Speaker 1 0:00
Hello and good morning. I'm proven Hernandez Leon. I'm the director of the Latin American Institute at UCLA. I'm a professor of sociology as well, and we're, you know, very happy from the from the quarters of the Latin American institute to be co sponsoring this wonderful workshop. And for this segment, we have two speakers, and I will introduce, introduce them briefly. So you know you can, you can continue with the with the with the workshop. So first, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce my colleague, doctor for the Florida Dalma, both Lopez, she's an assistant professor in the Cesar Chavez department of Chicana and Chicano studies and Central American Studies. Dr Bock Lopez's work uses a transporter approach to analyze the experiences of Maya migrants as they cross settler colonial borders and encounter distinct racial logics in the United States. Research examines cultural production among the Guatemalan Maya diaspora, with a particular emphasis on intergenerational relationships gender and the production of indigenous migrant community in Los Angeles, California, and together with Dr Bob Lopez, we have UCLA barreno, who is a transnational organizer who works around ancestral knowledge of Maya and Mesoamerican communities. He is a traditional knowledge holder and focuses on working with the Mayan diet, with the Maya diaspora in and outside of Guatemala. So welcome floor, welcome Willie and thank you for being
Speaker 2 1:55
here. Thank you. Hi everybody. So we're going to go ahead and just get started with our own Introductions. I just want to share that and share a little bit about where the where this kind of conversation began when I was approached by the folks organizing this workshop about potentially doing this, I was really hesitant, because so much of my work, literally all of my work, is very contemporary. When I talk about Mayan people, I'm talking about, you know, probably 1950s to today, and at least for me, a lot of this ancestral like knowledge, knowledge of things before the colonial encounter. It's a very complex world and knowledge system, and I feel like I barely begin to scratch the surface, even when I'm in spaces with elders so and I share that hesitation with the organizers. But then I also one of the things I I really believe in, is that, like our curriculum in K through 12 schools needs to be approached in such a way where we understand that there are, like Indigenous students in our classrooms and Mayan students in the classroom too. And so one of the things that I decided to do is kind of just take a leap and see how this went. And then I also invited Willie to participate in leading this workshop. For me, I might be the one with the PhD, but Willie is my teacher. He's my elder, and so I have a lot of respect, not just for the knowledge that the ancestral knowledge he holds, but all the critical and creative thinking that he does in my perspective, fearlessly and with a lot of joy. So I acknowledge him as a teacher and invited him to participate with me, and so he'll do a lot of like the more ancestral knowledge portion of it, yeah. So that's just a little bit about myself. I'm also I am Maya quiche. I am from quezaltenango, which is why I chose that place. We're very when you're from Sheila, you're very proud to be from Sheila, right? So that's why I chose that location. I was born in Guatemala City, and came to the US when I was two. So I'm a diasporic person and immigrant myself, so I also want to share that as well, and it drives a lot of my commitment to my work. Willie, do you want to introduce yourself?
Speaker 3 4:39
Sure, yeah, thank you for this invitation. Florian, my name is Willie bar Reno and I'm going to be 50 years old this year. In two years, I will be considered by my people an elder, because when you turn 52 you become an elder. So I'm very close, but for now, I hang out with people. At the 20s youngsters, because I don't want to grow up for now, but I think it's important for me to represent my ancestry. I was born in Sheila too, you know, back in the 70s, but a big portion of my life, I was in the US in my early years, and that's how I learned English, and that's how I also contact a lot of people, a lot of Mayans, from all the parts of Mesoamerica. Because Mayans, we are in different places. And I deport myself back about 13 years ago to Guatemala, where I work with youngsters, you know, and also people who are being deported from the States, and the idea for us is to recognize our ancestry or origins. And I think it's important for me to share with you today also a little bit of the oral tradition where it come from. And because of that. I'm very, very, very happy and excited to share our thoughts in dreams with you today. Thank you.
