. "Learning our culture helps us de-colonize mentally," says Adrian Montalvo, who helps plan the native languages program in the Education Ministry.

The goal is to have all functionaries at the national level adept at at least one native language, too. Where many in the younger generations focus on foreign languages for social mobility and work opportunities, Ms. Cayetano, says many students are enrolling in native languages today for the very same reasons.

"They are starting to revalue their languages," says Cayetano, whose department offers classes to functionaries in the municipal government of La Paz. "They are going to need it in the future."

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