Discrimination, geographical dispersion of their settlements, emigration from their communities and lack of public policies focused on addressing the issue have led to fewer and fewer speakers of the languages of the Yuman peoples of Baja California, with a serious risk of extinction in the near future.
The National Institute of Indigenous Peoples has warned that the Cucapá, Kumiai, Pa ipai, Kiliwa and Cochimí languages are at risk due to the adverse conditions in which their relations with non-indigenous society have occurred, the predominance of adult speakers and the “tendency to abandon their own mechanisms for their transmission to new generations.”
These communities are aware of the problem and have begun to look for different options to preserve their language, because if it dies, part of their history and culture would go with it.
Native peoples
“Pemeyin Jaay, nap Beatriz Haros Farlow,” is how Beatriz, a 56-year-old Kiliwa indigenous woman, introduces herself. She is a resident of Ensenada and speaks the language of her community, but not fluently.
She barely knows a few phrases because her mother, Leonor Farlow, did not want to teach her.
“We were not raised in the mountains, we came to Ensenada and we did not know the language, we spoke in Spanish. When we were older we found out that she spoke that language. We asked her why she never taught us and she told us it was because she was bullied since she was little and she did not want us to go through that too,” she said.
With her 85-year-old mother as one of the three native Kiliwa speakers in her community, Beatriz hopes that the legacy of her ancestors will not die, but she finds that the new generations have little interest in learning and do not see the use in their daily lives.
“We have learned a few words and up to that point, we don’t know much. My mother was giving classes in Kiliwa, although there was no great result because the kids don’t pay attention, they mostly teased him and now that there are some interested people, my mother is tired and can’t stop doing her things,” she said.
A report from the State Secretariat for Social Inclusion and Gender Equality revealed that in Baja California there are only 58 people who speak Kiliwa and it is the most endangered Yuman language today.
The same state agency specified that in Baja California there are 488 speakers of Kumiai, 226 of Pa ipai and 124 of Cucapá. In the case of Cochimí, they did not identify speakers.
Jorge Sánchez Navarro, advisor to the indigenous peoples of Baja California and documentary filmmaker on the history of these ethnic groups, clarifies that if we only consider native speakers and those who can establish a fluent conversation, in the entire state there are only 45 people from the five indigenous peoples with this ability.
Other figures include members who understand the language, can express some phrases or have the ability to write it.
“All of this leads to the loss of language because they forget it by not practicing it. We have the case of the Cochimí, who are rescuing words, because there are no longer speakers, only people who know phrases. But in this process they are incorporating phrases from the Kumiai,” he said.
The former advisor to the Commission on Indigenous Affairs of the state Congress explained that in addition to discrimination, the economic aspect has been key to the worsening risk of the extinction of these languages in recent decades.
“A people without language is a people without culture. There was a lack of interest, but the work factor, being self-sustaining, has been very difficult in recent years. This has led to migration of communities, they were left alone or the elders who knew the language were the ones who stayed to safeguard the land and many of the young people never returned,” she added.
Eco-tourism center
Norma Meza is the traditional chief of the Kumiai community in Juntas de Nejí. She learned to speak Spanish when she was 13, because in her childhood she only used Kumiai to talk to her friends and family.
The 59-year-old woman now faces a very different situation: there are few people with whom she can have a fluid conversation, not including her son, who does not speak the language.
“People my age speak it, but young people under 30 no longer speak it. I am worried about what is happening, because I will no longer have anyone to argue with (laughs). Arguing in my language is nice, because it is my own language. In Spanish there are many rude words, but it is not the same,” she commented.
There are 46 interpreters and only 10 of them are full-time professionals: Cristina Solano
During the last few years Norma has been an activist for the state’s indigenous peoples as an accredited translator and interpreter.
More than 18 years ago she also participated in a program called “Grandmas Talk,” where she taught the language to the youngest, but this government initiative was not continued by other administrations.
Javier Ceceña is also part of the Kumiai community, but in the San Antonio Necua area.
He is not fluent, but he intends to ensure that future generations do not face the problems he experienced, such as discrimination for being indigenous or having to leave their lands to seek more job and educational opportunities.
“Our language is part of our identity and we must look for ways to rescue it, that is what we are doing, because we see that in the short term it will most likely die,” he lamented.
The priority is to make San Antonio Necua a tourist center that attracts people from both sides of the border and thus the young Kumiai stay in this community of 260 inhabitants settled in Ensenada.
The other proposal to rescue their language is that the only two people who speak Kumiai fluently in San Antonio take a more active role in teaching it, particularly in elementary schools.
“I have to say it, the responsibility of keeping the language alive within a community does not depend on the government, it depends on ourselves,” he reflected.
Kumiai-center
Due to the migration of other indigenous communities to Baja California, the Yuman peoples have been surpassed in number of speakers of native languages in recent years.
The 2020 Census of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), shows that in Baja California there are 49,130 people over three years of age who speak an indigenous language: Mixtec with 21,239 is the most spoken in the entity, followed by Zapotec and Nahuatl, with 5,815 and 5,287, respectively.
The State Congress named 2024 as the year of the indigenous peoples living in Baja California: the Cucapá, Kiliwa, Paipai, Kumiai and Ipai
The professor-researcher of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef), Miguel Olmos Aguilera, explained that although the Yuman peoples have been overtaken in number by migrant indigenous communities, there is an intention to keep their traditions alive.
An example given by the anthropologist is that of the Cochimíes, whose language no one speaks anymore, but with their culture they seek to preserve its essence for the following generations.
“Now the people who claim to be indigenous are trying to rescue this language, they are learning it according to what they are finding. We believe that these groups are transforming, even if they no longer speak the language, they will continue to be Kiliwas, Pa ipai, or Kumiai,” he commented.
The researcher, attached to the Department of Cultural Studies at Colef, considered that the government should address indigenous education because bilingual education has “failed” in Baja California, by having assigned teachers who barely speak the languages of the native peoples.
Other factors to address, according to Olmos Aguilera, are job opportunities and the discrimination that indigenous communities still suffer.
“We live in an anti-indigenous system, in a racist environment of marginalization and exclusion. It is very difficult for the indigenous to feel comfortable. In Baja California there is a very big stigma, those who speak in the indigenous language are susceptible to being discriminated against and prefer not to speak it,” he concluded.
Source: oem