Speaker 2 6:09
I wanted to share the inquiry question that is kind of guiding our thinking today, and this was done in collaboration with the staff and history geography project. So how is Shela a site that invites us to reimagine how we connect to a place across time? And so we kind of split the talk up into, I just noticed there's four parts, actually, the indigenous world before invasion, colonial encounters, encounters of resistance. And then we just wanted to share some closing thoughts for everybody so we can go ahead. And we also wanted to a couple of these words are going to come up throughout the presentation. So I just wanted very briefly, to have you all look at them. This is the 20 day calendar, which is a sacred calendar for Mayan people. It guides a lot of like daily thinking and action. And so these, the images in the stone actually represent these different day signs that are listed here. Here they're in kiche, but they're also they exist in the other Mayan languages as well, and so you'll hear a couple of them kind of come talking. So I just really briefly wanted to touch on that and share that resource with all of you. So go ahead, Willy,
Speaker 3 7:35
yeah, so today we are going to go into the history of the names of the towns that we, we or our parents grew up in. You know, as you see that Burke itself, we're going to also explain about who are the Maya mom into the kitchen people in we're going to go a little bit into the different names that probably are very they look very strange for, you know, in Quetzaltenango, which is the places that we, they we grew up. And also, I would like to, you know, explain about what a mum means, or what kitchen means. And it's important also for for for for the for the next generations, to understand also that the Maya, it's a name given by the European saying in among our languages, we don't call ourselves Maya. We call ourselves people. In in a little bit, through this presentation, we're going to try to explain where the names come from, and what's the cosmology, or the way we think about our people in also, we're going to be explaining a little bit about migration, yeah. So the beginning, you know, we always ask ourselves where we come from, you know, as a migration path. And this is an ancient city called takali kabab in the Pacific coast of Guatemala, where we believe that our first descendants arrive, and that's how we organize time, like Florida was mentioning about the Mayan calendar. For us, it's important to say that this is the year 5209 year since we've been counting time and since we've been growing corn, yeah, so it's important to recognize where we come from and where we start, you know, creating our own civilization. So talking about migration, we got this image from Google Earth. And you know, there's different theories about where people come from. But then, if you see that yellow line, you know, it points out the Bering Strait all the way from, from Alaska. And this is a long walk in a. Approximately about 18,000 years of walking and discovering we are migrating south. I had the opportunity to live in New Mexico for seven years. That's in having contact with Pueblo people, specifically from Cochiti. They would say, who are you? And I would say, I'm the Maya. And then this elder from Cochiti Pueblo says, Oh, you're my ancestor, but you guys were the smarter ones who kept walking south and found better weather than us. And if you see, you know the Rio Grande, where a lot of migrants are crossing today, it was an important river for ancient people to reach the Gulf of Mexico and take a left, I mean right, all the way down to Veracruz and in Tabasco, where the old mix organized about 8000 years ago. And that's how we come from. And as we go by, we're going to get closer to the map where Quetzaltenango UCLA is located today. And we also
Speaker 2 11:05
proposed this workshop as a conversation between us. So when we were talking about this, I think what I really appreciate about this perspective is it normalizes migration as an ancestral practice, right? So this process of always looking for a place where you can be, where you can exist, has been true for 1000s of years. At the same time, you know, sometimes we lump all indigenous people together, but there's really important differences. And one of the differences is that for some indigenous people, their creation stories actually talk about them originating from a particular place, and so we also want to respect that right. So we want to acknowledge that some indigenous creation stories are about migration and traveling, and, you know, creating a society and a place, but other indigenous creation stories, refute the Bering Strait theory and say like No, as people, we emerged from this place. Both are really important. Both are complex. So we want to acknowledge that,
Speaker 3 12:13
yeah, and also, it's important to to see, you know, the sun for us. You know for Mesoamericans, sun, it's important because obviously, it gives us light. It gives us, you know, the warmth, but also it gives us the seasons for the year. And out of the sun, we start counting the day 20 days in a month, they represent each one of our fingers and toes. And we will start tracking, you know, from Solstice to another Solstice, 180 days at the beginning, you know. And then we will start seeing the seasons change. And according to the seasons we were giving names, like plants, animals or events in the sky, they will give it would give order to time for us and for us until today. You know, it's important because day keepers, it's important for us to check on equinoxes and Solstice for life itself, events like the sun, you know, we'll, we will getting like, I'm saying, like Veracruz in Tabasco is the home of the oak mix. And then from there, we will start encountering showers, alligators, macaws in kits, Alberts and out of those animals in also like hurricanes and storms and thunders, we will start giving life to our mythology, or origins of of the towns. And as you see here, this is the this important yellow line is exactly also a train, if you have ever heard the beast, a train that is taking migrants all the way to the US. That's the same pattern that my ancestors used 5000 years ago to reach to the slopes, you know, where a lot of volcanoes will be found in a lot of nature, in especially rubber trees. And I will get in a minute about what Robert trees means to us in the names
