The diversity of Mexican Indigenous Linguistic cultures is a source of national pride. Today's speakers of the Tutunak, or Totonac, languages are the inheritors of a tradition going back to the rise of the great city states of early Mesoamerica, whose art and monuments are widely celebrated. Yet Mexico's identity remains deeply embedded in the Spanish language, and public services such as education, healthcare and policing are highly revealing of this, often minoritising MIL-speakers even in central Mexican states where they are in the majority. Lucia Brandi works with today's Totonac speakers to deconstruct these effects, and to articulate the power of young people to situate their language in broader discourses of social justice and community wellbeing.
Lucia Brandi is Research Associate in the Department of Histories, Languages and Cultures of the University of Liverpool, and is editor of the Totonac/Spanish/English talking storybook Tsikan chu Nipxi' (Mantra Lingua, 2013). She is an academic consultant to the Totonac publishing project, Xtachuwin Kinkachikinkan Xa Akgtutu Nak.