Journal of Language, Identity & Education

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/hlie20

“Las Del Istmo Son Muy Cabronas”: Teaching an

Indigenous Language in a Language Teaching
Preparation BA Program

Mario E. López-Gopar, Vilma Huerta Córdova, Kiara Ríos Ríos & William M.
Sughrua

To cite this article: Mario E. López-Gopar, Vilma Huerta Córdova, Kiara Ríos Ríos & William
M. Sughrua (2021) “Las Del Istmo Son Muy Cabronas”: Teaching an Indigenous Language in a
Language Teaching Preparation BA Program, Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 20:5,
311-324, DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2021.1957680

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1957680

Published online: 13 Sep 2021.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 286

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 2 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hlie20
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION
2021, VOL. 20, NO. 5, 311–324
https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1957680

“Las Del Istmo Son Muy Cabronas”: Teaching an Indigenous

Language in a Language Teaching Preparation BA Program
Mario E. López-Gopar , Vilma Huerta Córdova, Kiara Ríos Ríos, and William M. Sughrua
Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Language teaching preparation programs in Mexico have been part of the Decolonizing language
modernity/coloniality legacy favoring so-called “modern” languages (e.g., teaching; higher education;
English and French) over Indigenous languages. The alleged neoliberal Indigenous language;
Indigenous women;
benefits these languages bring and their connection to “modernized” indi­
language teaching
viduals and cultures overshadows the learning of Indigenous languages, preparation program;
whose speakers struggle with the colonial difference, the discourse that Mexico; Oaxaca
transforms otherness into inferiority. Situated in Oaxaca, the most culturally
and linguistically diverse state in Mexico, the purpose of this paper is to
present the results of an ongoing, longitudinal, critical-ethnographic-action-
research project that has documented the recent inclusion of the Indigenous
language Diidxazá/Isthmus Zapotec as part of a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree
program in language teaching. Adopting a decolonizing theoretical lens and
using vignettes co-constructed from participatory classroom and extra-
curricular activity observations, photographs, and video recordings, ethno­
graphic field notes, and on-going dialogue in formal and informal debriefing
sessions, this paper presents the story of Kiara, the first Diidxazá teacher in
this BA program. Based on an iterative analysis of the data, this paper
addresses three main themes: (a) Indigenous teachers challenging the colo­
niality of being; (b) (Indigenous) women repositioning themselves; and (c)
reflective activism decolonizing language teaching.

Introduction

It is September 2013. Mario is in a circle with 33 undergraduate students in the sixth semester of their 8-semester
BA program in language teaching. As part of their preparation for their teaching praxicum, which next semester
they will conduct with vulnerable communities (e.g., children from low socio-economic-backgrounds as well as
teenage and adult prison inmates), Mario and the undergrads have approached language teaching from a critical
and decolonizing perspective. They have also read and discussed the importance of promoting Indigenous
cultures and languages. One of the students, Kiara, who speaks Diidxazá (Isthmus Zapotec), an Indigenous
language from the isthmus part of the state of Oaxaca, listens attentively. “It is a shame that we have talked about
Indigenous languages,” Mario tells the class, “but not experienced the learning of one, and that we have missed
out on understanding Indigenous cultures and worldviews as well.” Mario goes on: “So, here is an idea. What
about if we spend part of your two last semesters learning Diidxazá (Isthmus Zapotec) from Kiara, as a way to
pilot including Indigenous languages in the BA program? What do you all think?” Gerardo, who like Kiara is
from the Isthmus region but does not speak an Indigenous language, responds, “That’ll be great,” while many
others nod in agreement. Looking at Kiara, Mario asks, “You are still willing and able, right, Kiara?” She smiles
and nods, looking into the distance as if imagining how she will teach her language, which has been part of her
family language practices within her community, but rarely outside her community and never part of her formal
schooling or her university studies. Addressing Kiara and then the whole class, Mario says, “As we previously
discussed, we will plan together, and we will get everybody involved as to preparing activities and materials for the
class.” Kiara nods again.

CONTACT Mario E. López-Gopar lopezmario9@gmail.com Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, Av. Universidad
S/N, Col. 5 Señores, Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, 68120.
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
312 LÓPEZ-GOPAR ET AL.

Language teaching preparation programs in Mexico have been part of the modernity/coloniality
legacy favoring so-called “modern” languages (e.g., English and French) over Indigenous languages
(López-Gopar, 2016). The alleged neoliberal benefits that modern languages bring and their connec­
tion to “modernized” individuals and cultures (Motha & Lin, 2014) overshadows the learning of
Indigenous languages, whose speakers struggle with the colonial difference, the discourse that trans­
forms otherness into inferiority (Mignolo, 2000). Consequently, in Mexico most people prefer to learn
“modern” languages and not Indigenous languages (Sima et al., 2019). In addition, most language
teaching programs at Mexican universities focus on preparing modern language teachers (e.g., English
or French language teachers) while offering other European languages such as Portuguese and Italian
as additional languages to be studied through elective courses. This was the case at the Faculty of
Languages at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (FL-UABJO, henceforth), located in
southern Mexico, whose BA program in language teaching focused only on European languages
during its first twenty years of existence. Even though the university is located in the state of Oaxaca
where 16 Indigenous languages are officially recognized as national languages and where more than
one hundred different Indigenous language varieties can be found (INALI, 2020), this BA program did
not honor or value the local linguistic diversity by not including Indigenous languages as part of the
additional-language electives in its curriculum. This trend, as suggested in the opening vignette to this
paper, changed in the BA program in 2013 with the piloting and then official inclusion of Diidxazá,
which means “language of the clouds.”1
This inclusion of Indigenous languages such as Diidxazá in BA language teaching programs is the
focus of this paper. Other studies have reported on the inclusion of Indigenous languages in higher
education in Mexico (Figueroa Saavedra et al., 2014; Sima et al., 2019), Australia (Giacon & Simpson,
2012) and Brunei (Noorashid & McLellan, 2018). These studies have found that modern languages are
mainly used in universities as formal communication and that Indigenous languages can be incorpo­
rated into university programs and curricula in different ways, but with multiple challenges. Further,
coauthors Kiara and Mario, along with De Korne (De Korne et al., 2018), have reported on the
inclusion of Diidxazá in higher education focusing on the perspectives of administrators and students.
Even though these studies concern the successes and challenges of these initiatives, they do not focus
on Indigenous teachers’ negotiation of coloniality of being, which refers to the impact that colonialism
has on one’s life experiences and in turn on language (Maldonado-Torres, 2007; Mignolo, 2000); nor
do these studies focus on the activism required by Indigenous teachers of Indigenous languages,
should they want to support the inclusion and maintenance of those languages in language teaching
preparation programs.
In order to fill the aforementioned gap, this paper presents the results of an ongoing, longitudinal,
critical-ethnographic-action-research project that has documented the inclusion of the Indigenous
language Diidxazá as part of the BA program in language teaching at FL-UABJO. Adopting
a decolonizing theoretical lens (López-Gopar, 2016; Mignolo, 2000), this paper presents the story of
coauthor Kiara, the first Diidxazá teacher in this BA program, and three teacher educators (coauthors
Mario, Vilma and Bill), who, along with Kiara, have actively advocated for Diidxazá. Traditionally, in
academic research, people of Indigenous origin are seen only as informants. In this case however,
Kiara is an active participant and coauthor of this work, which implies a change of vision, moving
from verticality to horizontality in research (Corona Berkin & Kaltmeier, 2012). Along with Kiara, we
(Mario, Vilma, and Bill) present the results of this study as vignettes.
Following from Heldbjerg and Liempd (2018), we define “vignette,” within the panorama of social
science research, as “a scenario or a story, i.e., a short description, or snapshot, of one or more people
in a social situation, portraying an everyday event” that can be interpreted as having significance to
a particular research topic at hand (p. 319). As Heldbjerg and Liempd (2018) state, “the stimuli/
content of the vignette may stem from materials such as diaries . . . [and] field notes” (p. 319); likewise,
in our case, the “primary empirical research data” underlying the vignettes (p. 319) are participatory
classroom and extra-curricular activity observations, photographs, video recordings, and ethno­
graphic field notes. Inspired by that data, we have written our vignettes collectively and together
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 313

