RUNNING HEADER: DISCRIMINATION, ACCULTURATION, AND IDENTITY

Discrimination, acculturation, and identity: The experiences of girls from rural Indigenous

communities who migrate for education

Abstract

Students from Indigenous communities face deep and persistent challenges to quality

education, which are well documented. However, less is known about the daily experiences of

the many Indigenous students who sacrifice to attend secondary school each day. In this paper

we present discussions with girls from rural Indigenous (Quechua) communities who have

migrated to larger towns in order to go to secondary school. These discussions offer insights for

making schools more responsive and inclusive.

Keywords: Indigenous Education; Girls’ Education; Migration and Education; Ethnography;

Peru
 Introduction

Rural Quechua (Indigenous) communities in Peru lack access to many basic public

services, particularly quality education (Author B 2015; 2018). Children who grow up in these

communities must walk several hours to the nearest secondary school—a journey that is

impossible to make daily and one that often deters youth from pursuing education beyond

primary school (Author B 2015). Adolescents who hope to continue past primary schooling

must migrate to an urban center where they have no choice but to adapt to an unfamiliar setting

that marginalizes and belittles their cultural identities.

To survive in this new environment, Quechua students utilize strategies to navigate and

acculturate to the new environment. Their ability to adapt is at once empowering and deeply

problematic. Through a series of interviews, we saw that youth felt pressure and stress while

struggling to belong in Primavera (a pseudonym), the urban site of their secondary school. In this

article, we highlight some of the subtle and not-so-subtle elements that have influenced the girls’

identity development and decision-making as they acculturate to their surroundings. This

information has important implications for school practices and policies.

In what follows, we discuss the experiences and reflections of thirteen girls from rural,

Quechua speaking communities who migrated to Primavera in pursuit of secondary education.

Our guiding questions were: What does the transition process of a first language Quechua

student migrating from a rural to urban environment look like? And, What challenges do

Quechua girls face when entering into an urban school environment?

Context

There are approximately 32.5 million people in Peru, with 45% of the population

claiming some form of Indigenous heritage (Cortina 2017). About 13.9% of the population

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speaks an Indigenous language (roughly 4 million people) (Cortina 2014; UNESCO 2018). Yet,

schooling for students who speak an Indigenous language is of much lower quality than students

whose first language is Spanish. For example, rural schools have teachers with fewer years of

experience and less learning supplies, such as books, computers, and Internet (Author B. 2017).

Schooling also does not do enough to support Indigenous languages in the learning process.

Although there is policy in place to supply Intercultural and Bilingual Education (IBE), students

from Indigenous communities are still not able to see themselves and their identities reflected in

the curriculum or teaching practices (see: Garcia 2005; Cerron-Palomino 1989; Garcia 2005;

Hornberger 1987; Paulston 1976; Valdiviezo 2010). Furthermore, when IBE programs do exist,

they are only partially enacted, and are only established at the elementary level. After sixth

grade, Quechua speaking students are forced to either move into the monolingual (Spanish)

system that has historically suppressed Indigenous languages and cultures (Crivello 2011;

Valdiviezo 2009), or end their formal education.

This means that Quechua speaking families are required to make difficult decisions about

their children’s education. These decisions are primarily concerned with perceived access to

“progress” than language and cultural revitalization. While it is the youth who leave home, the

decision to go to secondary school affects the entire family (Ames and Rojas 2010). Families

must scrape together money for fees, school supplies, and uniforms, as well as endure the cost of

the loss of the child’s labor contribution to the household (Leinaweaver 2008). Sisa, one of the

girls we interviewed, said that she gets to go to school instead of her 18-year-old sister because

her parents considered her more intelligent and could only afford to sacrifice the labor of one of

their daughters. Her family’s scenario mirrors that of many: because it is an economic burden to

send a child to school, parents must decide if it is worth the investment.

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 Parents and youth invest in the idea of upward mobility when they choose education.

The stakes at hand can be understood through what Leinaweaver (2008) calls the “Andean racial

complex,” the perceived “continuum between peasant and professional” (117). She explains that

“in a context where ‘peasant’ is code for ‘Indian,’ education functions as a technique for

shedding oneself of certain ethnic markers” (Leinaweaver 2008:118) and overcoming a

“devalued race and class.” For example, we asked one student why her parents deemed it crucial

that she go to school in Primavera. Projecting internalized bias toward themselves as Quechua

people, they told her if she did not go to Primavera to study she would be a “savage”.

The distinction between peasant farmer and professional is part of broader national

discourses surrounding identity and material realities that are bound up in race, class, and culture

(Crivello 2011; De la Cadena 2005; Garcia 2005; Leinaweaver 2008; Moreno and Oropesa

2012). As Moreno and Oropesa (2012) explain, “In most of Latin America, ‘culture’ has been

racialized and thus enabled to mark differences (16).” Positioned within racial and class

hierarchies, Indigenous people and their way of life are perceived as representing poverty and

cultural backwardness, a stain on the country’s ability to modernize. Education is seen as a way

for Quechua youth to break free from poverty and the inferior status attributed to Quechua

people (Ames 2005; Garcia 2004; Hill 2013; Author B 2015; 2018).

As Quechua speakers, the students who participated in this study face a history of

problematic relationships with, and marginalization from, Peru’s education system (see Garcia

2005) and their families know that their experience in secondary school will be arduous. To

pursue an education, Quechua youth must leave home at the tender age of 12 and live far from

their loved ones. Furthermore, they do not have mastery of the language of instruction in school

(Spanish), and they become immersed in an environment that is, relatively close geographically,

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but culturally foreign. Considering these issues, our research aims to uncover the transition

process that students in this context must undertake.

Background: Acculturation, Migration and Marginalization in Education

John Berry’s (1997) work offers a foundational understanding of acculturation, which he

defines as the change in cultural patterns that result from continuous firsthand contact between

individuals from different cultures (Berry 1997). Berry’s work, analyzing settler societies in

Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and the United States, has shaped contemporary

approaches to the phenomena (Berry 2006a). However, to our knowledge, there is little to no

scholarship on acculturation about Indigenous populations who migrate within national borders

for education in South America. This study offers a novel context for an exploration of the

processes, strategies, and cultural and personal tensions that youth confront during acculturation.

