Description

A warm, witty, passionate cry for living, vital, indigenous languages and the people who speak them.

Despite the more than 200 Indigenous languages spoken in Mexico, including 63 that are officially recognized and celebrated by the Mexican government, linguistic diversity is and has been under attack in a larger culture that says bilingual is good when it means Spanish and English, but bad when it means Nahuatl and Spanish. Yasnaya Aguilar, a linguist and native Mixe speaker, asks what is lost, for everyone, when the contradictions inherent in Mexico’s relationship with its many Indigenous languages mean official protection and actual contempt at worst, and ignorance at best. What does it mean to have a prize for Indigenous literature when different Indigenous languages are as far from each other as they are from Japanese? What impact does considering Tzotzil “cultural heritage” have on our idea of it, when it is still being used, and refreshed, and changed (like every other language) today? How does the idea of Indigeneity stand up, when you consider Indigenous peoples outside of the frame of colonialism?Personal, anecdotal, and full of vivid examples, Aguilar does more than advocate for the importance of resistance by native peoples: she offers everyone the opportunity to value and enjoy a world in which culture, language, and community is delighted in, not flattened. “We have sacrificed Mexico in favor of creating the idea of Mexico” she says. This Mouth Is Mine is an invitation to take it back.

Publisher Review

“This Mouth is Mine is an important reminder that the linguistic is political and that linguistic discrimination tends to intersect with racism. [The essays show that] indigenous languages are modern languages too, as suitable for writing rock lyrics, tweeting jokes, or explaining quantum physics as Spanish and English.” -The Times Literary Supplement

“With a remarkable sense of humor, Yasnaya takes us into the realm of our prejudices […] she questions us directly and wants us to respond, dialogues with us and invites us to investigate, to learn and to enjoy the diversity of the culture with which we coexist, in addition to igniting curiosity about our own languages.” -Revista de la Universidad de Mexico

“The narrative of the essays that make up this book is a defence of Mexico’s native languages and the indigenous peoples who speak them. It is also a genuine invitation for these languages to be incorporated into the socio-political horizon of the native speakers of Spanish in Mexico.” -Nexos

“Thanks to the accessible and unpretentious language used by the author, this book is an undemanding and even fun read without losing the rigour and seriousness that such an important subject deserves (…). It is difficult to find a book to compare with This Mouth is Mine, since the struggle of Indigenous peoples to bring their own perspectives to the table has been hard and many obstacles are still placed in their way of achieving autonomy. (…) Still, the fact that the foundations are only just being laid to amplify historically marginalised voices in the academy makes this work all the greater an achievement for those whose viewpoints have been ignored because they have been expressed in languages other than Spanish. (…) The publication of This Mouth is Mine is not only a tool for questioning the role that the state has played in the elimination of the native cultures of the national territory, but also constitutes significant progress toward the creation of a socio-cultural policy focused on linguistic diversity.” -“Idiomatica, revista universitaria de lenguas”

“This volume is a collection of denunciations against linguistic discrimination, contempt for speakers of languages other than Spanish, the constant violation of their linguistic rights, and the lack of access to self-determination over their territories. This is evidence that, although it proclaims otherwise, the Mexican state has failed to build a true intercultural relationship. (…) This is a dialogical text that weaves an individual voice with that of the community to reflect on the struggle for linguistic diversity and vitality, in a context of systematic violence against peoples and communities who defend their language and territory.” -CONAHCYT

“Her heart is in Ayutla, she confesses, not in social networks. Yasnaya Aguilar prefers the practical defence of water, land and territory. In speaking and writing in Ayuujk, she maintains her relation to her community and the ground she walks on, everything that most concerns her. “That’s where I get passionate, that’s where I get angry: that’s what really keeps me awake.”” -Cultura alterna

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Praise for Yasnaya Aguilar
‘Aguilar has won widespread recognition as a global thought leader for her pertinent reflections and novel analyses of language, as well as for her approachable prose, her affable manner and her references to everyday life.’ Elvira Megias, El Salto Diario ‘In a world without nation-states, Aguilar Gil deduces, she would cease to be considered “indigenous” and would simply be Mixe, and the same would happen with the Ainu, the Sami, the Mapuche, the Raramuri or the Wixaritari. The great challenge is to imagine how such a world could work (…). What she imagines “is a diversity of political systems; a confederation or free alliances of much smaller, self-governing units that do not depend on that infamous monopoly of the legitimate use of violence by the state”.’ Eugenia Coppel, Magis ‘In the writer’s view, it is no coincidence that indigenous women are leading the struggles for the defence of territories: they are united and identified by a situation of oppression that has its origins in the colonial system (…). In the face of the major territorial problems, which are expressed globally in the climate emergency, Yasnaya Aguilar proposes a revaluation of feminine and collectivist logics. In the first place, this implies returning to the notion of care as a central element that should govern all social relations. (…) And this also implies questioning the notion of power. (…) For this reason, Aguilar proposes disarticulating central power by recovering the notion of the micro.’ Avina Foundation, InnContext