during on-going dialogue in formal and informal debriefing sessions in which Kiara’s praxis has been
the focus. We do not intend these vignettes to be broken down into a type of narrative analysis; rather,
we use the vignettes as “representational” in the sense of standing as performances or complete critical
incidents (Talmy, 2010, p. 27). Being in whole form rather than segmented as for instance, is often the
case with interview transcripts, our performative vignettes thus maintain an impact that is a match for
the stories or traveler’s tales that have been historically used to position Indigenous groups as the
colonial other (Corona Berkin & Kaltmeier, 2012; Smith, 2012). This allows us to tell back our own
stories (vignettes) to those stories or traveler’s tales that wield hegemony and oppression (Smith,
2012). In these vignettes, when referring to one of us, we use the third person for rhetorical purposes
only, as none of us, especially Kiara, has been the “object” of our research project. We all view each
other as subjects of our research project and histories.
In this paper, in order to contextualize our vignettes, we, first of all, present the current state of
coloniality in Mexico, the Diidxazá language and the reality faced by Isthmus Indigenous women like
Kiara. Secondly, we present our theoretical lens consisting of decolonizing language teaching through
the coloniality of being and geopolitics of knowledge. Third, influenced by these theories which
emphasize the importance of researchers’ and teachers’ critical reflection and activism should they
want to decolonize their contexts and realities, we address our methodology: critical ethnography and
critical action research. Fourth, we provide our vignettes, divided into three separate sections: (a)
Indigenous teachers challenging the coloniality of being; (b) (Indigenous) women repositioning
themselves; and (c) reflective activism decolonizing language teaching. Fifth, we conclude with
a reflection on the never-ending struggle of the inclusion of Indigenous languages in higher education.

The Diidxazá language and women resisting coloniality

Mexico has historically been a multilingual and multicultural society formed by different Indigenous
groups, who have endured constant discrimination and exclusion during five centuries. The discri­
mination and exclusion are bound up in coloniality, which refers to a colonial power imposing
Western or Eurocentric models of living and being on non-Western communities (Mignolo, 2009).
Latin American thinkers (Mignolo, 2000; Quijano, 2007) have argued that even though most Latin
American countries became independent (e.g., Mexico’s independence in 1821), colonial ideologies
never left and were recreated by Latin American peoples themselves. Hence, colonialism has never
ended, and thus a state of coloniality prevails in Mexico and most countries of Latin America
(Mignolo, 2009). As part of coloniality, the Spanish language was imposed on Indigenous groups.
The process of castellanización—the imposition of Spanish—has been conducted through institutions
such as the church and schools, whose agenda has been to ideologically conquer Indigenous groups
(Maldonado Alvarado, 2002). Kiara experienced this process firsthand as all her schooling in her
Indigenous community was with Spanish as the medium of instruction and Diidxazá being relegated
to private spaces. Even though Indigenous groups have dealt with castellanización within coloniality,
they have not been passive and have found ways to resist and survive. The existence of Indigenous
languages, such as Diidxazá, up to this date is proof of this resistance, albeit they are all pejoratively
and jointly referred as “dialectos” (dialects), as if they had no name and were not different from one
another.
Diidxazá is spoken in the Isthmus region of the state of Oaxaca, the context of this study. In Oaxaca,
16 Indigenous ethnic groups, including AfroMexicans, are officially recognized with over 100
Indigenous language varieties spoken throughout the state. The National Institute of Indigenous
Languages (INALI) categorizes Diidxazá language varieties as “Zapoteco de la Planicie Costera” and
lists over 20 municipalities or large communities and hundreds of small of communities where
Diidxazá is spoken (INALI, 2020). One of these hundreds of small communities is Aguas Calientes
La Mata, Kiara’s hometown. Being under the umbrella of the municipality, Asunción Ixtaltepec, Kiara’s
Diidxazá language variety is also known as Zapoteco de Ixtaltepec (INALI, 2020). Even though it is
difficult to pinpoint the exact number of Diidxazá speakers, the last census in 2020 reported that there
314 LÓPEZ-GOPAR ET AL.

were 6,500 speakers, over 5 years of age, who reported speaking Diidxazá in Ixtaltepec (INEGI, 2020).
In the Isthmus region, the municipality with most speakers is Juchitán de Zaragoza, with over 63,000
speakers according to the 2020 census.
Due to the highest number of speakers among the Isthmus municipalities, along with the economic
and activist support of famous Zapotec politicians and academics (e.g., the late Andrés Henestrosa) as
well as artists (e.g., the late painter Francisco Toledo), Juchitán Zapotec is the most prestigious
Diidxazá language variety in the Isthmus region. Isthmus Zapotec activism, along with the Isthmus
region’s stronger economy in contrast to other Indigenous communities, has also resulted in
Diidxazá’s higher positioning over other Indigenous languages in Oaxaca. De Korne (2016) states:
“While Oaxaca is among the poorest states of Mexico, the region of the Isthmus has enjoyed greater
wealth and perhaps less political marginalization than other Indigenous communities, and has
consistently promoted its language and culture in regional and national arenas” (p. 59). Resulting
from the aforementioned economic, political, and academic support, the Diidxazá alphabet or
standard orthography was developed in 1956. Using this standard orthography, a few alphabetic
texts including dictionaries, short stories, poetry books and so forth have been written in the Juchitán
language variety (De Korne, 2016). It is worth noting that Indigenous cultures, including Diidxazá, are
mostly oral, and that alphabetic writing has been used to evangelize and dominate Indigenous
communities; however, Kiara uses alphabetic writing for her own purposes and on her own terms
as a pedagogical instrument, and she is not subject to rules imposed by mainstream linguists about
how to write. Kiara’s defiant positioning stems from the influence of strong Zapotec women as we
discuss next.
The Isthmus region has also attracted a lot of attention due to the role that Zapotec women play in
the Isthmus community. Generally speaking, in Mexico, Indigenous women are at the receiving end of
discriminatory practices and increasing violence (Motta, 2014; Stephen, 2005). Motta (2014) states:
“Indigenous women of color . . . are subject to multiple oppressions, including political and episte­
mological invisibilization . . . [and they] are the ‘nonsubjects’ of contemporary capitalist coloniality”
(p. 22, quotations in original). In the Isthmus region, however, Zapotec women have found ways to
resist. Dalton (2010), who has extensively analyzed gender movements in the Isthmus, states that “the
least one can say about Isthmus Zapotec women is that they have a high level of self-love” (p. 110, our
translation). Dalton further argues that this self-love has originated from “their activism and partici­
pation in politics, commerce and decisive moments in the history of the Isthmus” (p. 111, our
translation). In addition, starting to work from a young age, Isthmus Zapotec women invest their
money in gold jewelry and handmade colorful dresses which the women use as a financial resource
(gold jewelry and dresses can easily be sold, if necessary) and which the women proudly display at
weddings or traditional community parties referred as velas (Dalton, 2010). Isthmus women’s outfits
have been captured by artists like Frida Kahlo, and this has given Isthmus women international
recognition. Accordingly, many outsiders believe that there is a matriarchal state in the Isthmus, which
is not totally accepted by academics like Dalton (2010), as Isthmus women still deal with machismo.
Even if matriarchy is not a reality, we find inspiration in Isthmus women as well as other Indigenous
women from different communities (Motta, 2014; Stephen, 2005), who have resisted coloniality and
articulate “a voice from the margins” (Motta, 2014, p. 22). This empowerment of the marginalized,
including Indigenous women teachers like coauthor Kiara, underlines the purpose of this paper which,
as stated previously, is to document the recent inclusion of the Indigenous language Diidxazá/Isthmus
Zapotec as part of a BA program in language teaching, a formal university context where heretofore
Indigenous languages did not have a place. Therefore, it has been necessary to fight for the integration
of languages in these contexts. This involves decolonizing theories, as we discuss next.