We ask, what do Quechua youth experience and how do they change when, after growing up in

rural communities, they move to and spend formative years in an urban, Spanish-language

dominated environment. The youth we interviewed shared stories that are valuable references for

all who hope to understand acculturation as experienced by individuals from Quechua

communities as well as those who are curious about whether, and in what ways, acculturation

experiences relate across regions and populations.

Quechua Youth Migration for Education

While acculturation has been studied in depth by many scholars (e.g. Berry 1997; Van

Praag, Stevens and Van Houtte 2016; and Jiang, Green, Henley and Masten 2009), as has

migration for education of Quechua speaking youth (Ames 2012; Ames 2013; Boyden 2013;

Crivello 2011; Damon and Hynsjo 2016; Garcia 2004; Hill 2013; Hornberger 1987; Leinaweaver

2008; Valdiviezo 2009; and Author B 2015), these topics have yet to be linked. Literature that

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addresses the connection between acculturation and migration for education focuses primarily on

the rhetoric of “to overcome”, “salir adelante” or “superarse”; all terms that specifically refer to

education as a way to escape poverty and gain access to future opportunities (Hill 2013;

Hornberger 1987; Leinweaver 2008; Valdiviezo 2009; Author B 2016) but only loosely

recognize that “to become educated” requires behavioral change.

For example, Leinweaver (2008) explains that to overcome poverty, one must become

(formally) educated, speak Spanish, wear western clothing and reside in the city, implying a

transition process triggered by contact between culturally distinct groups (acculturation). This

claim leaves concerns and questions. For example, do Quechua migrants really need to shed their

entire way of life, and if so, how do they do so? How long does this take? Does every migrant

adjust in the same way? Is this a traumatic process? Is this forced acculturation socially just, and

if not how can it change? Current scholarship emphasizes Quechua youth’s need to migrate

because of a lack of access to secondary school and has established additional barriers in seeking

education, specifically for Indigenous women (see: Ames 2005; Sumida Huaman 2013; Author

B 2015; 2018). Now, the next step is to examine challenges and experiences employed by youth

to “overcome” the challenges to their sense of self and culture they face after leaving home.

Theoretical Framework

Berry’s (1997) model of acculturation is the general framework we use to interpret and

analyze students’ stories. We also compare the students’ experiences to the model to update the

theory, so that Berry’s model may be more illustrative of the specific characteristics of

acculturation in this context, as well as contributing to trans-contextual understandings of

acculturation when thinking about migration for schooling, particularly of Indigenous youth.

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 Two key concepts in the Berry framework are “acculturation strategy” and “acculturative

stress” (Berry 1997:11 & 13; Berry 2005; Berry 2006b; Berry 2009; Berry & Sam 2010).

Acculturation strategy refers to a person’s evaluation of and tactics or approaches to acculturate

to a new context. An acculturation strategy develops as the individual tests various approaches

when getting used to the new, culturally distinct context. Acculturation strategies must address

issues of balance between cultural maintenance and cultural change, based on their contact with

the new host society (Berry 1997). The need for finding this balance spurs from questions such

as “who am I” and “where do I belong” (Berry 1997). Acculturation strategies lead to

adaptations including the acquisition of new behaviors that are appropriate within the host

society.

The second concept is “acculturative stress” (Berry 1970; Berry 2006b). This concept

refers to the tensions experienced by the acculturating individual as she develops acculturation

strategies. Acculturative stress is what pushes individuals to explore a variety of strategies before

settling on those that are most comforting and successful (Berry 1997). Acculturative stress

arises most often when the dominant or host culture pressures individuals from the non-dominant

culture to conform. Based on the colonial history of Peru, acculturative stress in this context (and

many others) can be understood as result of colonizing linguistic and cultural practices.

Acculturative stress can be seen as the personal and psychological result of cultural violence

perpetrated upon non-dominant groups.

Berry found that the acculturation strategy an individual chooses is determined by their

preferred balance between cultural maintenance and changing their cultural identity through

contact with the host society (Berry & Sam 2010). He separated strategies into four categories:

assimilation, separation, marginalization and integration (Berry 2008). Assimilation signifies that

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an individual will not maintain their cultural identity and instead seek ample interaction with the

dominant culture. Separation occurs when an individual emphasizes maintaining their original

culture and focuses less on interaction with the dominant culture. Marginalization occurs when

an individual does not maintain their culture and also has little ability to be in contact with

people from the dominant cultures, either by choice or due to exclusion or discrimination (Berry

& Sam 2010). Finally, integration occurs when there are interests in cultural maintenance and a

drive to interact with other cultures. In this framework, integration is presented as the preferable

strategy for successful acculturation (Ward 2008; Berry 2009).

However, Berry’s normative argument assumes a number of problematic aspects about

the reasons for acculturation (Ward 2008), and the ways in which power-dynamics affect

migrants’ ability to choose the strategies they use. For example, integration may or may not be

preferable, if, for example, the dominant culture contains explicit and/or implicit racist, bigoted,

colonial, or dehumanizing ideas/norms of migrants’ identities within its fabric. The problematic

aspects of this integration model are most readily observed when taking a social justice

perspective on migration and thinking about the systemic reasons for why individuals are

compelled or even forced to migrate and acculturate (Freire 2014; Author B 2016b). In spaces of

linguistic and cultural domination and colonization, is the preferable answer integration? Or is

there a fifth option for individuals migrating who face a hostile culture?

Another critique of the Berry model comes from Ngo (2008), who argues that Berry’s

model assumes psychological processes taking place during acculturation are constant across

groups despite variation in life experience between acculturating people. This is problematic for

a variety of reasons, but particularly because different contextual factors including culture,

history, language, and power will influence how acculturation affects individuals. This is

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particularly the case considering our work with Indigenous young women. To understand how

power, discrimination, and acculturation interact, we draw from Tew’s work (2006) on power

and powerlessness, which is taken up in more depth in the discussion section, below.