Speaker 3 14:25
and also important, Yeah, mom means a grandfather in our language. And today, you know, anthropologists and archeologists have classified languages and groups of people, but Mom itself means grandfather or ancestor in that one of the names of my one part of my family, because I'm half mom and half kitchen. And it's important also to notice what's the meaning behind each name. It was given to us. And of course, the transition from all. Mix to Mayas. This is also a term that archeologists and anthropologists have given to us according to languages or customs or pottery or architecture. But like, like you're seeing here this map, there are two waves of people migrating from from La Venta, which is in in Tabasco, Mexico, all the way to central Guatemala and the highlands, but also in the forest. And that's how the Mayan civilization will start flourishing, about 400 years before Christ. And from there we will start developing and also important giving names to rivers and mountains. That's that's the most important part that our ancestors until today, we're still use the same names for for rivers, mountains and planes. And of course, you know one thing that we will see, you know, 5000 years ago was volcanoes. And we will call these volcanoes weeks, you know, and later on, anthropologists again and archeologists will start calling other Mayans made pyramids just like the Egyptians. But then recently, because we are recovering our Mayan belief names, we can say that mount volcanoes and pyramids have the same name and they we call them weeks in Even today, there are a lot of nicknames, or, I mean, last names for Mayans that represent weeks, you know, it's the same a volcano and a pyramid. We have the same name in Guatemala. You know, we have 33 volcanoes here in Guatemala, all the Pacific slopes. And along the along the volcanoes, there's a lot of rubber trees. You know, in Ula, you know, it's a, it's a Nahuatl name. It represents rubber and make its people. So when we translate ulek or Olmec. The real translation will be people the rubber. But it's because the territory we were growing up in, developing these cities were part of rubber. And you know that Mesa America is famous for the ball games. You know, we will start creating balls, and these would represent the sun and the moon in most of the of the ball courts in Mesoamerica are pointed north to south, so you would see the sun moving from Solstice to Solstice. And that was like a representation for astronomy that we would create the ball game. And we attribute it to the omics and the
Speaker 2 17:41
ball game is also one of those practices that I think both ancestrally, but in the contemporary moment, works as a mobile site of encounter as well, because it's teams from different places, from Belize, from Panama, I think from I want to Say there's even a team somewhere in the US might be LA, might be somewhere in Arizona. And so there are these kind of, I guess you would say, like inter tribal, Inter, I don't know how exactly it would be called, tournaments that still happen today as well.
Speaker 3 18:19
Yes, you know members of our family, you know, Florian, I still participate in this ball both games. Until today, we have talking a little bit about Sun and Moon. You know, the first part of the presentation, we're talking about the sun, but then the moon is very important, especially because of the how they call the transition from Full Moon to New Moon in moon is more related to women in here. In these two graphics, you see this, this woman carrying a rabbit, you know, in that represents the young woman giving birth or reproducing seeds. Also in women were also the administrators for the seats, and men were more dedicated to hunting. And so the moon, it was very important for grow until today. You know, even cutting a tree or planting a flower. It has to happen in certain you know, stages of the moon. And on the other graphic, to the right side, you see an elder woman, you know, pouring water. That's the representation for storms. And then you see here on her head, you know, a snake that is tied up with a double head. That's also the meaning of Quetzalcoatl, or the snake that also represents equinoxes in Yucatan, they see the snake on March 21 and September 22 as seasons of. Beginning of the rainy season and the end of the rainy season. So also, you know, we relate also the storms to women. So I want to point out the rain, but also the rabbit, because that would also give the meaning for the names of our towns and women today, until today, they still wear the tie up and All right, so I'm gonna turn off my camera. I think my internet is not the best today, but I think without the camera, probably you can hear me a little bit. So, Koha, you know, it's named by the mom people, the ancient as I mentioned that it means moon hollow. In this picture was taken right? This is my room in quezaltenango. And then for us, it's important to see the moon hollow. Usually it's in April or May, and that's when we can see, you know, if we're going to have lots of rain or a few rain for the year. So it's important. So that was important also, and that's why one of the first names from my town is Koha. You know, again, the moon hollow, and you can see, you know, the woman carrying, you know, the water rain, but also the rabbit. And that also