Coloniality of being, geopolitics of knowledge and decolonizing language teaching

The inclusion of Diidxazá in the language teaching BA program at FL-UABJO has been informed by
decolonizing theories put forth by Latin American thinkers. As previously mentioned, language
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 315

teaching in Mexico is immersed within coloniality discourses that are now part of capitalist and
neoliberal practices (Sayer, 2015). Quijano and Wallerstein (1992) argue that capitalism exists only
because America exists. After the “discovery” of America and the Spanish invasion of different parts of
America, the Atlantic commercial circuit was established in the 16th century in order to bring slaves
from Africa to America to work alongside enslaved Indigenous peoples in the gold and silver mines
(Mignolo, 2000). Through the Atlantic commercial circuit, the richness of the American land financed
Europe’s development (Galeano, 1971), establishing what Quijano (2007) has referred to as the
coloniality of power. To justify colonialism and the exploitation of Indigenous peoples and African
slaves, Europeans constructed an image of Indigenous peoples and African slaves as savages, primi­
tives and barbarians (Mignolo, 2000), in need of the guidance of Europeans through different
institutions as discussed above (Maldonado Alvarado, 2002). In the 15th century, there were even
debates as to whether Indigenous peoples should be considered as “people” (Mignolo, 2009).
This ontological debate has been conceptualized by Mignolo (2000) and Maldonado-Torres (2007)
as the coloniality of being. Maldonado-Torres (2007) states that the “concept of coloniality of being
was born in conversations about the implications of the coloniality of power in different areas of
society” (p. 242). These “colonial relations of power” deeply impacted “not only . . . the areas of
authority, sexuality, knowledge and the economy, but [also] . . . the general understanding of being as
well” (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 242). As a result, “the coloniality of power referred to the inter­
relation among modern forms of exploitation and domination (power),” while the “coloniality of
being would make primary reference to the lived experience of colonization and its impact on
language” (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 242, parentheses in original) as well as other factors such as
the imposition of supposedly gender-related differences (Lugones, 2007).
Currently in Mexico, the coloniality of being is connected to language teaching both in general
education and the teaching and learning of additional languages. In terms of general education, as
discussed in the previous section, Spanish, a European language, is still the hegemonic language in
Mexico. Indigenous children are educated through this language, and their low levels of Spanish
alphabetic literacy and high dropout rates are usually connected to their “being” Indigenous rather
than to the failing school system operating in Spanish, which neither meets their needs nor values or
builds upon their Indigenous language and literacy practices (López-Gopar, 2016). In terms of
additional language learning and teaching, European languages, especially English, are the most
“popular” choices. Language institutes and universities offering European languages subtlety convey
the message to Mexicans that in order for them to become “modern” individuals, they must learn one
of these languages. That is what we have come to understand through our experiences as teachers in
Mexico. European language courses are advertised as products, promising the following: a brighter
future (assuming people’s current present is dark); the opening of doors (assuming all their doors are
closed); development (assuming people are underdeveloped); and internationalization (assuming
people live in a parochial state). As one can see, all these current neoliberal discourses are based on
how the Europeans regarded the Indians five centuries ago while promoting the rhetoric of modernity:
salvation, progress and development (Mignolo, 2009). Hence, if Mexican universities like FL-UABJO
offer mostly European languages and students choose these languages unconsciously, the reason seems
that both the universities and students believe that the Mexican people still need to be saved and
rescued from their so-called primitiveness and backwardness.
Latin American peoples’ awareness of the rhetoric of modernity/coloniality present in neoliberal
discourses in language teaching and learning and peoples’ attempts to challenge them is what we
conceive as decolonizing language teaching. Taking an ideological stance that transgresses the logic of
modernity/coloniality, decolonizing language teaching recognizes that knowledge is not only pro­
duced in European centers through European languages. This recognition has been referred to as the
geopolitics of knowledge. Using the typical labels of “third world” for Latin America and “first world”
for Europe and the USA, Mignolo (2009) states: “Geopolitics of knowledge and of knowing was one of
the answers from the third world to the first world. What the geopolitics of knowledge unveiled was the
epistemic privilege of the first world” (p. 20, italics in original, our translation). Further, Mignolo (2005)
316 LÓPEZ-GOPAR ET AL.

argues that the “geo-politics of knowledges derives from local experiences (as science derives from
local experiences of Western capitalist countries) in which the geo-historical aspect accounts for the
tension, negotiation, and violence in all the terrains touched by Western colonial expansion” (p. 122,
parenthesis in original). Connecting this to language teaching and learning, the inclusion of
Indigenous languages in higher education and language teaching preparation programs in Mexico
means answering from the third world to the first world. The first world is present in the minds of
Mexican students and educators who opt for European languages over Indigenous languages, which
are also referred to as “pre-Columbian” (López-Gopar, 2016). Hence, within the inclusion of
Indigenous language in higher education, decolonizing language teaching means acknowledging
that Indigenous language teachers are producers of knowledge (e.g., curricula, pedagogies, teaching
strategies, and materials) who can teach others. This acknowledgement consequently challenges the
coloniality of being that Indigenous peoples have endured for centuries. Working from a decolonizing
stance demands researchers, teacher educators and teachers, such as ourselves, to engage at a personal
level should we want to exert our agency in order to resist and challenge the hegemonic discourses of
modernity/coloniality that position ourselves and our students as inferior. In the next section, we
describe how our personal engagement has operated through critical ethnography and critical action
research as we have worked to promote and maintain the inclusion of Diidxazá in our BA program.

