This study examines how three recently arrived Indigenous male migrant youth from Guatemala and Mexico in an urban high school in the Pacific Northwest understood and employed Spanish and English to navigate racialized and languaged interactions. Utilizing a Critical Latinx Indigeneities framework, findings from this study show that Spanish is a racialized and languaged system of power that traveled with youth. In the U.S., Spanish interacts with English as a new system of power resulting in the diminishing of Indigenous languages. This study provides urban educators with understandings of the complex systems of race, language, and power Indigenous migrants navigate.
Keywords: Maya youth; Indigenous migrants; Indigenous Latinxs; Critical Latinx Indigeneities; colonialism; Language
This study investigates how two recently arrived[
I focus attention on recently arrived Maya and Indigenous Mexican minors in urban school settings because they experience different lived realities from those of their non-Maya and non-Indigenous migrant contemporaries within their countries of origin and in the U.S. Human rights advocates and political activists have documented the systemic ways Maya peoples are racially and linguistically oppressed in Guatemala. One of the most recent horrific examples of targeted oppression by the Guatemalan government of Maya peoples is the genocide of the Ixil during the 1980s. For its part, the Mexican government has legislated policies favoring foreign mining companies that directly harm the political and economic autonomy of Indigenous groups such that of the Nahua in various regions across the country ([
Another reason to focus on Indigenous migrant youth is due to urban education's essentially nonexistent research on them despite their longstanding membership in Latinidad, urban schools, and urban centers ([
Latinx education scholars are disrupting the invisibilization of Indigenous peoples from Abya Yala in U.S. urban settings with their recent studies. These scholars examine the language practices and identity developments within urban schools of Ixil, Zapotec, Mixtec, P'urhépecha, and Nahua youth, among others ([
This study intervenes in the urban education's research inattention on Indigenous students by describing how recently arrived K'iche', Mam, and Nahua youth utilize Spanish and English to traverse their racialized and languaged experiences in Guatemala, Mexico, and the U.S. I argue that the youth strategically utilized colonial languages to navigate what I refer to as "colonial codes of power" in their everyday lived experiences. [
K'iche', Mam, and Nahua migrant youth do not escape the colonized systems that give rise to codes of power that they are thrust into in their countries of origin once they are in the U.S. ([
Additionally, this study demonstrates that unlike non-Indigenous recently arrived migrants from Guatemala and Mexico, K'iche', Mam, and Nahua youth learn codes of power under multiple colonial conditions in their countries and in the U.S. This understanding should provide urban school educators working with recently arrived Central American and Indigenous Mexican migrants an awareness of intra and inter-ethnic group dynamics including instances of racism towards Maya and Nahua youth. Significance of this study for urban education theory lies in the CLI analytic framework employed. CLI prompts urban education scholars focusing on migrant youth from Abya Yala to consider the dynamic histories of colonialism, racism, indigeneities, language, and migration when making sense of the vast demographic often lumped under the Latinx category.
I rely on Critical Latinx Indigeneities ([
I find CLI useful in making sense of how the colonial codes of power Indigenous youth learned in Guatemala and Mexico traveled with them and intersected with new codes of power in the U.S. Understanding why and how codes of power travel requires investigating and unpacking mestizaje and Whiteness operating in Guatemala, Mexico, and the U.S. For the purposes of brevity, mestizaje can be understood as an ideology and political project aimed at creating non-Indigenous and other-than-Indigenous subjects for the purposes of consolidating and maintaining unequal relationships of power. In Abya Yala, nation-states have invested interests in mestizaje and maintain it through the colonial legacy of racialized schemes and the "co-naturalization of language and race" ([
Similar to mestizaje, Whiteness in the U.S. operates as an ideology, best exemplified in the Black/White dichotomy. In this dichotomy, there are only White and non-White subjects; thus, all social, political, and economic relations are centered around White subjectivities. Latinxs are racialized under a "collective Black" category in this dichotomy ([
Raciolinguistics provides me a complementary analytic to CLI for explaining how Spanish provided the Indigenous youth in this study a schema informing their perceptions of Indigenous group membership. Raciolinguistics examines the role that language has in shaping perceptions of racialized identities. Within the U.S. context, English is racialized in a way that White subjects have or can achieve proper or standard English language skills ([
The current work in education scholarship employing CLI shows its critical importance for understanding the unique positioning of Indigenous youth from Abya Yala in U.S. urban settings and schools (e.g., [
Findings presented in this article derive from a qualitative study I conducted during the 2015–2016 school year of eight recently arrived Indigenous migrant youth (15–20 years old) from Guatemala and Mexico in Pacific North High (PNH), a high school in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.[
This study asked Indigenous youth to speak about their experiences and understandings of what indigeneity meant to them, including their perspectives on Indigenous languages, Spanish, and English. Therefore, semi-structured interviews were the most appropriate data gathering method ([
Other data consists of approximately 120 h of participant observations, including informal conversations with the Indigenous youth, conducted over a period of nine non-consecutive months at PNH. I conducted observations to fill in any gaps that may have arisen in the semi-structured interviews with the youth. Observations, in addition to the classroom, generally took place in locations frequented by Indigenous youth such as the cafeteria, hallways, sports field, computer lab/library, and immediately outside the school facility. During these observations, I was attentive to the youth's interactions with other Indigenous youth and non-Indigenous Latinx students. I paid close attention to frequency of Indigenous language use by the Indigenous youth, spaces where these languages were spoken, and who they spoke Indigenous languages with.
