Summer Intensive Mixtec Language Classes
When: June 18 - July 26, 2007
Where: Oaxaca City, Oaxaca Mexico
Mixtec is an indigenous language of Mexico spoken by people living in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla, many of whom have migrated and established communities throughout northern Mexico and the United States. This intensive program is taught by native Mixtec speakers and linguists, Juan Julian Caballero of the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) and Marcos Cruz Bautista from Mexico's Universidad Pedagógica Nacional from the campus at Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca (UPN). Both Profesores Caballero and Bautista received training in ethnolinguistics and second language acquisition pedagogy from Mexico's Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN) and CIESAS. The course includes four hours of classroom instruction, four days per week, and a minimum of two weekend field trips into the Mixteca. Local and visiting scholars whose research focuses on Mixtec culture and history conduct seminars each week. Additional fieldtrips to market centers, archaeological sites, elementary and secondary schools, and other such locations where the language and culture can be experienced within the broader Oaxacan environment are also worked into the weekly schedule. Dr. Ramona Pérez, a Oaxacan scholar from the Department of Anthropology at SDSU coordinates the program in San Diego and Oaxaca.
One of the critical issues of Mixtec is the extreme variation that occurs within the language family. The Summer Intensive Language Program is focused on acquiring sufficient linguistic skills to communicate within the dialect taught in the classroom as well as establishing a foundation for understanding dialectic differences that one will encounter as they move among Mixtec speakers. The program is also designed to provide students with a deeper understanding of the interface between Mixtec culture and the broader mestizo culture of Oaxaca, grassroots movements to preserve Mixtec culture both within Oaxaca and among Mixtec communities in the US, and other such topics that will provide a foundation for understanding Mixtec language and culture.
These courses are open to undergraduates, graduates, professors and independent scholars.
The program is five hours per day, four days per week of intense classroom instruction over a six week period (120 hours). We have two weekends in the Mixteca planned in the communities of San Juan Mixtepec and San Francisco Nieves. In both communities the students will be working in pairs or threes to administer a public health survey on quality of life issues in the Mixtec language - under the supervision of their professors. This is an opportunity to work on their language use while also learning how to administer survey data. We have on-going relationships in both communities and so they are accustomed to working with our students in practicing their Mixtec language skills. We are also fortunate this year to have a special invitation to a regional meeting in Tlacatlaya of Mixtec alcaldes to discuss language and cultural preservation, all of which will be conducted in Mixteco as well as another invitation by one of our former students who is conducting her dissertation fieldwork in a Mixtec community further up in the Mixteca. Thus our students will far exceed the 140 contact hours of language instruction.
In addition to language instruction, we have weekly Oaxacan scholars who specialize in issues of the Mixteca present their work in two hour workshops. Although most of these lectures are conducted in Spanish they focus on the Mixtec both in Oaxaca and in the United States. We are confident that our program more than exceeds the requirements of the FLAS and find that most of our students walk away from the program with not only language skills but a deep and profound understanding of the Mixtec culture.
In addition to the normal program students who have participated in the Mixteco program in the past will be able to start ten days earlier so that they may gain additional experience working in the mixteco communities. These students can earn one additional credit.
This program meets the US Department of Education guidelines for Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) summer intensive language fellowships. Applications for this program may be obtained through the Center for Latin American Studies, San Diego State University. Please phone, email, or write to request application materials. This program is limited to 25 students. Early applications will be given priority.
