AWASQA

  • What Kind of Binnizá Woman Am I? A Look at Questioning Our Identity

    As indigenous women, talking about our identity has become essential to name ourselves through our feelings and concerns. Seemingly, the question of an indigenous woman’s identity is one that has already been resolved and accepted, even in our territories, but to claim that our past identity is the same as our present one, would be…

  • Meet the First Generation of Awasqa Youth Scholars

    It is with great joy that we want to introduce the first eight young Awasqa Youth Scholarship recipients! The main objective of the Awasqa Youth Scholarship is to create networks across Latin America and to give visibility to the work of Black and indigenous youth who are leading in the fields of community journalism, communication…

  • To Migrate Is To Resist Colonialism

    Source: Originally Published by Revista Amazonas Translated by Awasqa Interview with Amarela Varela Huerta and Soledad Álvarez Velasco This text stems from an interview with Soledad Alvarez Velasco (Ecuadorian) and Amarela Varela Huerta (Mexican) Their words show a common sisterly fabric, an intellectual, feminist, transnational friendship and, above all, their activism for a dignified and…

  • IIK'NAJ foto: Haizel De la Cruz

    The Subtle Etymology of the Mayan Language

    The first rain of the season has just fallen in the community. Five days had passed since they had finished doing the meeyjul Yuum iik‘[1] known as Ch’a’acháak.[2] The farmers could not help but smile as they looked at each other. The women looked as though they were watching someone in their kitchen revealing a…

  • Estudiantes de secundaria coimunitaria. Foto: Eva López Chávez

    Oaxaca Indigenous Public Schools: Lessons Learned on Community Education

    FROM THE EDITORS: This relevant article is part of the Tzam Trece Semillas Zapatistas project, a plural, multicultural space that proposes a dialogue (tzam means dialogue in Ayapaneco) between communities, ideas, projects, dreams of the original Mexican peoples. The project’s goal is to publish the work of 130 collaborators in thirteen months, from May 2021 to May…

  • Bolivia: The March for the Earth, the territory and for identity, returns home

    FROM THE EDITORS: After close to 100 days of resistance in Bolivia’s lowlands, indigenous representatives of the newly created Parlamento de la Naciones Indígenas de la Amazonía, Oriente y Chaco bolivianos (PNIAOC) decided to return home without the hoped dialogue with Luis Arce’s government, which instead organized parallel events to undermine this indigenous movement. The…

  • National Day of Mourning Breaks with the Thanksgiving Myth: A Radio Report

    FROM THE EDITORS: National Day of Mourning has taken place in Plymouth, Massachusetts, since 1970, organized by the United American Indians of New England in more recent years. The event breaks with the myth of Thanksgiving Day between pilgrims and Indians taught in schools to show a much uglier truth: as a reminder of the…

  • What is Maya, What Is To Be Maya?

    The word Maya is like the seed of maize falling on fertile soil or some stony place, full of thorns, where some hungry birds lurk, desperately looking for a light breakfast in the morning. The seed that falls on fertile soil is what some call pre-Hispanic, Mayanists classify it as a so-called preclassic, classical, or…