I met Indigenous youth in this study through my volunteering at PNH from November 2014 until June 2016. My volunteering consisted of helping Spanish-speaking students with their classwork during their mathematics, arts, and newcomer classes. I recruited students between 15 and 20 years of age who self-identified as Indigenous and spoke and understood some Spanish. This age group was chosen because my study focused on recently arrived Indigenous youth of high school age. I targeted Spanish-speaking Indigenous youth because I am a Spanish speaker that doesnot speak an Indigenous language.
Out of a total of eight male participating youth, this study emphasizes three: Tonio, Juan, and Alan. I center the experiences of these youth because they come from three distinct ethno-linguistic communities in Guatemala and Mexico. They also have different experiences learning Spanish and Indigenous languages in their contexts of origin. In what follows, I provide a brief introduction of each youth to situate them in the context of this study and for my larger argument of how they navigate colonial codes of power.
I met Juan, at the time, a 20-year-old from San Marcos, Guatemala, at the start of 2015. Juan grew up speaking Mam, learned Spanish at school in Guatemala, was eager to learn English, and become trilingual. In Guatemala, he attended secondary schooling, as he planned to be a teacher, while also working to financially support his widowed mother. He had been in the U.S. for about 24 months at the start of the study. Reasons he gave for migrating to the U.S. were to be reunified with his sister and attend school. Once in the U.S. he intended to continue his goal of becoming a teacher by going to college. He was both excited and unsure about how to make this possible. While being a full-time Senior at PNH, Juan also worked full-time as a dishwasher at a local Thai restaurant. He lived with a relative and another acquaintance in an apartment.
Tonio, 17 years old, is from El Quiché, Guatemala, and grew up speaking K'iche' and Spanish simultaneously. At the time of the first interview, Tonio had been in the U.S. for a year and at PNH approximately seven months. Tonio attended secondary school in Guatemala. He migrated to the U.S. to "search for a future" since, for him, "[en] nuestros paises no hay tantas oportunidades" or "in our countries, there aren't that many opportunities." Tonio worked at a restaurant and lived with his uncles in the U.S. For him, a primary reason for attending PNH was to learn English. A Junior at PNH, Tonio mostly kept to himself, hanging out in the computer lab/library, as he explained that he did not like to hang out with "malos estudiantes que fuman" or "bad students that smoke," or that were disrespectful to each other by the way they spoke or treated each other.
Alan, also 17 years old, was born in Morelos Cuautla, Mexico, where he completed preparatoria or secondary schooling. When first interviewed, Alan had been in the U.S. for approximately seven months, and at PNH for about six of those. He lived with his parents and sister in the U.S. While as a child he spoke Náhuatl, early on in his childhood he was bullied at school for the use of it. Subsequently, his grandparents whose language of origin is Náhuatl discouraged him from speaking the language. As a result, Alan knows some Náhuatl but is primarily a Spanish speaker. Reasons he gave for his family migrating to the U.S. were for him to have a better future. He enrolled as a Senior at PNH and said that his goal was to graduate from school and "earn a degree to be able to work in something humble." Alan on occasion worked with his father painting houses during the weekend.