Finally, there is one other issue inherent in this analytical approach: the fixed quality of

Berry’s categories. His model constricts the nuance of process, the changes, and the creativity

that individuals utilize to address or alleviate acculturative stress and find forms of refuge and/or

flourish in a new environment. This model, therefore, requires more depth and subtlety to

understand acculturation as a process (Ward 2008). To overcome these issues with the theory, we

explore the fluid nature of students’ emergent learning of acculturation and strategies to survive

and thrive in this new environment. When thinking acculturation styles, instead of seeing them as

four distinct boxes, we recognize an individual’s potential to move between boxes either

naturally or deliberately (Berry 2009). Despite the issues, utilizing the Berry model provides a

concrete way to understand acculturation, so we analyze the data through a modified version of

Berry’s model based on critiques mentioned above, as well as letting the data “speak back” to the

theory.

Methods

Our exploration of acculturation began based on recognizing two phenomenon in the

context of the Peruvian Andes: 1) research shows that there is discrimination against Quechua-

speaking people, particularly in the context of the Peruvian education system (despite formal

policy), and 2) Quechua-speaking families make extreme sacrifices in the pursuit of education

for their children, despite this discrimination and the hardships students face. In order to explore

how these two phenomena affect students, and because we recognized that the literature has not

explored the effect of migration on youth’s view of home, Author A conducted ethnographic

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research on this topic. Through her interviews and discussions with parents and students, the

theme of acculturation emerged as a major issue stemming from the two phenomena mentioned

above.

In January of 2016, Author A lived in Primavera for one month and used the city as a

launching point from which to travel to the youth’s rural communities where they live when not

in school. This project is part of an ongoing five-year ethnographic study to examine culturally

grounded and identity-responsive educational practices conducted by Author B. Author B and

Author C supervised Author A’s project and contributed to the framing, findings, and analysis.

Students’ communities were remote and not easily accessible, so Author A traveled on

market days so that she could ride on the twice-weekly cattle carts or vans (combis) that went up

to three remote communities to transport their goods. Three communities could only be reached

by walking or mountain biking. She visited six villages where she met participants and

conducted ethnographic interviews in spaces of their choosing. The interviews ranged in length

from twenty minutes to over an hour and were audio recorded with participants’ permission. She

also recorded observations in a field journal.

The site of this ethnography was the Urubamba valley and surrounding highlands. The

researchers’ nine-year connection to the Mountain Highlands Project (pseudonym) facilitated

easy entree into discussing the realities of the students’ experience. The Mountain Highlands

Project is a dormitory and education center in Primavera for young women from rural

communities who would otherwise walk hours daily to access the nearest secondary school. The

work and positive relationships already developed with the students and families afforded us a

unique opportunity to hear voices of youth impacted by migration. We sought narratives and

stories from the research participants to comprehend and appreciate their experiences of leaving

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home. In the interviews, we focused specifically on intangible factors like social norms, gender

roles, anxieties, values and interpersonal relationships (Doucet & Mauthner 2002).

Informed consent was collected from every interviewee and parents of students under

eighteen. The final sample population included three staff members: Gabriela, the Program

Director; Joe, the Co-Founder and Director of Educational Programming; and Juan, the President

of the Peruvian Association of the Project, all of whom were involved in the dormitory for over

five years. The primary participants were thirteen girls under the age of eighteen who were first

language Quechua speakers and lived away from home five days a week in order to attend

secondary school in Primavera. While Author A wanted the girls’ words and experience to be the

focus of her work, she hoped that the staff’s involvement and observations in the Mountain

Highlands Project would provide deeper insight and perspective on migration and acculturation.

Recruitment for youth was open to all students living at the Mountain Highlands Project

at the time. Gabriela, the Program Director, initially presented Author A’s research proposal to

the girls to gauge their interest in being interviewed. Because Gabriela has a close relationship

with the girls, we felt confident they would be honest about their interest in participating. 13 of

the 16 students agreed to participate and Author A conducted in-depth, semi-formal, one-on-one

interviews with each of the girls. The interviews were based on a series of open-ended questions

that also consisted of spontaneous follow-up questions and probing. Author A’s goal was to

relate to the students not as an absolute outsider, but as a known other, as her positionality was

one of a young woman and student who was only a few years older than the girls themselves.

Author A conducted one interview with each member of the staff and two interviews with

each of the girls. She performed staff interviews first so she would understand the structure of

life at the Mountain Highlands Project before making day-trips to spend time with the girls in

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their communities. Gabriela suggested that Author A conduct preliminary Skype interviews with

youth who were interested in participating before coming to the site so they could see her, hear

her voice, and gain familiarity with her before engaging in longer more personal interviews. This

way they could also easily opt out before the second interview. The short, informal Skype

interviews allowed Author A to develop a better understanding of her topic and to prepare

questions for the more in-depth conversations she carried out in person.

Author A coupled interviews with observational data that was collected both in the

communities from where the girls migrated, and Primavera, the city they migrated to, because it

seemed impossible to understand acculturation if she did not have a sense of “the society of

origin” and “the society of settlement” (Berry 1997). Berry explains that a complete study of

acculturation needs to fully examine both contexts because “the cultural characteristics that

accompany individuals into the acculturation process need description, in part to understand

literally where the person is coming from and in part to establish cultural features for comparison

with the society of settlement…(Berry 1997:16).” In this case we hoped that gaining an

understanding of both contexts would guide our understanding of what made the move to

Primavera such a profound transition, provocative of immense acculturative stress.

Author A took avid notes, some while bumpily riding up mountains in combis, or on the

side of the road as she trekked back to her home base. To supplement her observational data,

Author A took pictures so that she could revisit important spaces while later doing analysis. Her

observations were further on the participant-observation end of the spectrum, rather than

detached observation (Adler & Adler 1994), as participating in activities was unavoidable (and

would have been seen as rude) during her trips to communities. The mothers of the students she

interviewed would almost always prepare her a large meal before she was allowed to return to

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Primavera, meaning that she was often placed in unplanned situations, participating in various

group or family interactions and observing family dynamics.

After collecting field research data, Author A transcribed, coded, and interpreted the data.

She transcribed almost fifty hours of taped interviews and typed all field notes (for over 50 pages

of text). The general themes that emerged were language, education, discrimination, parental

and family involvement, and migration. These became the overarching topics for analysis.

While one month is traditionally seen as a short period for an ethnographic study to

examine acculturation processes, this data is supplemented by Author B’s 10 years of

ethnographic action-research work with parents, teachers and students in this context. He has

been able to observe two full cycles of students entering the Mountain Highlands Project and

studying for 5 years to graduation, as well as the learning, trials, and successes of the students.