Critical ethnography and critical action research

Decolonizing projects, such as the inclusion of Indigenous languages in higher education, requires
a deep understanding of how modernity/coloniality currently operates in people’s lives, driving their
actions and choices. Hence, our research and teaching praxis has used critical ethnography to gain
such understanding (Anderson, 1989). Our critical approach to ethnography is based on the criticism
of Indigenous scholars, who have pointed out that the field of anthropology and its ethnographic
research orientation are often responsible for positioning Indigenous peoples as the colonial other
through tales of these peoples as savages with weird cultures and without culture and even without
souls (Smith, 2012). “It is surely difficult to discuss research methodology and Indigenous peoples
together, in the same breath . . . without understanding the complex ways in which the pursuit of
knowledge is deeply embedded in the multiple layers of imperial and colonial practices” (Smith, 2012,
p. 2, italics in original). Indigenous scholars such as Smith (2012), complementing these concepts by
exploring the same structures within Indigenous contexts, point to the coloniality of being and
geopolitics of knowledge previously discussed, and remind us not to treat Indigenous peoples, along
with their languages, as objects of study, but rather as equal collaborators from whom we can learn.
Hence, in our work, we engage in ethnographic praxis (Higgins & Coen, 2000) by linking our research
to issues of social justice and our objectives to the desires and concerns of those with whom we are
collaborating. When one engages in ethnographic praxis, it is impossible not to intervene, especially
when criticality and social justice underlie the research intentions, as was our case.
In our research and praxis, we have aligned with emancipatory or critical action research categor­
ized by Carr and Kemmis (1986) and explained by Kemmis (1993) as being “always connected to social
action” (p. 3), such as the inclusion of Indigenous languages in higher education. The critical aspect of
critical action research resides in its activism which “aims at creating a form of collaborative learning
by doing [and at] help[ing] people understand themselves as the agents, as well as products, of history”
(Kemmis, 1993, p. 3). In our case, we help one another to understand how the history of modernity/
coloniality has impacted us as teacher educators in Oaxaca, Mexico, and how our compliance has
contributed to the exclusion of Indigenous languages from our BA program for over twenty years. To
challenge this trend, in our collaboration, we helped one another to become agents of change while
supporting the inclusion of Diidxazá. In critical action research, interventions are the core and the
driving force. These interventions require engaging in praxis which, as proposed by Freire (1970),
requires reflection plus action, as reflection with no action is “blah” and action without reflection is
activism in the manipulative sense. Hence, in this project, our main intervention was the inclusion of
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 317

Diidxazá as part of the language teaching BA program. This inclusion required “mini interventions”
(so to speak), as we dialogued our agenda with administrators, coordinators, fellow teachers, and
students, stressing the importance of including Diidxazá should our BA program aim to have
a multilingual, intercultural and decolonizing approach in the development of language teachers.
Our interventions have shaped our critical ethnography, critical action methodology, and methods
to gather and analyze the data. As we previously stated, we (the coauthors of this paper) do not have
fixed roles (e.g., researcher, teacher educator, participant) by circumstance and by choice. We see
ourselves as intervening and decolonizing subjects whose agenda is to learn from, and work along
with, Indigenous-language speakers. Hence, playing different roles at different times, our data comes
from ethnographic field notes stemming from our participation and dialogues with the dean of FI-
UABJO, for instance, as we talked her into hiring Kiara as the Diidxazá teacher. Our data also comes
from our planning sessions with Kiara as we co-developed the syllabi for the first semesters of
Diidxazá. It also comes from Mario participating as a student in Kiara’s pilot classes for two semesters.
We also gathered data in the debriefing sessions we held as a team, twice a week and for the 16-week
duration of each semester, to analyze, plan, and intervene as the Diidxazá classes were unfolding and
in our constant informal conversations with Kiara, some of which we audio-recorded. Our data also
derives from our participation in extracurricular activities organized by Kiara, such as language fairs,
and other activities organized by the FL-UABJO (e.g., Christmas festivals in which the Diidxazá
students performed choral productions). Finally, our data comes from our courses, conferences, and
workshops we held with incoming and current students at the FL-UABJO in order to challenge the
modernity/coloniality discourses around European languages while repositioning Diidxazá as
a language worth learning by way of the additional-language elective courses in the BA program.
For the last seven years, all these data sets have been recursively analyzed in order to promote and
maintain the inclusion of Diidxazá as an additional language and to collaborate with Kiara. This is
because the implementation of an Indigenous language means doing everything from scratch because
no syllabi, materials, textbooks and so forth exist to teach these languages, as was the case with
Diidxazá.
All the above data has influenced us in writing the three vignettes to follow as well as interpreting
the vignettes. These vignettes were written over a two-week period. During week one, each of us
(Mario, Vilma, Bill and Kiara) reviewed the above-mentioned data sets privately, and then during
week two, we met together for about three hours, shared our thoughts about the data, and collectively
wrote the vignettes which we now present and discuss. This discussion is supported by Kiara’s direct
comments taken from one of the above-mentioned data sets, our audio-recorded conversations with
Kiara. Our intention is to highlight our activism to challenge coloniality in order to decolonize our BA
program through the implementation of Diidxazá.

Indigenous teachers challenging the coloniality of being

Kiara is waiting outside the dean’s office to formalize her new role as the official teacher of Diidxazá. Kiara
remembers this experience vividly: “I was in the office of the dean, talking about the Zapoteco class I was
going to start. We were talking about my payment, so she asked me, ‘Kiara, do you really speak Zapoteco?’
I said, ‘Yes’. At that moment, she made a phone call to someone and she asked me to translate her
conversation. I felt that I had to prove to her that I am a Zapoteco speaker.” Kiara left the dean’s office
with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was officially part of the Faculty. On the other, she felt
unrecognized as a legitimate teacher. Kiara mentions, “At that time, I felt I was proving to everyone that
I was a Zapoteco speaker, that I was a teacher. I had to prove that Zapoteco could be a class, that Zapoteco has
a grammar. At the beginning, I was afraid to teach my language. I was afraid to say that I speak a Zapoteco
language variety. When people think of Zapoteco, they think about Zapoteco from Juchitán, which is more
popular, because it is from a large community. My community is smaller. I speak a variety from La Mata. My
accent is different. These ideas about Zapoteco stopped me from being really proud of teaching my language
and from being really proud of speaking my language. Now I don’t have that same idea about me as
a Zapoteco teacher. This idea about myself has been changing through the years, throughout my experience
318 LÓPEZ-GOPAR ET AL.

of working with all the students. Little by little, step by step, I have changed. It was a process and it’s still
a process: breaking my own ideas, facing my own ideas, and also accepting what I have and what I don’t have.
To get to this point of acceptance, it was a process. At the beginning, I was a teacher who was afraid of her
accent, afraid to say, “I am from La Mata.” A lot of people pointed out my Zapoteco accent. At the beginning
I was not a proud teacher. At this moment, I don’t have to change my accent or my words in order to be
accepted. Now I feel very free to invent things. I feel freer to say, “I am not going to use that dictionary
because they are not my words.” Now, I am a Zapotec teacher from Aguas Calientes La Mata and that’s it.
I am not afraid to say this.