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Pacific North High is in an urban city in the Pacific Northwest that historically has served as a place where refugees are resettled. Founded in 1980, PNH was initially designed to be a newcomer center, being a temporary space for recently arrived migrant and refugee youth to become acclimated to the city and U.S. society. The gradual change to high school status began in 2012/2013 with PNH celebrating its first graduating class in 2016. While being an urban high school, PNH continues to also serve as a newcomer center for youth between 11–20 years of age from different areas in the city. Students who attend PNH are given the choice to finish high school there or opt to transfer to their neighborhood school.
This study took place at PNH because it served as one of the few urban schools in the country designed as a primary entry point for recently arrived migrant and refugee youth. My collegial relationship with Ms. Lupita, one of the school's bilingual student services facilitators, and the increase of Central American migrant students during the 2014–2015 school years were two other reasons why PNH was the setting for this study. Ms. Lupita, a migrant from Oaxaca, not only introduced me to the school's principals, thus facilitated my entry into PNH, but also familiarized me to Maya and Indigenous Mexican students. Reflecting the growth of Latinx students, Spanish was the leading language spoken by the student population, followed by Chinese, Vietnamese, and Somali. The school recorded 13% of the Latinx student population being speakers of an Indigenous language and the rest being monolingual Spanish speakers. Staff and faculty alerted me that due to the shifting nature of the student demographics, the school had difficulty recording consistent Indigenous language speaking populations from Central America and Mexico. Thus, the population of Indigenous language speaking students in the school fluctuated throughout the year.
Stages of analysis included a round of "open coding" followed by more focused coding ([
Organizational and substantive coding was followed by an analysis of the codes utilizing my analytic frames. In Alan's case, I interpreted the code "Bullying" as a form of discrimination based on race and language. Juan described "indio" as a pejorative term used by non-Maya people in Guatemala and in the U.S. to mock or put down Maya people. I grouped these two codes under a new emerging category: "Interplay of Race and Language." I subsequently did a "theoretical categorizing" where I utilized my theoretical framework to analyze my coded data ([
One limitation of this study is the lack of gender representation. I was not successful in recruiting female Indigenous youth for this study. This presents a challenge to my arguments regarding Spanish as a colonial code of power shaping understandings of Indigenous selves. Scholars have noted that Maya women face gender discrimination and other structural violences that limits their formal education, thus relegating them to domestic and unpaid labor sectors ([
I end this section on methodology by stating my positionality. I am Poqomam, born in southern Guatemala, and now part of the Maya diaspora living in the U.S. My family and I crossed into the U.S. unauthorized in the early 1990s. I grew up as a mono-languaged Spanish speaker and learned English in U.S. schools. Learning this colonial code of power has afforded me educational and economic opportunities that due to the Guatemalan government's structuring of poverty would have been beyond my reach had we remained in the country. Learning English, however, has not secured me membership into a culture of power. Whereas I am now a U.S. citizen, with a doctoral degree, and working at a research university I am still perceived and treated as an outsider, intruder, and threat to the U.S.
As an Indigenous person, it is my obligation to share about the racialized and languaged experiences of Maya and other Indigenous migrants in educational settings. I do this to disrupt the epistemological indifference much too common in urban education scholarship towards Indigenous students ([
Alan, Tonio, and Juan constructed representations of their Indigenous selves and of others through their use and understanding of Spanish and English in their regions of origin and in the U.S. I explain in the following subsections how these representations were informed by Spanish as a racialized and languaged code of power that traveled with the youth to their new contexts of reception. Indigenous youth in the U.S. learned new colonial codes of power which overlapped with already established languaged and racial schemas afforded by their previous codes of power. One outcome of the overlapping codes of power is the diminishing of Indigenous languages. I conclude the section on navigating codes of power by proposing that Indigenous youth utilized colonial codes of power strategically and in protective ways ([
Juan, Tonio, and Alan relied on their Spanish speaking abilities, skills, and experiences to identify Indigenous peoples. Juan, who grew up speaking Mam until he attended elementary school, said "yo se que no hablo el español perfectamente" or "I know that I don't speak Spanish perfectly." Tonio, who although grew up in a bilingual household but spoke mostly in K'iche', shared a similar sentiment when saying "there are certain words that I cannot pronounce well [in Spanish]." These youth's experiences having difficulties speaking Spanish or speaking it with an accent provided them reasons to assume that other Indigenous people would also struggle speaking Spanish or they would speak it with an accent. Tonio illustrated this reasoning in the following way:
I see when that person starts talking, how they can't express themselves well [in Spanish]. So then, [I think] this person speaks an other language. Why? Because they can't express themselves well. Or they couldn't express themselves well. Then, that's why I identify them [as Indigenous]. So, I finally ask, "do you speak an other [Indigenous] language?" ... they reply, "No, no." ... I tell them they do. "Why [they ask]?" "Because ... you couldn't pronounce this [correctly]."