The analysis of the findings pulls from his years of field notes and experiences as well.

Findings

Through the youths’ stories, we found that when Quechua students migrate from a rural

to urban environment, they are confronted with a society and peers who marginalize them. To

survive, and then to thrive, they must acquire new skills and shift their behavior. Typically, in

response to initial acculturative stress, youth first employ silence, which can be viewed as a

reaction to experienced marginalization, as a mechanism to deflect loneliness and feelings of

isolation. Over time, youth find that focusing on developing their Spanish language skills and

making friends become more rewarding strategies. Despite initial hardship, over time, youth

interviewed eventually felt comfortable and confident in Primavera. Their determination and

drive help them overcome challenges. Their motivation is both internal and reinforced by their

parents.

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Motivations

To begin to understand the girls’ experience, we spoke with each participant about why

she chose to migrate. Koya explained that her parents want her and her younger sister to be

“better with education and to not work in the fields grazing animals.” She said that her parents

always cry that, “they are suffering from their work and they sacrifice so much to educate us so

they don’t want us to be like them and suffer.” Nuna told us, “when you’re a farmer your feet

hurt and you have to be with everyone who goes to work really drunk.”

Physical pain and exhaustion coupled with lack of education left parents saying that they

felt immobile and without options. Because of their experiences, parents were willing to sacrifice

for their children. For example, when Flor’s mother was twelve, she had to take care of her

younger siblings and could not go to school. From a place of personal restriction, she fought for

a different life for her daughters. Youth at the Mountain Highland Project pursue secondary

education as a shared mission with their parents. Families hope that by staying in school, their

children will gain greater economic opportunity and social connections that will provide some

form of upward social mobility for the entire family, which is internalized by the girls.

Parental support is a propelling force, but due to the small and intimate context of home

life, moving to Primavera is at first shocking. In Primavera, the girls are exposed to creature

comforts like electricity and running water, cell phones, computers, traffic, Spanish, and a more

urban way of life, while simultaneously facing discrimination, loneliness, humiliation, and

mistreatment. These are all factors rural Quechua youth confront when they migrate to pursue

education.

Language and Hardship

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 Despite backing from the Peruvian government, instruction in the village primary schools

is basic. Without a sufficient number of qualified teachers (Garcia 2005; Huaman & Valdiviezo

2014) and a high rate of truancy (by the teachers), accessing a good education is rare (Garcia

2005; Ames 2012). Moreover, although most schools are required to teach both Quechua and

Spanish equally, this rarely occurs. Instead, primary school teachers in the Andes teach almost

entirely in Quechua, stating that their monolingual Quechua students would not understand if

they were taught in Spanish (Valdiviezo 2009). For example, when we asked Qora if there was

anything she did not like about primary school, she said, “Just that my teacher didn’t teach me to

speak Spanish. She only taught Quechua, so my difficulty was not knowing the language of my

secondary school. I didn’t know anything really.” After primary school, students are taught

exclusively in Spanish, so the transition to high school only reinforces the stereotypes and

perceived positionality of indigenous students as less capable and inferior.

Naira seconded this sentiment, “(in Ollantaytambo) I felt uncomfortable...I don’t know, it’s

that there I don’t speak well with my classmates.” Like her, the girls we interviewed expressed

entering high school feeling timid and inadequate in their ability to communicate and learn, and

felt that they lacked a foundation of knowledge to build from. While the stated purpose of IBE

implementation in schools is to value and support indigenous languages and culture, Quechua

youth soon realize that their language and culture are valued in their community schools only.

To make matters worse, as the director of Mountain Highland explained, “[D]uring their first

semester, the girls all fail and get disappointed.” This was mostly due to comprehension and

literacy issues in Spanish.

Even if the girls can read words in Spanish, they often cannot understand their meaning.

Qora explained, “I practiced alone reading books so that I could improve. I experienced so much

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difficulty, I couldn't do much. Even in my second year (of secondary school) I couldn’t read

much. When I was in my third year, then I spoke good Spanish and it was easier.” Girls also

remember difficulty understanding their teachers. Paqari recounted, “when my teachers talked

fast I couldn't comprehend [the material],” and Flor shared that she hated “Science, Technology,

and the Environment,” “because I don’t understand the professor’s explanations, I don’t

understand the formulas and the chemistry. It makes everything harder for me when I don’t

understand, that is why I don’t like the class, because I don't understand what he teaches so I

can’t do the formulas.” Poor reading and oral comprehension and fear of asking for help are all

initial obstacles.

Though lacking strong Spanish skills, youth arrive adept at things like using a knife,

cutting a carrot in their hand, taking care of livestock, farming and weaving. Sadly these hands-

on skills are not integrated into secondary school curriculum, causing youth to feel inferior and

out of place. Consider Nuna, who said that in her first year in Primavera, she felt inferior to her

Spanish speaking classmates, “because they understood more and could participate in class, but I

could not.”

Spanish was not a concern at home. Sisa acknowledged that until she got to Primavera,

she did not feel any urgency to learn Spanish. She said, “I remember when I was in the first year

of primary school and it didn’t even interest me to learn Spanish. My peers and I said ‘what is

this?’ and when the professor came who taught us Spanish, we didn’t understand anything she

said. In Quechua we said to each other, ‘what is she saying?’ She tried to say slowly that little

by little it is important to learn Spanish, but we didn’t think so then.” When youth arrive at the

Mountain Highland Project dormitory, they receive tutoring, but nevertheless, the girls’ initial

inability to speak Spanish impacts their studies and the way they are perceived and treated. Due

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to the difficulties the girls endure, many learn to fixate on language because they must learn

Spanish or drop out.

Negative Social Interactions

In addition to arriving to secondary school unprepared in Spanish language ability, early

social interactions in Primavera are a major cause of acculturative stress. Aggressions by both

adults and peers mean that the majority of Quechua youths’ social interactions are negative and

discriminatory, making them feel anxious and ostracized.

When Kayara talked about her favorite classes, she said that the History and English

teachers were the best because “when I don’t understand, I can ask and they will explain to me.