The above vignette summarizes seven years of Kiara challenging the coloniality of being. Currently,
in Mexico, we no longer need Spaniard males to position us, Mexicans, as the colonial others
(Corona Berkin & Kaltmeier, 2012; Maldonado-Torres, 2007; Mignolo, 2000). We do it ourselves by
living in constant contradictions. The FL-UABJO dean at that time supported the inclusion of
Diidxazá at the institutional level, buying into the official discourse that Mexico is a pluri-ethnic
and multilingual society and that educational programs should reflect and support this reality
(Figueroa Saavedra et al., 2014). Nevertheless, she did not fully believe that Kiara was a Diidxazá
speaker and so she needed “proof.” Kiara is not alone in this struggle. Most Indigenous language
speakers in Mexico, and other places in Latin America, have either no “proof” of speaking their
languages or face complications in providing this “proof” because these languages have not been
part of Latin American institutions and hence lack an evidentiary trail and process. For instance,
Limerick’s (2019) ethnographic study on the evaluation of Quechua speakers in Ecuador shows that
when institutions have gotten involved in the evaluation of Indigenous language speakers to
“demonstrate” and “validate” their language and literacy proficiency, many of the actual speakers
have failed the tests, repositioning themselves as the colonial other. Hence, the role of the
institutions to maintain coloniality discussed by Maldonado Alvarado (2002) is still relevant
today. Clothed by the FL-UABJO as an educational institution, the dean enacted her in-situ
linguistic evaluation policy by having Kiara translate for her into a language she (the dean) did
not understand. Similar to what the church as an institution has done in Mexico, she readily
“blessed” Kiara as a Diidxazá speaker. Kiara has faced this situation repeatedly during the last seven
years: “My closest friends know that I don’t want to be exposed as ‘this is the girl who speaks
Zapotec, so say something.’ I hate that.” Her “lived experiences of colonization” (Maldonado-
Torres, 2007, p. 242) when being “exposed” and asked to perform have certainly had an impact on
Kiara and an “impact on [her] language” (p. 242).
In order to reach the “point of acceptance,” Kiara has also dealt with her own colonial ideologies
regarding Diidxazá in order to break “[her] own ideas,” as Kiara mentions in the previous vignette and
further comments on here:

I had the idea that Zapoteco was something that you can’t teach. I can teach you bad words, some nouns, like how
I can say water in Zapoteco, but for me, like a formal class, in a university, it was something that I didn’t imagine.
I was very ready to teach English, but not my own language. Teaching Zapoteco, my language, in a classroom, at
a university, here in Oaxaca city, this was big.

Kiara’s doubts about the teachability of Diidxazá were rooted in modernity/coloniality. European
languages and knowledge were, and have been positioned, as the only “teachable” things. The colonial
others have to learn, but never to teach. Hence, the inclusion of Diidxazá in our BA program was “big,”
as Kiara says. This inclusion of Diidxazá “in a classroom” was the geopolitical moment where other
“knowledge” and ways of knowing became a reality. Diidxazá is something now that Kiara can teach
with syllabi, exams, and materials created from scratch by Kiara, with the collaboration of Mario,
Vilma, Bill, and the Diidxazá students for the last seven years. It has not been easy, as Kiara has had to
deal with coordinators and other teachers who have questioned whether or not Diidxazá is complex
enough to “fill” eight semesters of language courses. Kiara, recreating the geopolitics of knowledge and
talking back, has answered, “Yes, eight or more.”
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 319

Kiara’s challenging of coloniality of being and her repositioning of Diidxazá as knowledge you can
teach to others has been a collaborative effort. She mentions:

When I started teaching Zapoteco, it was very helpful for me as a novice teacher to have someone to tell you: “I
am going to help you with this academic stuff, like lesson plans, materials, how to create a program,” because, me,
by myself wouldn’t have done it.

Mario’s involvement during the piloting stages and the development of the syllabi for the first semesters
of Diidxazá was important, so that Kiara was not left alone to deal with the coloniality of being.
According to Henne-Ochoa et al. (2020), work on Indigenous language reclamation involves embracing
the interconnected nature of humans. These authors state that in capitalist societies there is a tendency
towards individualism, while in Indigenous communities, people work collaboratively. In Oaxaca, for
instance, Indigenous communities conduct public assemblies or meetings where people work together to
solve the problems of their own communities. Therefore, in our project we followed these Indigenous
practices. Vilma and Bill’s support with planning and later with Kiara’s reflection in our debriefing
sessions have been essential for Kiara repositioning as the teacher of Diidxazá, and as an ambassador who
can also challenge the perceptions that mestizo people have about Isthmus women, as we discuss next.

(Indigenous) women repositioning themselves

It is November 2013. It has been two and half months since the Diidxazá pilot class started. The class starts with
a short birthday celebration for Betty, one of the undergrad students. Kiara leads the class singing “Las Mañanitas,”
the traditional birthday song in Mexico, which she adapted to her Diidxazá language variety: “Gubani, Betty, gubani.
Ma zeeda yuba xpiaani dxi . . . . ” When the song ends, Mario begins to cut up the birthday cake. “Ok, let’s pass the
cake around,” he says. A lot of the female students stand up and all the seven male undergrad students remain seated.
Everybody is sitting down, finishing their piece of cake, and Mario leads the class, reminding the undergrad students
that learning an Indigenous language needs to go beyond linguistics and to address colonial issues that lead to
stereotypical views of Indigenous peoples. “We have talked about colonial difference in terms of race, social class,
linguistics, but today I want us to focus on gender. What happened here today? When it was time to pass the cake
around, only women got up to serve the cake,” Mario says. “That’s true,” answers a female undergrad student while
others nod. “This is the perfect example of how coloniality and colonial difference has historically been a male
narrative,” Mario adds. The class discussion continues analyzing how women are discriminated against in Oaxacan
society. “Now, since we are learning Diidxazá, let’s talk about the phrase ‘Las de Istmo son muy cabronas,’ (‘Isthmus
women are real bitches’), which is typically used here in the city of Oaxaca to refer to women from the Isthmus, like
Kiara, Isa and Gaby [two other female undergrad students from that area]. Are they?” Mario’s question produces
a long silence in the class. “It is important to talk about this and demystify these ideas,” Mario adds. “Yes, my family
uses that phrase to talk about the wife of my uncle,” responds timidly one female student. “Why?” another student
asks. “Well, the thing is that my uncle’s wife sometimes goes out after work with her friends and she does not come
home to attend to my uncle.” Other students share similar comments about Isthmus women and their relationship
with their husbands. Mario tells the class, “So what I am hearing here is that ‘las del Istmo son muy cabronas’ because
they challenge the colonial difference by being economically independent, trying to establish a more equitable
relationship with their husbands, or by going out with their friends?” One of the female students laughs, saying, “I
want to be a cabrona,” and most of other female students say almost immediately, “Me too!” while others smile and
nod. Mario turns to the female students from the Isthmus. “Kiara, Isa, Gaby, what do you all think?” Kiara responds,
“When I’m asked this question, I like to give my opinion based on the women I know, the women with whom I was
raised. I was raised listening to a strong woman talking in Zapotec about stories when she used to go to parties, drink
beers and dance, but also someone who was doing her best for her kids, by selling ‘frutas en dulce’ to earn money and
being the administrator of money in the house from my grandpa’s harvest. This is my grandmother.”