Adler explained the association between Indigenous peoples and struggles with Spanish when sharing that the word indio in Mexico is often associated with "tener un acento diferente al español. Como hablar de las dos lenguas, idioma español y dialecto náhuatl" "(having a different accent than Spanish. Like speaking from the two languages, Spanish language and the Náhuatl dialect").
Understanding Spanish as the point of reference for the Indigenous youth in their identification of other Indigenous peoples requires situating this language as an ongoing colonial power within their countries of origin. The Guatemalan constitution, as recently as 1993, reenacted Spanish as the official language of the country while relegating Indigenous languages as only components of the "Nation's cultural heritage" ([
Scholars writing about the "coloniality of power" note that an historical outcome of colonization was the creation of White and non-White subjects reflecting a division of human and non-human ([
Indigenous peoples in Guatemala and Mexico have varied reasons for speaking Spanish in their social and public interactions. One reason relates to the construction of representations of their Indigenous selves and of others for navigating racialized and languaged interactions. Tonio, Juan, and Alan in their places of origin relied on their experiences with and understanding of Spanish as a racializing process to assess who most likely was Indigenous based on that person's Spanish speaking skills. However, there are caveats to relying on Spanish speaking skills as a major indicator of Indigenous identity. In recounting his experience with being asked about his Indigenous background and whether he was an Indigenous language speaker, Alan said "proudly yes. I am Indigenous. 'Do you speak [an Indigenous] language?' [others] ask me. 'I don't speak any [Indigenous] language. I can understand [Náhuatl], but I can't speak it.'"
Tonio, Juan, and Alan employed Spanish to present themselves as Spanish-speaking Indigenous people as a preemptive strategy to mitigate instances of racism outside their immediate Indigenous languaged communities. As Tonio recounted, "dialecto[
Youth's limited use of K'iche', Mam, and Náhuatl in public settings is a similar strategy that Maya language speakers engage in other parts of Guatemala as they use Spanish to not only prevent being victims of discrimination but also to access medical services and other types of social resources (e.g., [
The codes of power the youth learned and employed in Guatemala and Mexico traveled with them to the U.S. Their languaged experiences in Mexico and Guatemala informed their identification of Spanish speakers including Indigenous peoples in their new receiving contexts. Juan, for instance, shared the following ways he identified Indigenous students at PNH: "I know ... six students ... I've talked with them [in Spanish] and they told me that they're ... from Guatemala. They tell me the place they're from and they speak other languages." For Alan, whose grandparents discouraged him when he was a child to speak Náhuatl, the process of identifying Indigenous peers and being identified as Indigenous was mediated by Spanish:
There are times I'm asked [by schoolmates] if I speak another language. I tell them no. But I can understand it [Náhuatl]. And there are times that I am asked, "yes, but what language do you speak? I speak Náhuatl." "Oh, I also speak a bit, but not that much." And they speak to me [in Náhuatl] ... And precisely, people that I know that speak like me, and they too, they ask, "where are you from?"
The youth's non-Indigenous Latinx schoolmates in this study also relied on language to determine who they believed to be Indigenous. When probed about what came to mind when hearing the word "Indigenous," Chava, Alexis, and Adolfo respectively said that it meant someone that "speaks dialecto ... that speaks another language besides Spanish", "language and clothing" and "languages they [Indigenous people] speak." Alexis further commented that in absence of visible markers that he used to identify Indigenous peoples such as clothing, he relied on language. Specifically, Alexis commented that he identified Indigenous students at PNH based on "la forma y el acento [en español] que ellos tienen" or the "form and accent [in Spanish] that they have."