They come close to where I am and explain until I understand.” I asked her if other teachers were

as willing to help. “No,” she said, “they sometimes ask if I have understood and if I say ‘no’ they

say that they will not repeat what was just taught.” Koya furthered this point. She said, “they are

not patient. When you ask for help they say they don’t understand you.” Miski also expressed

distress saying, “I am afraid because maybe they will tell me that I didn’t understand. This is a

fear I have because some say ‘you did not understand’ and then they will not explain for you (the

material).” Furthering the dialogue on negative interactions with educators, Author B disclosed

a conversation he had where a teacher said the dormitory initiative is wasting its time because the

girls are unteachable and “simply less capable than other students (Author B 2015:67).”

Interactions with peers are no better. Sisa said that during her first year of secondary

school, she felt afraid to go to class because she thought that no one would speak to her and

people would discriminate against her and insult her. Her fears were not unwarranted. Various

girls told me that their classmates laughed at them when they confused Spanish and Quechua,

and they prayed their teachers would not assign group projects because no one wanted to be in

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their groups. Paqari remembered, “I got a little nervous and could not speak because our

classmates are a little... they bother you that’s all, they laugh, and you see, if you mess up, they

make fun of you.” Qora recounted feeling the physical manifestations of anxiety when she had to

present in front of her classmates. She said, “it’s that I didn’t really know how to speak Spanish

and when I went to speak, me, timid, my hands shook, I sweat and sweat.”

When Author A asked Paqari about her friends at school, she said, “my classmates, when

people come from the campo and don’t speak good Spanish, everyone called them ‘mote’ and I

didn’t like that...this means they are criticizing you for not speaking Spanish. When I said to

them ‘don’t say that,’ they said it to me too, so I just tried to ignore them.” Kayara also

complained about her classmates’ behavior saying, “some of my classmates were a little bit

aggressive...they are bad, they know how to discriminate against us and they told us that our

parents don’t want us and that is why we are in a dormitory. When they said that, it hurt me.”

Enduring vicious bullying impacts the girl’s self-esteem and ability to integrate socially.

In response, they withdraw until they master Spanish. Shaya sadly stated, “Before I moved to

Primavera, I thought I would suffer there… I thought that they would treat us (girls from

Lapampa) badly.” Shaya correctly predicted what was to come. Nuna told me she only speaks

Quechua with a friend or someone she trusts and that with classmates; she would never speak her

first language, demonstrating how youth are conditioned to feel ashamed of their Quechua

identity and opt to use Quechua only discreetly.

Temporary and Enduring Silence

Because the girls are bullied for being Quechua, they silence markers of Quechua

identity as an acculturation strategy. One form of silencing, the silencing of voice, seems to be a

temporary strategy which youth use as a coping mechanism to deal with discrimination and later

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shed once they have an established social network in Primavera. Koya told us, “when I make

mistakes the teachers get mad and it draws attention to us.” After her interview, elected muteness

seemed common, so we began asking the girls if they spoke in class. The younger girls expressed

fear of speaking and the older girls recounted the remembered fear. For example, Sisa linked a

silence phase to language acquisition, stating that in her first two years of secondary school, she

did not know “correct Spanish,” so while she could understand, she did not speak for fear that

“the pronunciations would not come out.” Sami also remembered a long period of time where

she collapsed into herself: “I had difficulty in my first year. When I arrived I did not want to

spend time with my classmates. I did not speak to them and I did not speak to my professors

either… I was afraid of them. I thought they would yell at me if I asked a question, now I just

ask, that’s all.” Sisa and Sami’s experiences show silence as an interim mechanism to alleviate

hurtful attention. Qora also remembered muteness as transitory, saying, “I didn’t have friends.

Now I have a lot of friends, I have all of my friends now, but before I was so quiet. I didn’t go

out to recess, I never went out.” Author A asked her what she did and she said “I stayed in the

classroom, sitting, that is all I did, I just sat there that is all.” “Alone?” Author A asked. “Yes,”

she said. She sat alone and everyone just went to eat and left her.

Occasionally silence is employed by way of omission. For example, Author A asked

Qora if her teachers gave her extra help when they found out Quechua was her first language.

She said, “No, it's that, I didn’t tell them I’m from here (Lapampa).” She continued, “It’s that

they never asked me what I was. I was always silent and they just said I was shy and quiet.”

Naira also omitted information that would identify her as Quechua. Author A asked if her friends

from school had ever come to visit her community and she replied, “no, because I don’t invite

them. I don’t tell them I am from here.”

18
 Silence also presents as the muting of physical markers associated with rural

communities. In the same way the girls choose not to speak about where they are from, they also

“mute” their traditional clothing to hide visible markers of Quechua identity (Ames 2012; Garcia

2005; Hill 2013). This silencing seems to be more enduring. Altering dress was most visible

with the girls from Lapampa, a weaving community where it’s mandatory to dress in traditional

clothing. For women this meant wearing a Lliclla or cape made of a woven cloth, a chumpi

which is a belt worn to hold skirts in place, a montera or hat decorated with beads that ties under

the chin, and polleras which are wide skirts made of wool and are embroidered differently

depending on the region of the person sporting the piece. When we went to Lapampa to

interview the girls they were colorfully adorned in the clothes their mothers had made. Seeing

the girls beautifully dressed this way, it was surprising and disconcerting when Gabriela told us

that of the four girls from Lapampa, only one travels to Primavera in traditional clothes and even

she tends not to wear that clothing around Primavera.

Acculturation and Identity Shifts

While low Spanish skills initially keep the girls from “becoming educated” and making

friends, language improvement allowed them to acquire the explicit knowledge taught in school

and the unarticulated, implicit knowledge that helped them to fit in and gain more agency over

their acculturation process. We found that as the youths’ Spanish improved, so did their opinion

of Primavera. They are able to move past the silence stage and shift to language acquisition and

relationship building as primary acculturation strategies. As they become bilingual, they begin

making friends and feeling at home in Primavera. For the youth we worked with, transitioning to

city life was a taxing but finite process. The older girls, in particular, recognized the point at

which they no longer felt timid and afraid and instead felt confident and even expressed a

19
preference for being in Primavera. For example, as Koya explained, “[originally] I didn’t want to

live in Primavera. I just wanted to go for one or two days and not more. But now I like it. I feel

good”.

