Monica Morales-Good
University of British Columbia
mcgood@mail.ubc.ca
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I was born in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, home of the Coahuiltecan tribe, whose people were absorbed into the population of what was known as the state of Coahuila y Tejas (“Coahuila and Texas”) after fighting Spanish and Apaches. Northeast of the town of Melchor Múzquiz, Coahuila, along the Sabinas River, there is a reservation known as “El Nacimiento de la Tribu Kikapú.” (The Birthplace of the Kickapoo Tribe).
I carry within me different lineages of land and history. Ancestors on my mother’s side migrated from the edges of the Sabinas river. My mother’s father belongs to the lineage of the Spanish colonizers, as missionaries settled in Coahuila to expand the Catholic church. My paternal grandmother migrated to my home city from what is known as La Huasteca Potosina, located in Mexico’s center state, San Luis Potosi. Huasteco people are part of the Mayan family, they speak Tenek, more commonly known as Huasteco. Tenek is a variant of the Mayan language, and today, the Huasteco people are dispersed between the states of San Luis Potosi, Veracruz, and Hidalgo. They were a dominant culture, although they did not build large architectural structures as did the Southern Yucatec Maya. My paternal grandfather was native to my hometown, Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico; he had grown acculturated and accustomed to Mexican ways of living.
I don’t have any memories of my paternal grandmother, but I remember how my maternal grandmother would share stories to instruct me about everything – when certain fruits or vegetables needed to be planted, the prayer we would offer for the Earth to bless our food, and how each item needed to be harvested. I miss her problem-solving skills and ways of seeing the world.
Growing up, I listened to the sounds of Indigenous languages, including Maya and Nahuatl, and was exposed to two sides of Mexico – one that takes pride in the Indigenous heritage and the other side that disadvantages Indigenous communities. On the latter side, most Mexicans don’t see Indigenous languages as national languages; they consider them dialects, suggesting an inferior status and ignoring the deep relationship that Indigenous languages have with the land and natural world (Hoobler 441-460; Muñoz 414-433).
I was brought up in a Spanish-speaking home. My home state, Coahuila, borders the state of Texas in the United States. Therefore, my home city is located in an area that has been Americanized, and where an English-Spanish binary is encouraged at a young age. In my community, parents encourage embracing Western cultures and discourage learning about Mexican traditions. As a side effect of colonialism, this means that if a person speaks English and Spanish, they are worth more than if they were to speak Spanish and any Indigenous language, upholding a version of language supremacy (Sledd 1969). My grandparents lived away from their Indigenous community even before I was born, and I did not embrace their traditional culture and ways of living until later in my life. Consequently, I grew closer to the Americanized life widely promoted in Northern Mexico.
My interest in reclaiming my Indigenous language developed while I was very little, still in elementary school. I was fortunate to have a teacher who spoke Mayan, and who was not afraid of going against the rules of the Department of Education (SEP per its acronym in Spanish) to teach students the basics of the Mayan language. Really, though, it wasn’t just an interest – it was an obligation. Most Indigenous peoples are given an obligation; I was given mine during my teen years. At the time it didn’t mean much to me, but with time I have come to recognize my role in revitalizing, reclaiming, and recovering not only the words, but the wisdom embedded in the language of my ancestors. My obligation was worded along these lines: “The voices of your ancestors will live through you” and it continues to resonate as I embrace my work to revitalize Indigenous languages.