Alan, Juan, and Tonio understood the significance of Spanish as an important colonial code of power that mediated languaged interactions even in the U.S. For this reason, verbal exchanges with schoolmates, especially initial ones where they had not previously met, all happened in Spanish. Colonial codes or power traveled into the U.S. as evidenced by how their non-Indigenous migrant schoolmates identified Indigenous peoples based on their accent in Spanish. Indigenous youth's accents placed them as non-White and non-mestizo because of the specific raciolinguistic ideologies they are born in, that travel with them, and that interact with raciolinguistic ideologies in the U.S.
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Evident in Alan's account is a complex understanding of race and language that operates within Mexico and across and bidirectionally between Mexico and the U.S. In Mexico, the ability to speak Spanish by non-Indigenous people serves as a rebuke to being identified as Indigenous. In contrast, Spanish for Alan in Mexico and in the U.S. is a way of not only making sense of racialization processes but also of reinforcing his Indigenous self. He explained that he is "Mexican" noting the importance of this national identity, reified in Mexico through Spanish, that locates him as an Indigenous Mexican state-subject living in the U.S. Alan also identified as "Hispanic" because he understood that this is a racialized category of peoples in the U.S. based on the perception of Spanish as a shared language. Additionally, he claimed the pan-ethnic "Latino" label given his understanding that other peoples from Abya Yala also live in the U.S. Given the option of self-identifying, Alan said, "I would identify as indio."
Indigenous youth's understandings of racial discriminations based on language traveled with and informed their languaged interactions in the U.S. For instance, Alan related the following lesson he learned from his Nahua grandparents based on their perceptions of language discrimination towards Indigenous peoples:
So they taught me since I was little that I shouldn't learn that language [Náhuatl] ... people that spoke Spanish well did a lot of bullying. That's why my family members stopped learning that language ... my grandparents gave up on speaking Náhuatl to me and learned Spanish. They started teaching me [Spanish]. They took away my culture, the Náhuatl language, that language is almost becoming extinct.
Tonio growing up in El Quiché was also given similar advice by others outside his family. Tonio said the following as I explained in another study ([
In Guatemala, some people have told me, because dialecto is only used in your town with those that understand it. On the other hand, Spanish is utilized in ... other places. Well then, 'don't use it [dialecto]. Focus more on Spanish.' Some people have said that to me, because that is what is always used. On the other hand, dialecto is also good, but is only used in some places. Then is better to learn Spanish. (p. 27)
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Casanova (ibid) additionally noted that Indigenous protective processes are enacted across borders. Juan, Tonio, and Alan in the U.S did not deny that they spoke or understood Indigenous languages nor rejected their Indigenous backgrounds. For instance, Juan commented that he felt "pride" when meeting "other people from Guatemala that speak an other [Indigenous] language." Tonio shared that when students at PNH ask him what language he speaks, he replies "bueno, hablo español. Y siempre digo que hablo k'iche'" (Well, I speak Spanish. And I always say that I speak K'iche'"). These youth also stated that they did not experience discrimination based on their languages nor based on their Indigenous identities at PNH. However, they did point to other Indigenous youth who experienced discrimination. Juan's observations regarding interactions between non-Indigenous Latinxs and his Indigenous peers is revealing of Indigenous discrimination: "there are some [students] ... they don't want to be friends ... I guess sometimes it's, who knows, racism, or I don't know. There are times when you don't get along. And it's another problem among Hispanics because sometimes we don't get along. Who knows why." The impact of the discrimination Juan speaks of results in Indigenous youth hiding markers that identifies them as Indigenous, primarily their languages. Tonio speaks to this when noting "he escuchado con otras personas [indígenas] de que ... como, que lo esconden [el dialecto]. No quieren decirlo. Porque le da vergüenza o, no se. Pero la mera verdad, a mi no, no me da vergüenza" meaning, "I've heard that other [Indigenous] people ... like, they hide it [their dialect]. They don't want to say it. Because they are embarrassed, or, I don't know. But truthfully, I don't get embarrassed."