The inclusion of Indigenous languages in higher education should be used as catalyst to engage students
in conversation regarding the coloniality of being faced by Indigenous speakers. In Mexico, Indigenous
speakers, especially women, are stereotypically portraited as timid, submissive and plagued by a so-called
broken Spanish. “La India María,” a popular Indigenous female media character, is representative of this
ethnic, gender and linguistic discrimination (Rohrer, 2009). These colonial stereotypes obscure the
important role that Indigenous women have played both in their Indigenous communities and in the
new urban centers to which Indigenous women migrate (Dalton, 2010; Stephen, 2005). Isthmus women
320 LÓPEZ-GOPAR ET AL.

have broken this stereotype, which is not well regarded by people who have bought into modernity/
coloniality ideologies. That is, historically, Indigenous men and women have not been allowed to be
cabrones as this disrupts the system. This denial has then been internalized by Mexican people who see
this as deviant and not acceptable behavior. Nevertheless, once these stereotypical views are challenged
and words are problematized, other colonial people wish to be deviant, as was the case of the female
students in the Diidxazá class who wanted to be cabronas like Isthmus women. Some female students
jokingly said, “If we don’t get married it is because of the conversations we have had in this class.” Being
aware that repositioning Indigenous women is not easy and a constant struggle, Kiara states:
This idea of cabronas and matriarcado is a perspective from outside. . . . I say this because this supposed
matriarcado is not heaven for women or paradise where women are in charge. This doesn’t mean that there is
no violence against women; there are machos everywhere.

Not only has the Diidxazá class opened up the space for challenging the views regarding Indigenous
people in general and Indigenous women in particular, but it also has created a space where Kiara has
repositioned herself as an Indigenous woman vis-à-vis English, French and other European language
teachers. At the FL-UABJO, Kiara’s indigeneity has been questioned because she does not often wear
traditional clothing. In the last seven years, she has learned to endure the coloniality of being which
positions Indigenous people only in certain ways:
I don’t care if they ask me: “Are you really from the Isthmus?” based on how I look like. Now I am convinced that
I don’t have to wear a huipil (traditional dress) every single day. I don’t have to wear traditional clothing from the
Isthmus to be accepted as a Zapotec teacher.

Similar to Kiara’s experiences, other Indigenous peoples have also dealt with this issue. Smith (2012)
states: “Questions of who is a ‘real Indigenous’ [is] usually the topic of conversation and political
debate” (p. 76). She further argues, “At the heart of such view of authenticity is a belief that Indigenous
cultures cannot change, cannot recreate themselves and still claim to be Indigenous. . . . Only the West
has that privilege” (p. 77).
Indigenous people and women often occupy subordinate places in everyday and formal spaces. In this
case, Kiara as an Indigenous woman questions the subordinate position of women, positioning herself as
a teacher and as an Indigenous person in a context where modern languages are traditionally privileged,
and women are excluded. Kiara has managed to reposition herself as a multilingual teacher and
administrator. Kiara is also an English teacher within the BA program and an administrative coordinator.
For some people I am her or his English teacher and also her or his Zapotec teacher, so there’s this different Kiara
teaching Zapoteco and there’s this different Kiara teaching English because, thinking about identity, this is
something that you modify, change constantly.

The inclusion of Diidxazá and Kiara’s defiant stance and different roles have challenged coloniality
and demonstrated that Indigenous peoples, women especially, can and should access those privileges
reserved only for the West, as argued by Smith (2012) above. Her defiant identity, along with her
reflective activism and that of Mario, Vilma and Bill, has kept the Diidxazá elective courses alive for
seven years, as we discuss next.

Reflective activism decolonizing language teaching

It is September 2014, the beginning of the semester and the introductory week for new incoming under­
graduate students. It is the class of 2014-2018, who will study under the newly-reformed BA program, which
now has a critical and intercultural approach, with the inclusion of learning a third language, besides English
and academic Spanish courses. From now on, for their third language, undergrad students will be able to select
either Italian, Japanese, French, Portuguese, or Diidxazá, this last option with Kiara as teacher. Vilma has
finished up her one-hour workshop on the “Education Strand” of our BA program. She has stressed that
a critical teacher is the one who learns from her students and embraces the diversity present in her classes in
terms of language, gender, social class and so forth. Bill and Mario take over the group to introduce the new
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 321

incoming students to the “Critical Applied Linguistics Strand.” After briefly defining (critical) applied
linguistics, they conduct an express research project with the students. “Our research project will analyze
the language preference of incoming BA students at the Faculty of Languages,” Bill tells the group of 45
students. “Imagine, I am the governor of Oaxaca, and that I am here to offer you a scholarship to study any
language you want, but you must decide in the next five seconds. Go. Write your choice.” The students quickly
jot down their choice. “Great. I am in a good mood, so I am offering a second scholarship to pick another
language. Go! Write it down.” With the help of Mario, Bill tallies and analyzes students’ language choices,
which include mostly European languages as their first and second choice, with nobody mentioning neither
African, Middle Eastern languages, nor Indigenous languages. Mario and Bill perform an unproblematized
applied linguistics analysis of their choices followed by a critical applied linguistics analysis, making connec­
tions with the colonial history of Mexico. This activity helps students realize that language teaching and
learning in Mexico and their “personal” language choices are embedded within coloniality. In the last activity
of the workshop, Mario and Bill conduct a quick survey of the class and the students’ connection to
Indigenous languages (speaking, understanding, or having a parent or a family member who speaks one of
these languages) and the students surprisingly see that at least fifty percent of the group has connections to
Indigenous languages and cultures. “At the end of this week, you will have the power to choose an additional
language. Please, think about it and see if you want to do it from a Eurocentric or a decolonizing, critical
applied linguistic perspective,” Mario tells the students. “Welcome to the Faculty of Languages,” Mario and Bill
say as they finish their workshop.

