March 3rd, 2022 (3:00-4:30pm Boston / 21:00-22:30 Madrid)
Online via Zoom | RSVP: https://bit.ly/RSVP-Observatorio or info-observatory@fas.harvard.edu
Quechua, the most widely spoken Indigenous language family of the Americas with millions of speakers in the Andes, is considered endangered by UNESCO. Additionally, due to violence and economic hardship in their home countries, Andean migrants have fled their indigenous communities, flocking to different regions in the Global North, including the United States. Quechua language revitalization and reclamation initiatives have emerged within these diasporic communities in this country to further promote the language and to foster community empowerment, particularly among Latinx youth. This presentation will explore how these different projects and communities in the U.S. contribute to the global advancement and relevance of this indigenous language.
With a Ph.D. from the University of Miami, Florida, and a B.A. from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru, Américo Mendoza-Mori is an interdisciplinary scholar trained in literary, linguistic, and cultural studies. He previously worked at the University of Pennsylvania, where he founded their Quechua language program, and at Harvard University he currently teaches courses on Latinx and Indigenous Studies. Co-founder of the Quechua Alliance and of the international conference Thinking Andean Studies, his work has been presented before the United Nations and has appeared in a variety of academic journals as well as in The New York Times, a TEDx talk, and NPR.