The Native Literacy Center in Oaxaca (pronounced "wa hak' a"), Mexico, was established to help preserve the many indigenous languages and cultures that have been rapidly vanishing in Central and South America. Founded by a group of professionals and native educators from Oaxaca, the Native Literacy Center has developed into a center that supports native people who are interested increasing their literacy skills and in saving their languages and cultures from extinction.

Language and Cultural Preservation

The Center allows indigenous peoples the opportunity to create a literature of their own. People come from Central and South America to this Center where they learn to read and write their own languages, print and publish their own works in their own languages on topics of their choice, write their own histories, and record their knowledge for future generations. Through this effort, they save their languages from extinction and help stem the erosion of cultural diversity.

But the Center is more than just a place where Indians from Mexico and elsewhere come to write books in their own languages. It is the proliferation of written documentation that results from the focus of the Center's efforts to promote native languages. Indigenous peoples are trained to use computers and related technology to write and print books in their native languages. They then learn how to train others to do the same. As a result, they are helping their people develop the literacy skills necessary for participation in the modern economic and political systems of the world.

History of the Oaxaca Native Literacy Project

The idea for the Center began in 1971 through an association of two individuals: Dr. Russell Bernard from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida and Jesus Salinas Pedraza, a native of Orizabita in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico. Salinas was one of only 300,000 people who spoke Mezquital Nahnu and was interested in writing about the culture of his own people. Dr. Bernard's interests were in writing an ethnography of the Nahnu culture.

Together, they began working to preserve the Nahnu culture. Without a Nahnu written language, the only method available to produce written works was a painstaking one. Salinas translated his thoughts from Nahnu to Spanish word for word. Then Bernard translated this text to English. It was not only a time-consuming and tedious process but much of the richness of the culture was lost in the translation. Yet, in spite of these hardships, Salinas produced a book of folk tales and jokes in 1976 and in 1978 a second book about the environment of the Nahnu, their customs, festivals, and other ethnographic themes.

In 1983, under the direction of Dr. Bernard, researchers from the University of Florida converted computer keyboards so Salinas' works could flow directly from his head through the keyboard and into the computer, without the necessity of cumbersome translation. As a result, in 1989 the first chapters of what may be the first written version of Nahnu history were produced.

CELIAC

In 1993, five Indians at the Native Literacy Center established CELIAC (Centro Editorial de Literatura Indigena, Asociacion Civil, or the Publishing Center for Indigenous Literature, Civil Association)). It was established as an independent not-for-profit organization so that it could compete for publishing contracts and for grants. CELIAC is dedicated to publishing books in indigenous languages and to training native peoples throughout Latin America in the use of computers in order to save native languages. As of 1997, 121 people have been through the CELIAC program and 10 books are now available or in press.

Currently, CELIAC is run by Salinas and Josefa Gonzalez, a Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca. One of their goals is for CELIAC to become self-sufficient. Their plan is to support their efforts through revenues from the sale of books and from training programs. Profits will pay authors for their efforts, support the administrative expenses of a publishing house, and subsidize production and distribution of editions of books.

This project was chosen for inclusion in the International Literacy Explorer because its methodology of linking language preservation and literacy may lend itself to replication in other countries.

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