Because youth commonly want to understand their teachers and peers, as well as present

in front of the class and socialize without ridicule, each student reported that except at home,

they prefer to speak Spanish over Quechua. Naira explained, “when you speak more Spanish,

you confuse less words. If you speak more Quechua, you are confusing yourself and the native

Spanish speaker.” Her response shows an inclination toward preference for Spanish due to

wanting to fit into the Spanish speaking (dominant language) social worlds. Like Naira, Koya

reported that anywhere besides home, she prefers to speak Spanish because it is easier to write

than Quechua. “Everyone is embarrassed to speak Quechua and so we speak in Spanish, that is

all,” said Izhi, the oldest girl we interviewed. Her summary encapsulates a multi-year transition

process in one simple statement. Even though Quechua youth are more at ease communicating

in Quechua, they elect discomfort because they learn to see Spanish as key to academic and

social success. When girls report a more positive view of Spanish once they are able to speak it,

they are also reporting an internalization of the discrimination of their linguistic and cultural

identities as Quechua and a shift in identity. Their home, family, and culture become something

to be hidden or obscured, only brought out at home. The girls slowly stop speaking Quechua

even with individuals who also speak Quechua when they are in Primavera. The fact that the

students begin to feel happy in Primavera after they take on the trappings of the dominant

culture, shows the deep complexity in the psychological and sociological processes of a

colonized space--it also shows youth’s resilience in the face of such deep discrimination, but also

how that discrimination harms their sense of self and value of their culture.

20
 Without Spanish, the girls have little ability to mitigate feelings of isolation and little

agency in how to respond to discrimination. Older girls, like Qora, remembered a lack of social

involvement, but reported feeling happy and accepted when they began talking to their

classmates as their Spanish improved. Qora, the student who would spend recess alone in her

classroom, said that “in my second year I hung out with the majority of my classmates and so

everything was a success.” Flor also recognized a change of heart about Primavera after feeling

included by classmates, “Only in the beginning I walked alone, sad. I didn't like it (Primavera)

because I didn’t hang out with my friends still.” Interviewing Sisa, Author A asked if she would

talk about a day when she felt happy at school in Primavera. She responded, “When I learned to

speak Spanish and when I met my classmates I wasn’t as scared but rather I was happy because

now I could speak to my classmates. In my first year, when I came, I didn’t know anyone.” Here,

we see students speak about language acquisition and relationship building as positive

acculturation strategies that they substitute for silence.

New Realities and Identities

The only girl who did not express comfort and acceptance in Primavera was Tamya, the

youngest and newest to Primavera. She had just finished her first year of secondary school and

said she did not speak to many of her classmates, “because I don’t know much Spanish.” She,

being one of the youngest girls, was still living a stage that older girls had moved past. When we

interviewed her, she sat almost facing away from us and spoke in a voice so quiet that we could

hardly hear her. She curled into herself, shoulders high and back crouched. In contrast, Sisa, who

had been living in Primavera for four years, sat almost on top of Author A. She spoke loudly, a

mile a minute, looking at her as she wove her narratives. She touched Author A’s shoulder

sporadically, as a means of generating confirmation and connection. Sisa projected behavior that

21
felt confident and comfortable. Behavior like Sisa’s is seen in older girls who have lived in

Primavera for longer. We saw behavior like Tamya’s in the girls that have just arrived to

Primavera and in their mothers, the majority of whom have not participated in formal schooling

and have always lived in a rural community. They stood far away from us and did not make eye

contact or directly address us, leading us to believe that behavioral differences between older and

younger girls were due to immersion in city life. As demonstrated by the older girls, through

attaining Spanish mastery, youth gained consciousness of the dialogue and non-verbal norms

enveloping them, picking up on city customs and shifting their behavior accordingly.

With more exposure to their new context students not only adapted to new languages, but

also to non-verbal patterns. There were numerous other small and large shifts in behaviors based

on students’ new realities. For example, showering was a shift that Gabriela brought to our

attention. She said the youth came to the dorm never having a hot shower (bathing in cold water)

and, “once they feel what it is to take a hot shower and feel a clean body, they come running

back to the dormitory on Sundays to be the first in line.” The youth’s altered routines

demonstrate their easing into establishing a life in an urban environment.

Style, beyond the traditional and modern dichotomy, also became a shift for students.

Koya showed us how, even in rural communities that do not dress in traditional clothes, subtle

differences between the city and the country styles were apparent. Where she lives, no one uses

traditional clothing, so Author A did not expect her to alter her dress based on place. She was

ignorant to certain subtleties that Koya is attuned to. Koya informed her, “Here we don’t use

shoes, but in Primavera we do.” “You are wearing shoes right now,” Author A responded.

“These are hojotas,” she explained. She said one should not use hojotas (rubber tire sandals) in

Primavera because it’s the city and only people who come from the campo use hojotas in the

22
city. Koya said that she brings hers to the dormitory, but would not go out onto the street in

them. Koya’s behavior provides a concrete example of altering behavior based on implicit

knowledge acquired through city living.

Agency and Acculturation

As part of acculturation, youth are cognizant of their teachers and peers and mirror their

behavior, becoming “like them.” However, though they are confronted by strong social powers,

the youth are not powerless. Courtney Martinez (2014) recognizes that there can be “selective

acculturation” when a person chooses what values or beliefs to adopt while still maintaining their

own cultural values, which is consistent with Berry’s (1997) model. Although most of the girls

we interviewed suppressed their cultural values while in Primavera, Sisa fought against

unidirectional acculturation. Even after learning that her community’s traditional clothing was

not accepted in Primavera, Sisa continued to wear these clothes to school as an act of pride in her

community. She said she refuses to forget her culture. She will keep weaving and when she has a

job, she will consider wearing traditional clothing to work one day even though she may not be

let in. She said she will never forget her family or her home and felt that maintaining the

tradition of weaving is crucial because “it is part of our culture passed down from the Incas so

we cannot forget.” Follow-up research with the students in a few years would be revealing, to see

if the students who voiced a desire for cultural sustainability were able to do so. This counter-

narrative also shows that students are aware of some of the problematic aspects of the social

pressures to fit into the dominant society.

The proud rhetoric that Sisa shared was not the loudest narrative present in our data.

However, other girls also expressed some similar sentiments, though less vociferous and explicit.

