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In Bolivia, Speaking Up For Native Languages
Students at La Paz's National School of Health study Aymara, a Bolivian tongue, in a program President Evo Morales wants in all public schools and government offices.
(By Evan Abramson For The Washington Post)
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Also last week, Morales fired several members of his cabinet, including Patzi, associated with the controversy over the government's agenda.
Meanwhile, the president's approval rating has slid from nearly 80 percent shortly after he was inaugurated a year ago to about 59 percent, according to a poll in La Razon, a La Paz newspaper. In the past month, street protests have raged and demands for autonomy in various districts have grown louder as a constituent assembly, elected to rewrite the constitution, remains deadlocked.
"The initial crack in his popularity" was "all about the education proposals," said Jim Shultz, a political analyst in Cochabamba, referring to Morales. "They resonated with this symbolic fear that non-indigenous people have in this country, which questions whether Evo really understands their needs and perspectives."
Though Morales's tone might be softening for the moment, he has not abandoned indigenous-friendly reforms. Universities report that enrollment in indigenous language programs is up since he took power, and the Education Ministry continues to open new centers where the languages are taught.
Last year, a student at San Pablo Catholic University in Bolivia wrote his graduate thesis in Aymara -- a first for the country. His professors conducted their oral questioning of the thesis in Aymara during a public ceremony on the shores of Lake Titicaca.
Education officials say the reemergence of Bolivia's indigenous languages is part of a regional trend. Interest in indigenous communities and traditions has grown in the past 20 years throughout South America.
"In the 1980s, people here didn't want to speak Quechua or Aymara," said Adrián Montalvo, who helps set education policy for native language programs. "Those languages were limited only to the community and family spheres, and it was considered shameful to speak them elsewhere. But now people speak them much more freely."
Donato Gómez Bacarreza, an expert in Andean languages and head of the language program at La Paz's San Andrés University, said his instructors have recently begun giving classes, at the government's request, to members of the national Congress. He also said people in the business community, including local bankers and Japanese auto executives, have signed up for Aymara and Quechua classes to better connect to Bolivia's native people. He and other linguists have been struggling for decades to resuscitate the languages, and he said he now sees a clear payoff.
"What we are fighting for is our cultural identity," he said.