The inclusion of Diidxazá as part of the BA program was “big,” but maintaining it has required our and
many other peoples’ constant reflective activism or praxis in Freire’s terms (Freire, 1970). Albeit
momentarily, each year Vilma, Mario and Bill engage incoming students in a critical reflection about
Oaxaca’s linguistic diversity and the colonial discourses surrounding this diversity. They also challenge
the discourses involving European languages, following Pennycook’s (2006) argument for the need of
“opposing language ideologies that construct English [and other European languages] in particular ways”
(p. 112) if we are concerned about the relation between European languages and lesser-used languages
like Diidxazá. This is particularly important since Kiara’s job as Diidxazá teacher depends on the number
of students who elect this language. Unfortunately perhaps, the neoliberal perspective that the value of
a course relies on its capacity of sizeable student enrollment has applied to Diidxazá. The very first time
Diidxazá was officially offered, only three students chose it. We quickly learned that Vilma, Mario and
Bill’s introductory workshops played an important role, but that we needed to do more.
In the following years, along with other European languages offered as electives, Kiara has given a one-
hour demo class to the new students. In this class, Kiara starts by writing on the board a name for
a woman typically used in Oaxaca, “Nayeli,” and the students look at the board to read, some aloud,
realizing that they all know someone by that name. Kiara then tells the students that “Nadxieelii” is
a phrase in Zapotec that means “I love you.” This proves to them they all know words in Diidxazá, which
are inadvertently used in the Spanish language. She also provides examples of words in Spanish that have
been “Zapotequicized” or modified to be part of the Zapotec language (e.g, “lune” in Zapotec from
“lunes” in Spanish—Monday in English) (De Korne et al., 2018). As part of this demo class, she has also
invited her already-enrolled Diidxazá students to share their experiences learning Diidxazá, to comment
about the unique opportunity to learn this language, which is not offered anywhere else, and to talk about
how they have connected with their Indigenous roots, as many of them have relatives who speak
Indigenous languages or who know Indigenous speakers. For many students, then, the demo course is
epiphanic, reminding them of Oaxaca’s rich Indigenous heritage. Beyond the demo course, throughout
these years, Kiara has been part of the language fairs and all the activities organized by the FL-UABJO,
such as Christmas festivals, for which she has adapted multiple Christmas carols in Diidxazá “in order to
prove to the students that anything can be done in my language,” as put by Kiara. All these activities,
beyond the actual highly interactive and engaging Diidxazá classes, have paid off, as the number of
students choosing Diidxazá as their third language has been around 20 to 25 for the last six years.
Our reflective activism in favor of Diidxazá has tried to move away from the neoliberal discourses
surrounding language teaching and learning, which have favored European languages. In Kiara’s
demo class and ongoing Diidxazá classes, when she has students write questions about learning
Diidxazá, some of the questions have been: “Why do I need to learn Zapoteco? How much money
322 LÓPEZ-GOPAR ET AL.

am I going to earn? Is there a place where I can work with this language?” Rather than trying to
convince students that Diidxazá will translate into money or “better” jobs, we have problematized with
the students the delusionary promise of the English language (Pennycook, 2006), as English does not
necessarily mean more money or better jobs in Oaxaca and local language teachers are in fact exploited
(López-Gopar & Sughrua, 2014). Our reflective activism has then focused on the argument that
European languages have obscured the existing knowledges in our Indigenous communities and
that Eurocentric knowledge is not neutral. As put by Battiste et al. (2002) working with First Nation
peoples in Canada, “The broad and entrenched assumptions of most postsecondary curricula is that
Eurocentric knowledge represents the neutral and necessary story for all of us” (p. 83). We have also
put forth to our students that we share the same feeling as expressed by Australian colleagues: “It is
a national embarrassment that it is so difficult for Australian students to study any Australian
Indigenous language at tertiary level” (Simpson, 2014, p. 54). Most importantly, we have argued
that the teaching and learning of Diidxazá is an action that decolonizes language teaching, by
questioning why certain languages, along with their speakers, are considered better than others if
unique and important knowledge is produced in all of them (López-Gopar, 2016). Lastly, we have
constantly argued that the inclusion of Diidxazá in our BA program should be our contribution to the
plurilingual and pluriethnic society that Mexico has been for centuries, but that has been negated by
the narrative of modernity/coloniality.

Conclusions
In this paper, we have shown how the inclusion of Diidxazá in our BA program opened up a space
where Kiara has experienced and resisted the modernity/coloniality discourses (coloniality of being).
In the last seven years, she has been able to reposition herself, Isthmus women and other Indigenous
women as people who create knowledge on a daily basis in their geopolitical contexts, and as people
who can teach others. Furthermore, through our vignettes and analyses, we have demonstrated how
Kiara’s, Mario’s, Vilma’s and Bill’s reflective activism has been essential for the maintenance of
Diidxazá as an additional language in our BA program. We can proudly say that our participation
in this research project has not been “extractive” in the sense of getting data and abandoning this
Diidxazá teaching-initiative at our university. To the contrary, as researchers, we have a “non-
extractive” positionality (Kouritzin & Nakagawa, 2018) because we continue to be involved in this
project, along with our colleague and Diidxazá teacher, Kiara.
We cannot emphasize enough how our reflective activism has to be constant and cannot stop.
Rather than concluding that the inclusion and maintenance of Diidxazá has been a successful
decolonizing language teaching/learning effort in our BA program, we want to point out that our
struggle has not ended. Because of the COVID pandemic, our campus has been closed for a year now.
Some of the activities that we have conducted in favor of the maintenance and promotion of Diidxazá
has either stopped or moved to online platforms, which has diminished the impact of those activities.
For the first time in the last six years, the number of incoming graduate students choosing Diidxazá as
their third language dropped down to five students. This reality is a wake-up call and a reminder that
decolonizing language teaching is a never-ending struggle. Indigenous, minoritized or lesser-used
languages do not have the luxury that other European languages have amassed for the last 500 years.
Nevertheless, inspired by cabronas, Indigenous women, we will continue creating knowledge and
repositioning ourselves as people who teach and who can learn from others as well. We will continue
telling our own stories back, hoping others will be willing to listen.

Note
1. Diidxazá is commonly referred to as Zapoteco del Istmo (Isthmus Zapotec) in Oaxaca; hence, Diidxazá and
Zapoteco is used interchangeably in this paper.
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 323

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

About the authors

Mario López-Gopar (PhD, OISE/University of Toronto) is professor in the Faculty of Languages of Universidad
Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO), Mexico. Mario’s main research interest is intercultural and multilingual
education of Indigenous peoples in Mexico. His latest books are Decolonizing Primary English Language Teaching
(Multilingual Matters, 2016) and International Perspectives on Critical Pedagogies in ELT (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).
Vilma Huerta Cordova (PhD, Critical Language Studies, UABJO), is professor in the Faculty of Languages of
Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO), Mexico. Her research focuses on collaborative learning,
peer tutoring, and interpersonal relationships in the classroom to promote equity in education. She has published in
national and international journals on collaborative learning and peer tutoring.
Kiara Ríos Ríos (MA, Critical Language Education) is a language teacher at the Faculty of Languages of Universidad
Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO). She currently teaches English and Zapoteco del Istmo, an Indigenous
language from Oaxaca, Mexico. She is interested in Zapoteco del Istmo language pedagogy and curriculum development,
and on these topics, she has contributed chapters to local books and has published articles in the Journal of Multilingual
and Multicultural Development and other local journals.
William M. Sughrua (PhD, Canterbury Christ Church University at the University of Kent) is professor in the Faculty of
Languages of Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO), Mexico. His research interests involve critical
pedagogy, qualitative research, epistemology, and autoethnography. His numerous publications include the book
Heightened Performative Autoethnography: Resisting Oppressive Spaces within Paradigms (Peter Lang, 2016).