It is important to acknowledge Sisa’s strong cultural maintenance approach as a possible strategy

23
for acculturation. Also noteworthy is that while we did not find youth actively pursuing cultural

maintenance while in school, the girls do continue to return home on the weekends (and for

many, over the summers) and participate as members of their communities. They also express

their cultural identities in different contexts. For example, some girls will wear traditional

clothing at the dorm. While we focus on the silencing of markers of Quechua identity because

that is an initial response to contact with a new culture, we want to underline that youth are more

comfortable with their identities once they have a strong network in Primavera. This is not to say

that youth prioritize cultural maintenance over fitting in, but it acknowledges changing attitudes

toward expressing their Quechua identity once the fear of not fitting in has abated.

A Gradual Preference for Primavera

Of the various facets of the acculturation process, perhaps the most surprising was

youths’ eventual preference for Primavera. Even though the girls’ early experiences were hostile

and stress provoking, they came to prefer Primavera to their natal villages and to see an urban

environment as the ideal place of their imagined futures. Once youth became accustomed to

urban comforts, we saw them begin to dislike the strenuous work required of them in the

communities.

Suyana said, “I don’t want to be like my siblings who are homemakers and farmers.

Getting out is better.” Instead of farming, the girls envisioned attending university and then

starting a profession such as doctor, chef, accountant, lawyer, guide, engineer, or hotel owner.

Some said they would live in Cusco, some in Lima, and some in Urubamaba, but the common

thread was that the girls tied their future careers to residence in a city. They are so content in

Primavera that there are weekends when they do not want to return home. Gabriela said the girls

24
miss their families but they do not want to walk hours to then have to work all weekend at home.

They complain, “oh no, I don’t want to go to my house, I have to work hard.”

A few of the girls consider both Primavera and their community to be “home” but prefer

living in Primavera. Nuna said she is partial to Primavera because, “in Primavera I don’t do

things like how I do them in my house. I rest a bit in Primavera but in my house I never rest… I

prefer Primavera.” Paqari said, “I don’t want to work in the fields, it is tough and tiring. I want to

live in Cusco where life is easier.” Sisa said it’s hard to be in her community because there is no

Internet, which is boring because she cannot communicate with her friends. We asked her about

her dreams for the future and she responded that ideally she would stay in the city. She loves the

cars and the architecture and dreams of buying a house in Primavera or a bigger city.

The extent to which their home communities were included in the youths’ imagined

future was minimal. “I would come back on a Sunday, you know, to visit,” Flor said with a

shrug. We prodded the girls on their connection to their communities after graduation. Koya

expressed a desire to live in Cusco so we asked if she also considered living in her community.

“No, I will live in Cusco but have a car,” she responded. Kayara barely even had interest in

visiting, saying, “I will go back only to visit my parents but not to live...There isn’t a road to go

back in car and it is far to walk.” Nuna imagined being even more disconnected. She said she

would live in Lima and bring her family with her. Based on conversations with Juan, none of the

girls who have graduated from the Mountain Highlands Project live in their natal village and few

of the girls expressed interest in moving back. Students’ discussion of their preferences

highlights the tensions between lifestyle, identity, culture, and what students want in their

shifting realities. These tensions have important implications for educators and policy makers.

Analysis

25
 Based on the students’ experiences, we find that acculturation is triggered by pursuit of

education in the city due to encouragement from parents. After years in Primavera, each migrant,

who was originally accustomed to a rural environment and felt timid and afraid at school,

became bilingual and fully capable of navigating the urban environment. This process occurred

over time, but urgency to adapt was triggered by initial hardship and suffering due to the

discrimination youth were subject to as Quechua girls in a mestizo dominated space. Motivated

by external discomforts and internal pressure to succeed, the youth acquired Spanish skills,

allowing them to learn in school and comport themselves more confidently in Primavera.

Change in behavior occurred in momentous strides once the youth acquired Spanish skills,

allowing them to make friends and gain confidence. Changes also occurred in more subtle ways,

such as style of clothing and norms for personal presentation learned as part of students’ new

urban reality.

We saw that youth encountered both peers and teachers who exhibited conscious and

unconscious acts of discrimination toward them. Discrimination, defined as unfair or negative

treatment such as being teased, threatened, or feeling unaccepted because of one’s ethnicity

(Berry 2008), becomes a stressor that is difficult to overcome causing the youth to employ

silence as an adaptation technique until they are able to develop other strategies. The silence

phase is unanimously described by the girls as painful and is unlike any behavioral responses to

discrimination described by Berry’s work.

Berry finds that experiences of discrimination predict a preference for separation as an

acculturation strategy and says that “high discrimination predicts low preference for integration

and poor adaptation (Berry & Sam, 2010:479).” This was not what we observed or found

through the interviews. Instead, we found the silence period to be a temporary phase that

26
preceded positive regard for the host society, meaning that, in this context, the experience of

discrimination resulted in temporary adaptation issues, but ended somewhere between

assimilation and integration depending upon the micro-context of the students. For example,

students have learned when to silence certain markers of their identities and when to show them,

code switching to meet different social needs. This poses a counter-example to Berry’s

conclusion that when individuals experience discrimination, they are more likely to reject close

involvement with the dominant society and will orient toward their own group or be ambivalent

about their getting involved in the daily life of their new home (Berry & Sam 2010:476).

None of the girls interviewed presented ambivalence about their desired level of

involvement in Primavera. In fact, all still seek high involvement in the host society. They even

came to prefer Primavera to their natal communities for their imagined futures. Discrimination,

while initially linked to separation (the silence period), also created a longing for acceptance in

Primavera, eventually resulting in positive regard for a place that was once extremely

intimidating. This finding is predicated upon the unique context of the girls’ migration and the

push from parents, which leads to the conclusion that motivation and personal/community

narrative are essential factors for overcoming hardship and integrating into a dominant society.

There are some important differences to note in the context of this study compared to

Berry’s acculturation studies of migration to English-speaking settler societies. For example, the

differences in the dominant culture between international migration and moving from a rural to a

more urban, but still rurally situated town within the same country are stark. First, the

discrimination seems to be internalized in a different way. As the students are only a few hours

from home, instead of a multi-day journey over land or water, or hours via plane, they are able to

constantly compare lifestyles and their choices are more open in terms of where they can live--

27
even if they may not feel like they can go back home because of social pressure to become a

professional and make money to support the family, they physically are able to do so.