Earlier in this paper I pointed out mestizo logics in Guatemala and Mexico that creates subjects who are non-Indigenous or other-than Indigenous. Spanish and its accompanied racial logics are reproduced by mestizos in Abya Yala and then in the U.S. because it promises proximity to economic, political, and social power. The coloniality of power established a reinforcing and hierarchical relationship in Abya Yala between race, language, and systems of power. White and the ladino and mestizo elite occupy the echelons in this system while Indigenous peoples are relegated to the bottom. Spanish in Abya Yala provides proximity to Whiteness and conversely, is a move way from Indigenous subjectivities. The movement away from Indigenous travels into the U.S through racial logics that views proximity to Indigeneity as undesirable. This is a primary reason why some non-Indigenous Latinx youth schoolmates do not want to get along with Indigenous youth at PNH. Under these forces, Indigenous youth enact the protective processes they learned in their regions of origin in the U.S. Indigenous youth made conscious decisions, weighing the benefits of speaking Spanish against a background of racism and discrimination, when utilizing Spanish to communicate with their Indigenous peers and Latinx schoolmates.
Tonio, Alan, and Juan must not only learn Spanish in their places of origin but also English as an additional code of power in the U.S. These youth relied on Spanish to navigate their new languaged and racialized settings while also understanding the importance of learning English in their new raciolinguistic contexts. The instrumentality of English and its relationship with shaping everyday lived experiences is evident in Juan's and Alan's respective statements: "knowing English is very significant because, well, I'm in a new country. A country that I didn't know; a country that I got to know here and ... a country where I need the language to be able to get ahead" and "I am here in this school because of that; I am learning English. So, if I spoke it ... I would not be here." In fact, learning English was one of the primary reasons why the youth were in school.
Alan was also critically aware of the global importance of English as a code of power when he mentioned learning some of it in Mexico: "y casi en todas las escuelas están aprendiendo el inglés [los estudiantes]. [Escuelas] ponen una hora de inglés ... ¿para que? Para que se te quede un poco del inglés ... para asegurar tu futuro. Claro, porque si no sabes como se dice esto en inglés ... no vas a poder avanzar en la vida", meaning "in almost all schools they [students] are learning English. They [schools] assign 1 h of English ... for what? So that you learn a bit of English ... to ensure your future. Of course, if you don't know how to say this in English ... you won't be able to advance in life." A significant difference between Spanish and English is that while the former continues being an important code of power for the youth in the U.S., it is surpassed by the latter. English is the leading code of power in the U.S. because of this country's long-held views of the exceptionalism of English monolingualism as vital to the nation's racial and linguistic makeup ([
An outcome of learning colonial codes of power is the liminal positioning of Indigenous languages. I wrote earlier that Juan and Tonio did not deny their Indigenous languages, however, they explained that there were limited to no opportunities for them to speak them in the U.S. and at PNH. When asked if he spoke their Indigenous language in the U.S., Juan replied that he spoke it with his sister but the longer they were in the U.S. the less frequent they spoke it with each other. Tonio originally mentioned in his interview that he spoke K'iche' only at home, "y ahora aquí, ya solo en la casa porque aquí es diferente." However, in informal conversations he mentioned speaking K'iche' at a Christian church he attended and at soccer matches he played in where he met other K'iche' speaking people. In both cases, the youth spoke their Indigenous languages in familial or communal settings. This is similar to the settings they spoke their Indigenous languages in Guatemala.
Juan and Tonio also shared that they had limited to no opportunities to speak Mam and K'iche' at PNH. For instance, Juan said "here is almost ... not practiced", "dialect is not spoken," plus "Spanish and English is [sic] the one [languages] we use almost always." What is more, the youth did not speak their Indigenous languages even when meeting other students at PNH who may have been speakers of the same Indigenous languages. Tonio responded that one reason why he did not speak K'iche' at PNH was because he had no one to speak it with. He went on to explain differences of Maya languages in the following way:
I don't have peers that speak a dialect the same as mine. Because others that are from Guatemala also, but they are like, how can I tell you, neighbors. And then they borrowed like a bit from our dialect. It's like that. Then I can't communicate, just like perfectly talk with them using the dialect that I speak with that person. Just a few words.
Due to what he experienced as limited opportunities to speak the type of K'iche' he knew, the strategy that Tonio used to communicate with others at PNH was relying on Spanish and then English. Juan, Alan, and the rest of the Indigenous speaking youth in my study also employed similar strategies to those of Tonio's.
