AWASQA

  • Territorio. Photo: Norma Alicia Palma Aguirre

    Tzam: 13 Seeds in 13 Months to Celebrate 130 Indigenous Voices

    FROM THE EDITORS: With this article, we present a project in Mexico by Desinformémonos, Tzam:13 Zapatista Seeds, a space for dialogue (Tzam meaning dialogue in Ayapaneco) between indigenous artists, writers, poets, and community leaders. The project’s goal is to feature the work of 130 collaborators during thirteen months between May 2021 to May 2022, based…

  • Amazon’s Ancestral Medicine Against COVID-19

    In Ecuador, like many Latin American countries, due to the global inequity of access to vaccines against COVID-19, only 10% of the population has so far received both doses of the vaccine. Indigenous peoples, with minimal access to clinical care, are particularly vulnerable populations that know very well they cannot lower their guard to the…

  • Mapuche Weychafe Moira Millán Speaks Out Against Racism, Terricide

    FROM THE EDITORS: On March 14, 2021, a group of indigenous women in Patagonia left for Buenos Aires to launch a campaign to call for the typification of “terricide” as a crime against humanity. Moira Millán, Mapuche Weychafe, who organized this action, shares with us her reasons and feelings behind the need to walk close…

  • Fanesca as a Symbol of Resistance and Community Relations

    Easter week is here, and it’s that time of the year when families in Ecuador and Ecuadorian immigrants in the US, Canada, and Europe prepare fanesca, one of the most intricate dishes I’ve had the pleasure to prepare and eat. It is so complex that people often gather their extended families to help in the…

  • Fundación Colectivo Epew

    Colectivo Epew Premiered Radio Teatro Mapuche to Rescue Oral Traditions

    FROM THE EDITORS: The Epew Collective is a theater group with Mapuche and Chilean members, that works in “defense of native peoples, community art, and interculturality.” Below we reproduce an article about a new bilingual project, Radio Teatro Mapuche, which was made for children without access to internet in Mapuche territory, who have been taking…

  • Foto de portada: Tomada de educo.org – créditos Jesús G. Pastor – www.unfotografo.es

    The Challenges of Teaching Indigenous Languages to Children

    FROM THE EDITORS: The following article on indigenous language pedagogy and challenges was originally published in Entremundos, an organization in Guatemala that provides support and training workshops towards social initiatives. Their Revista sobre Derechos Humanos y Desarrollo (Human Rights and Development Magazine) is a print and online publication that provides an impressive work of community…

  • Elections Significance for Indigenous Peoples in Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, USA

    The significance of democratic elections in 2020 for indigenous peoples go beyond electoral results. Wavering between the need for sovereignty/self-determination and democratic participation, indigenous people are finding themselves in places of power denied to them historically. After hundreds of years of noncitizenry, indigenous plurinational states are now shaping democracy. Below we summarize some of the…

  • Kumeyaay People Halt Construction on Border Wall

    Members of the Kumeyaay Nation (Ipai-Tipai-Diegueño) launched a call to defend their ancestral territory. For at least 12,000 years, they have been living in a region that expands from San Diego County in Southern California, to the Tijuana-Mexicali region and La Huerta-Agua Sorceress on the Mexican side. They have been around for at least 600…