ORCID
Mario E. López-Gopar http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5121-3901

References
Anderson, G. L. (1989). Critical ethnography in education: Origins, current status, and new directions. Review of
Educational Research, 59(3), 249–270. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543059003249
Battiste, M., Bell, L., & Findlay, L. M. (2002). Decolonizing education in Canadian universities: An interdisciplinary,
international, Indigenous research project. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 26(2), 82–95.
Carr, W., & Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming critical: Education knowledge and action research. Falmer Press.
Corona Berkin, S., & Kaltmeier, O. (2012). Introducción [Introduction]. In S. Corona Berkin & O. Kaltmeier (Eds.), En
diálogo: Metodologías horizontales en ciencias sociales [In dialogue: Horizontal methodologies in social sciences] (pp.
11–21). Gedisa.
Dalton, M. (2010). Mujeres: Género e identidad en el Istmo de Tehuantepec [Women: Gender and identity in the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec]. CIESAS.
De Korne, H. (2016). Imagining convivial multilingualism: Practices, ideologies, and strategies in Diidxazá/Isthmus
Zapotec Indigenous language education [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Pennsylvania.
De Korne, H., López-Gopar, M. E., & Rios Rios, K. (2018). Changing ideological and implementational spaces for
minoritised languages in higher education: Zapotequización of language education in Mexico. Journal of Multilingual
and Multicultural Development, 40(6), 504–517. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2018.1531876
Figueroa Saavedra, M., Alarcón Fuentes, D., Bernal Lorenzo, D., & Hernández Martínez, J. A. (2014). La incorporación de
las lenguas indígenas nacionales al desarrollo académico universitario: La experiencia de la Universidad Veracruzana
[The incorporation from National Indigenous Languages to University Academic Development: The Experience of the
University Veracruzana]. Revista de la educación superior, 43(171), 67–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resu.2015.03.002
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.
Galeano, E. (1971). Las venas abiertas de América Latina [The open veins of Latin America]. Siglo XXI Editores.
Giacon, J., & Simpson, J. (2012). Teaching Indigenous languages at universities. In J. Hajek, C. Nettelbeck, & A. Woods
(Eds.), The next step: Introducing the languages and cultures network for Australian universities (pp. 61–73).
Languages and Cultures Network for Australian Universities.
Heldbjerg, G., & Liempd, D. (2018). Vignettes in critical theory investigations. In P. Vagn Freytag & L. Young (Eds.),
Collaborative research design: Working with business for meaningful findings (pp. 313–340). Springer Nature.
324 LÓPEZ-GOPAR ET AL.

Henne-Ochoa, R., Elliot-Groves, E., Meek, B., & Rogoff, B. (2020). Pathways forward for Indigenous language reclama­
tion: Engaging Indigenous epistemology and learning by observing and pitching in to family and community
endeavors. Modern Language Journal, 104(2), 481–493. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12652
Higgins, M., & Coen, T. (2000). Streets, bedrooms and patios: The ordinariness of diversity in urban Oaxaca. University of
Texas Press.
INALI. (2020). Catálogo de las lenguas indígenas nacionales: Variantes lingüísticas de México con sus autodenominaciones
y referencias geoestadísticas [Catalog of national Indigenous languages: Linguistic variants of Mexico with their self-
denominations and geostatistical references]. https://www.inali.gob.mx/clin-inali/html/v_zapoteco.html#62
INEGI. (2020). Banco de Indicadores: Hablantes de lenguas indígenas en México [Bank of Indicators: Speakers of
Indigenous languages in Mexico]. https://www.inegi.org.mx/app/indicadores/?t=132à20#divFV1005000039
Kemmis, S. A. (1993). Action research and social movement: A challenge for policy research. Education Policy Analysis
Archives, 1(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v1n1.1993
Kouritzin, S., & Nakagawa, S. (2018). Toward a non-extractive research ethics for transcultural, translingual research:
Perspectives from the coloniser and the colonised. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 39(8),
675–687. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2018.1427755
Limerick, N. (2019). Three multilingual dynamics of Indigenous language use that challenge standardized linguistic
assessment. Language Assessment Quarterly, 16(4–5), 379–392. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2019.1674313
López-Gopar, M. (2016). Decolonizing primary English language teaching. Multilingual Matters.
López-Gopar, M. E., & Sughrua, W. (2014). Social class in English language education in Oaxaca, Mexico. Journal of
Language, Identity and Education, 13(2), 104–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2014.901822
Lugones, M. (2007). Heterosexualism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1), 186–219. https://doi.org/
10.1111/j.1527-2001.2007.tb01156.x
Maldonado Alvarado, B. (2002). Los indios en las aulas: Dinámicas de dominación y resistencia en Oaxaca [Indians in the
Classrooms: Dynamics of Domination and Resistance in Oaxaca]. INAH.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/
09502380601162548
Mignolo, W. (2000). Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton
University Press.
Mignolo, W. (2005). Prophets facing sideways: The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. Social
Epistemology, 19(1), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691720500084325
Mignolo, W. (2009). La colonialidad: La cara oculta de la modernidad [Coloniality: The Hidden Face of Modernity]. In
S. Breitwissser (Ed.), Catalog of museum exhibit: Modernologies, Museo de Arte Moderno de Barcelona (pp. 39–49). MACBA.
Motha, S., & Lin, A. (2014). Non-coercive rearrangements: Theorizing desire in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 48(2),
331–359. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.126
Motta, S. C. (2014). Latin America: Reinventing revolutions, an “Other” politics in practice and theory. In R. Stahler-
Sholk, H. E. Vanden, & M. Becker (Eds.), Rethinking Latin American social movements: Radical action from below (pp.
21–44). Rowman & Littlefield.
Noorashid, N., & McLellan, J. (2018). Teaching and learning an ethnic minority language at university level: The case of
Dusun in Brunei. Journal of Language Studies, 18(1), 217–233.
Pennycook, A. (2006). The myth of English as an international language. In S. Makoni & A. Pennycook (Eds.),
Disinventing and reconstituting languages (pp. 90–115). Multilingual Matters.
Quijano, A. (2007). Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 168–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/
09502380601164353
Quijano, A., & Wallerstein, I. (1992). Americanity as a concept, or the Americas in the modern world-system.
International Social Sciences Journal, 134, 549–557. https://www.javeriana.edu.co/blogs/syie/files/Quijano-and-
Wallerstein-Americanity-as-a-Concept.pdf
Rohrer, S. (2009). Stereotyping in the films of La India María. Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies, 3(3), 54–68.
https://doi.org/10.18085/llas.3.3.u013g71801116802
Sayer, P. (2015). “More & Earlier”: Neoliberalism and primary English education in Mexican public schools. L2 Journal,
7(3), 40–56. https://doi.org/10.5070/L27323602
Sima, E., Galván, T., Tinajero, G., & Wall, C. (2019). La Enseñanza del Mixteco en la Facultad de Idiomas de la
Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada [The Teaching of Mixtec in the School of Languages of the
Autonomous University of Baja California, Ensenada]. Punta Cunarte, 5(9), 127–148. http://revistas.cunorte.udg.mx/
punto/article/view/73/153
Simpson, J. (2014). Teaching minority Indigenous languages at universities. In P. Heinrich & N. Ostler (Eds.),
Indigenous languages: Their value to the community: FEL XVIII Okinawa (Proceedings of the FEL Conference) (pp.
54–58). Foundation for Endangered Languages.
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). Zed Books Ltd.
Stephen, L. (2005). Zapotec women: Gender, class and ethnicity in globalized Oaxaca (2nd ed.). Duke University Press.
Talmy, S. (2010). Qualitative interviews in applied linguistics: From research instrument to social practice. Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics, 30, 128–148. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190510000085