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I also interpret concealment as agentive. Indigenous youth engage in protective practices that serves their immediate wants and goals. For example, I explained in another paper ([
There are also negative unintended consequences to hiding, limiting, or denying Indigenous languages. One way Alan's grandparents navigated codes of power was by not teaching him Náhuatl. I have noted before ([
Juan, Tonio, and Alan learned Spanish at school. Moreover, it was at school where these Indigenous youth experienced negative languaged and racialized interactions. Processes of Indigenous language erasure and Indigenous invisibilization are not confined to Guatemalan and Mexican schools. They are also present in U.S. urban school environments ([
Findings presented in this study contributes to urban education research by elucidating the experiences of recently arrived K'iche', Mam, and Nahua youth and expanding understanding of Latinx students in urban schools. This study provides initial insights into relationships between language and Indigenous youth's racializations. It also demonstrates the ways Indigenous youth learned and utilized colonial codes of power under intersecting colonial conditions. Moreover, findings from this study can provide urban school educators and other practitioners working with recently arrived Central American and Indigenous Mexican migrants an awareness of intra and inter-ethnic group dynamics including instances of racism towards Maya and Nahua youth. In this section I provide some practical implications derived from the findings to educators, practitioners, and researchers.
First, urban educators and other practitioners must become aware of recently arrived Indigenous migrants in schools and classrooms. This requires developing methods (e.g., surveys that allows for Indigenous self-identifications) for identifying Indigenous youth populations and their diverse languages ([
Recently arrived Indigenous migrant youth learn Spanish and English under colonial forces that buttress their need to operate in cultures of power. Cultures of power exist due to colonial codes of power. In other words, colonial codes facilitate participation, even if marginal, in colonial cultures of power. It is a vicious cycle. Transforming urban education to meet the strength and desires of Indigenous migrant students means intervening in this cycle. My third recommendation is for educators and practitioners to intervene in the culture of power and codes of power cycle by employing a "critical heteroglossic" perspective that "both legitimizes the dynamic lin-guistic practices of language-minoritized students while simultaneously raising awareness about issues of language and power" ([
My recommendation for urban education researchers is for them to question their epistemological orientations regarding Latinxs and their languages. How we come to know and understand Latinxs and their languages is intimately tied to the analytics we use to make sense of this racialized and languaged diverse demographic. Critical Latinx Indigeneities highlights the importance of integrating the dynamic and intersecting histories of colonialism, racism, indigeneities, language, and migration when analyzing Latinxs' experiences in their places of origin and in the U.S. In particular, urban education researchers must pay attention to how colonial codes of power overlap because this affects Indigenous migrants' self-understandings and the strategies they employ to make sense of and navigate their new contexts of reception. Like the youth in [
This study described how K'iche', Mam, and Nahua recently arrived migrant youth from Guatemala and Mexico constructed representations of their Indigenous selves using Spanish and English to navigate racialized and languaged exchanges. The youth in Guatemala and Mexico utilized Spanish to participate in the larger languaged and racialized social order. The colonial codes of power youth learned and utilized traveled with them into the U.S. Indigenous youth in the U.S. continued relying on Spanish for verbal interactions with Latinx migrant youth while learning new colonial codes of power. Due to the United States' English-monolingualism focus, Spanish is surpassed by English as the most important colonial code of power. To be sure, a primary reason youth attended PNH was to learn English. These youth were keenly aware of the need to navigate two codes of power to operate in multiple racialized and languaged contexts.
Learning codes of power are aspects of Indigenous protective processes. The Guatemalan and Mexican governments have enduring histories of economically, politically, linguistically, and socially oppressing K'iche', Mam, Nahua, and other Indigenous populations. The U.S. has a similar history of Indigenous economic exploitation and political repression. These oppressions are reiterations of colonialisms that predate the regions currently known as Guatemala, Mexico, and the U.S. Indigenous migrant youth make conscious decisions, weighing the benefits of speaking Spanish and English against a background of multiple and overlapping colonialisms and discrimination, when utilizing colonial codes of power to interact with Latinx students. Indigenous youth are agentive and utilize codes of power to best serve their everyday lived experiences, including educational and economic opportunities.
By David W. Barillas Chon
Reported by Author