By: Mariana Navarrete, Contributing Writer
Tajeew Beatriz Diaz defines a community’s indigenous language as a thin thread that connects people and provides communal bonds, such as love, peace, and honor. But, as it is a thin thread, it has been historically broken by various governmental institutions. Nonetheless, Diaz advocates to find all the broken threads and sew together them again.
Diaz was born in Tlahui, a community where the indigenous language, Mixe, has roots in the northern region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Tlahui is a Mixe community of fewer than 9,000 people that revolves around community service, collective ownership, and tradition.
As she closed her eyes and painted memories of her early years, Diaz smiled and said, “The community makes you grow up with certain values that end up giving you a different perspective towards life. You see, in my community, individual success is always collective. Every project and goal is thought for mutual well-being.”
After graduating with a degree in Political Science in the Mexican city of Puebla, Diaz is grateful to have worked with other Mixe women that wanted to advocate for their communities and created Colmix. This collective group focuses on activities that enhance research, diffusion, and reflection of the Mixe language.
“Some Colmix members are from neighboring villages, and we remind us every day that this is for them,” reflects Diaz.
Diaz said “villages” and not “indigenous groups.” . She respectfully clarified and said, “We are villages.”
She then crossed her arms and amended her statement.
“Indigenous communities are villages, not groups, because the term ‘village’ has implications regarding human rights access and government representation we do not have, but we need,” Diaz said.
The Mixe language is becoming extinct. Diaz laid back with a concerned face.
“The State has been in quite a rush to get rid of us,” said Diaz.
She explained that in the last 500 years, the displacement process had included two parts. The first one is tangible, which is the land displacement The second one, “which is worse,” according to Diaz, is the prohibition of their language. They are forced to learn and speak only Spanish.
Diaz knows the Mixe language because her mother taught her, but most of the Tlahui youth today barely understand it or do not know it at all.
“It is not their parents’ or grandparents’ fault that they do not know this music; it is a systemic failure to indigenous communities, historically imposed by colonization and the state,” Diaz said. “It destroys me that the few old guardians of indigenous languages are dying at a faster rate now with the COVID-19 pandemic because they do not have access to health services,” Diaz laughed, “Well, they have never had.”
So far, it has been a permanent fight for Mixe people, but Diaz hopes it will end someday. She wishes for a utopia where all indigenous villages have total autonomy, can decide the kind of development they want, and for the Mixe language to be spoken by people from all ages without discrimination.
Diaz rolled her eyes.
“For that to happen, the state would not exist either, or at least how we know it,” Diaz said.
Diaz currently lives in the city of Oaxaca, where she is keen to keep sewing together the broken threads of the Mixe language. She coordinates the project called EndlessOaxaca, a network of nonprofit organizations that translate and publish storybooks in 13 indigenous languages.
Even if the threads of the Mixe language are dispersed beyond Mexico, Diaz will not stop to pick them up from the ashes to sew them back together. All Diaz asks is that we open her space, and maybe pass her some threads too.
