Ana Alonso and the shifting attitudes toward Zapotec indigenous languages

by the Whose Knowledge?

Episode 11 of Whose Voices? podcast | March 6, 2023

Ana Alonso and the shifting attitudes towards Zapotec Indigenous languages

Reviewed by Radhika Bhardwaj

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Introduction:

You are listening to Whose Voices?, a podcast from Whose Knowledge?.

Jake Orlowitz:

Hi, this is Jake, and I'm at the Decolonizing the Internet's Languages conference, and I am sitting here with Ana. Ana, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how that brought you to this conference?

Ana Alonso:

Sure. Hi, Jake. I'm Ana Alonso, and I'm from Oaxaca, Mexico. I belong to the Zapotec Community, which is also a community that speaks one of the Indigenous languages that are spoken in Mexico. So, what brought me to this conference? Well, I work with an organization, a community-based organization, and we are creating content for the internet, basically the social media, and on that platform, we are raising awareness about the language, about our culture. And that's what brought me here today.

Jake Orlowitz:

Thank you for introducing yourself. How would you say that you and your community are using your language online?

Ana Alonso:

So, I think that there are maybe two uses that we are doing with the, or how we are using the internet. The first one, I will say that the diaspora community in Mexico and also in Los Angeles, in California, they are using the internet and mostly Facebook to do online transmissions or live transmissions to get connected with the local community. So, they are basically streaming and doing a radio program using Facebook. And sometimes they use the language, sometimes they, they, they send messages in the language, and that's the way that the diaspora community and also the local community is using the internet. And all these interactions are oral. And in our group, or the group I belong to, we are using the internet to we are creating content, basically videos. We are also creating pictures with some messages, and we are also translating some stories. We are using a platform that is known as StoryWeaver, and we are translating stories for kids, and that's the way we are using the internet.

Jake Orlowitz:

That's really interesting. The next question I have is when you look online for your language, what do you find, what exists, and also what is missing?

Ana Alonso:

Well, when I look for the name of my community or about our language, sometimes we find more information related to the culture, and it's written in, in English and also in French and Spanish, but it's mainly written in, in English. And what exists, I think that what we have there or what, what is on the internet about us, it's about our culture and not about the language. And we can't find information in the language. Like reading in your language, this language had a tradition or writing tradition, but it was different from the writing tradition that we know. Like today, it was in a script. It was more like pictures conveying messages or phrases, so that greeting way stop at some point in the past, and it didn't continue. So, now people is trying to write the language, but there are, like, no conventional way to represent the sounds of the language. So, some people are trying to write the language, but we don't have those texts online, for example. I think that what it's missing, it's content about the language. It's missing a lot of content about the language. Eh, not only videos but also writing text. We can't also find audio if someone wants to listen to how the Zapotec language sounds or how, or a variety of Zapotec sounds. We can't find that on the Internet, but now we are trying to put some audios, videos, also conversations, and written text on the internet.

Jake Orlowitz:

So I, I think that gets a little bit into the next question, which is, what do you wish you could create in your language? And also, what is blocking that from happening?

Ana Alonso:

So, what we want to create or what we are creating, it's content that looks similar to the available resource for English or Spanish. So, with that, I meant we want to have maybe a webpage that contains information about the culture, about the language, but in the language, not in Spanish, not in English, because we want that information for us, and we also want that information for maybe our sons or grandsons. So, we want that information to be available for the next, for the next generations. I think that there are many things that block the creation of these materials, and one of those it's that, there are no people working with the language. So, there has been a message towards the Indigenous communities and toward the Indigenous languages that our languages don't have a grammar, and that our languages are oral, and they can’t be, like, written.

So, all the messages we are receiving are only bad messages, and I think that it has created a negative impact on the communities and in the population of speakers. So, I think that one of the things, or one of the most important things that are blocking the creation of more content, it's all these negative impacts that people think about their own language. So, they are not speaking the language anymore. They are not transmitting the language to the kids. So yeah, it's more the language attitude that it's blocking [us] to work with the language or to preserve the language.

Jake Orlowitz:

So with your efforts to create and improve the content, how is it working? Would you say that it's working?

Ana Alonso:

We have been doing this for three years, and I can say that now that we are on our clear date, the change of the attitudes and mainly on the diaspora communities, we are seeing an impact. We are seeing an impact on these people claiming or reclaiming the language and saying, this is our language. We need to preserve it. Let's do something. And so we are now having more people collaborating with us and saying what we can do, how we can help. So, now we are trying to publish some materials, and we are trying to collect some funds, and people are willing to help, are willing to help to have these materials and about the content and all the online content. Now, I can say that at the beginning of our organization, we started, our team had like three people, and now we are a group of seven. And I think that this is because we are really pushing hard to create content and to say, Hey people, we are here. We need your help. Collaborate with us in any way you can. If you are a designer, if you are a video editor, if you are an audio editor, if you have skills in these things, just come and help us. We are sure that we can find something for you, but we need to collaborate. So that's what we are doing.

Jake Orlowitz:

It's great that you've seen a real shift in attitude and collaboration. Curious how that relates to your experience of being at the Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages conference. How are you feeling about being here?

Ana Alonso:

Well, I think that this is a great opportunity to hear how other or, or what other people are doing in the world. And I think that, or my main interest is to come to the Decolonizing the Internet for Indigenous languages is to really think that what needs to be done or how we need to shape or reshape the, the internet to be accessible for Indigenous languages or languages that are not represented on the internet. I'm really looking forward to this second day of our meeting and trying to think about how we can improve the internet and how we can add more content for Indigenous languages or for minoritized populations that are not really well represented on the internet.

Jake Orlowitz:

Before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to add or share?

Ana Alonso:

I know that English is one of the most spoken languages in the world, and I hope that if someone — a Zapotec  speaker or an Indigenous person of a, of given community in the world — if someone hears this, this podcast will take this person will take a moment to think about their own language and what this person wants for her or his language. And you take a minute to think about what we are doing to preserve our languages or native languages or Indigenous languages and what we can do to keep these languages alive.

Jake Orlowitz:

Thank you so much for being with us and for sharing.