Nonetheless, the narrative of overcoming barriers to come out ahead, despite academic and

social challenges is a narrative many of the students seem to implicitly accept as how their lives

should go.

The deeper question becomes, why is the system (both social and academic) not better

prepared to educate and accept girls (and boys for that matter) from Quechua speaking rural

communities, when the context of this study is in fact historically primarily Quechua speaking?

What lessons can we take from the experiences of these girls to inform educational policies and

practices within schools that serve students coming from similar backgrounds, so they do not

have to suffer so much, and be forced to shift their identities?

Jerry Tew’s (2006) work speaks directly to the toxicity of discrimination and power, as

he argues that people from marginalized communities are more likely to take on the attributions

of inferiority imposed on them by dominant groups, as they lack the support and social resources

to contest them. They may learn to lower their aspirations in line with their position within the

structuring of society. In this sense, the dormitory and women mentors provide a support and

social resources to contest society’s imposition, even while students are confronted with the

toxicity of discrimination. The authors have reported their findings and analysis back to the

Mountain Valley Project, as it is important to do more to ensure that students’ identities are

valued by important others. This may include anti-discrimination campaigns, and certainly

includes active valorization of Quechua culture by the leadership of the organization.

We conclude that, for the students interviewed in this study, their Quechua roots do not

deter them from pursuing their dreams, but their dreams are interwoven with discriminatory

28
ideas of what it means to be successful. The residual negative impact of experienced

discrimination also means that Quechua youth, more so upon first arriving in the city, relay

feelings of shame about where they come from, including not wanting to bring friends from

school to their villages, distancing themselves from relationships with friends who did not pursue

education, and placing greater emphasis on Spanish language usage rather than Quechua

language usage. These conclusions leave a number of implications about the role of school in

Quechua speaking society.

While we acknowledge the agency youth acquire to selectively acculturate or shift

behavior based on context, so that they can fit in the city and the countryside, students’ abilities

to do so likely creates significant internal strife. We cannot ignore that the girls do not have

many choices—acculturate, or be discriminated against—so it is dangerous to paint acculturation

as a positive achievement. As Ngo (2008) observes, thinking that migrants’ perception of their

relationships to the dominant culture contains free will undermines the dominant-subordinate

processes that involve othering, exclusion, negotiation, acceptance, and accommodation.

Exclusion and othering of Quechua youth by their teachers and peers, as well as the resulting

pressure to acculturate exemplifies how the dominant group uses its perceived superiority to

maintain its position of dominance. Taking the example above where Koya learns where she can

and cannot wear her hojotas, we see how the dominant group’s deployment of a process of

‘othering’ (Dominelli 2002; Tew 2006) is used to create a divide that constructs a label of rural

girls as inferior and coerces them to alter their behavior and identities. For social mobility then,

students need to gain new cultural knowledge and subsume their original cultural knowledges.

This said, how do youths’ responses to acculturation fit into Berry’s four box model?

They do not fit, and this is apparent when looking again at the example of Koya and her hojotas:

29
at first, she wore them to Primavera because she didn’t understand the social norms there. She

then felt ostracized and learned that “the cool kids” were not wearing hojotas in Primavera,

causing her to adapt her behavior. She did not throw her shoes away or never wear them again,

she simply didn’t wear them in a certain context in response to imposed norms, but she

proceeded to wear them in her community. Over time, youth enact pieces of each of the four

strategies. When older and more confident, youth’s strategy most resembles what Berry terms

integration, because they navigate Primavera while preserving certain aspects of home, but at

earlier points their responses more closely mirror separation and then assimilation due to the

bullying they endure. Ultimately, we find the Berry boxes to be too absolute and too static.

Students become able to think contextually and respond to society based on different contextual

factors, acting one way in certain public spaces, another way in less public spaces, and a

different way in familial spaces.

Conclusion

Based on the experiences of the students at the Mountain Highlands Project, we have

found discrimination, language, and required cultural identity shifts to be the main challenges to

students’ self-defined success, and perhaps the most significant barriers for students to overcome

when pursuing an education. The students’ abilities to overcome acculturation challenges is both

a testament to the strength, intelligence, and abilities of these students, as well as cause for

serious concern for teachers, school leaders, policy makers, parents and future generations of

students.

There are two levels of implications--short term and long term--that we can draw from

this study. First, in the short term, it appears that a space for the girls to have time with others

like them (at the dorm) seems to help create safe environment that help mitigate some of the

30
cultural challenges students face. A safe intermediary space allows for breathing room, and

provides emotional support (when done well) to help students adapt. However, mere survival or

hiding of one’s culture and roots is not good enough from a social justice perspective. Thinking

in terms of socially just and systemic approaches to overcoming discrimination is a more

complex task. Of course, there will be some acculturation that needs to happen between anyone

migrating from one cultural context to another, but the power dynamics due to history and social

constructions of class is breeds an unjust dynamic. This study provides a glimpse into the

phenomenon and some of the strategies students utilize in schools, schools that are not grounded

in or responsive to their cultures because of these unjust social norms.

Hiring more teachers who are bilingual and who emphasize the value of the Quechua

language and history should be a policy enactment priority. Further progress would be to create

meaningful and engaging curriculum and textbooks (a suggestion that has policy backing, but

has not been put into practice) grounded in Quechua language and culture in secondary schools.

That way, Quechua students see their language presented as valuable in secondary schools. Berry

(2008) states that adolescents who are confident in their ethnic identities and proud of the groups

they belong to may be better able to deal constructively with discrimination. For example, they

are more likely to regard discrimination as the problem of the perpetrator or by taking steps to

combat it. Therefore, schools should help create positive rhetoric and foster pride around

Quechua culture, youth should not have to push this initiative alone.

Having bilingual teachers from rural backgrounds could make school feel safer as these

adults could better understand, mentor, and support Quechua students. While in interviews, the

girls mostly highlighted negative experiences with teachers, Sisa told Author A that she

experienced a turning point when one of her teachers told her that she should be proud of where

31
she comes from, her ability to speak Quechua, and the sacrifices she has made to learn Spanish

and live away from home. These words from someone in a position of power made her feel

strong and resilient. After this conversation, Sisa remembered feeling an acute sense of pride in

her personal history, showing that even a simple conversation with someone in a position of

authority can alter outlook and perhaps lead to feeling tough and special rather than ashamed.

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