will be important for future names for my town, or town, I would say, is here with us today. So we also have to understand that Theo ti waka, and you know, it's a it's one of the largest cities in Mesoamerica, 50 kilometers north of city of Mexico. This city is also founded in the very early years of Mesoamerica. And they would migrate it also, you know, because it's the old mix in the teotihuacans are creating a civilization and the Pacific slopes of Guatemala. And they would mix stuff with with Mayas. And then from there, it would be a name called a how key, you know, for language means a lot. In che means three, so the translation will be forest. And how you know it's one of the 20 days of the Mayan calendar that is represented by the sun, but also means the guardian or the Lord. So the real you know, when you meet a kitchen people in the US, probably they still don't know the meaning of their name, but it's the people of the forest. And we will grow up, you know, in the you know, 2000 years ago, in the coast, but later on, we will migrate it to the highlands, and that's where we will habitate the city that we are today. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 22:41
What you can see is there's a lot of already interaction between different peoples that ends up impacting how people are named, right? So, lords of the forest, it's, it's based on kind of an exterior perspective on who we are, right? And that happens a lot with indigenous
Speaker 3 22:58
peoples, yeah. And also Mesoamerica. You know, some Mayans in the forest will see a jar in in the moon, but then some others in the coast and also in central Mexico, we will see a rabbit inside of the moon. Next time you see a full moon, imagine those two animals. They will be important for mythology for us in Yeah. So rabbit also, like I said, means, you know, productivity, or reproducing, you know, or seeds, and that would also be important for names of mountains in cities later on, yeah, and this, this is not Maya. This is part of central Mexico in the collision Borgia, you will see a moon goddess. And then if you see, you know, to the to the to the left, there is, this is like a pot, you know, for cooking. And then inside, you see a rabbit. And then on the bottom you'll see these, like red and white dots. That means to start. And also it's an important mythology about the moon. In the starts around they will, again, will be part of fertility. And also in the bottom, you see the snake, as we were, we've been talking a lot about about that, if we go well, so here it comes. This is like the major volcano. I now invite you to visit quezaltenango, UCLA, or town. And this is like the most you know present volcano in our town. And then these volcano before the Spaniards came, its name was each canil. Ish means women or female, and Anil means something that it's full of yellow, and that would be the corn seed. And then the core seed also is represented by the rabbit. So basically the translation for this volcano would be a female rabbit. And then when the Spaniards. Came, they will start changing names, and they will call it Santa Maria, because, you know, Mary is the mother of Jesus. And then they will start changing the names. But then people in their languages never, you know, never changes. Only the people who only spoke Spanish will start calling the book and Santa Maria. But you know, elders who live around the volcano, until today, they still call it each carnival.
Speaker 2 25:23
And I think for me, this is just another example of, like, two very different world views that are still like existing today, right? So ish carnita being, you know, a place that we recognize for its fertility, for its feminine energy, which is very different from Santa Maria, or this concept of like the Virgin Mary, with virginal purity, just very different world views and and understandings of the feminine as well that get like superimposed onto names
Speaker 3 25:59
UCLA, ha, you know, for for ancient people, also means trough of water in obviously, 1000s of years ago or town was a lake. And it would means that the water, it was important for people to habitate. And as you see, probably I wanted to represent that yellow also yellow line saying that we migrated between the year 800 to the year 1000 from the coast. And we start advocating this because obviously, there is probably climate change, there's different viruses in the coast. So we would migrate from the coast to the highlands and and we were looking for fresh water in as you see, the volcano is surrounding and many, many mountains in until today, this is the second largest city in Guatemala. But obviously, names have been changed depending of of the of the ages of our town in today, yeah, the next, the next slide shows it today. There's about half a million people living in this town that we call it, and probably we're going to enter into that name. So here, you know she means under in language, and some number is one of the days of the Mayan calendar, but also means movement in this ancient lake. Today we are surrounded by three volcanoes in other seven mountains around in that's why my ancestors, you know, the kitchen people would call it no that will be the name when the Spaniards came in. Obviously, today we only like to like Los Angeles. We say La for us, Sheila, who knows a long name, that we showed it to Sheila. And like I said, this is one of the second largest cities in in Guatemala, where I live today.
Speaker 2 28:13
And so again, she like, who know is the the kitchen name, but you won't find it necessarily on a map, unless it's a Mayan map. And instead, what you'll often find is Quetzaltenango, which we can talk a little bit about, like where that comes from, but, or let me see, is that the next slide? Okay, so we did want to also focus on this concept of no because I thought it was, it's like I said, a very complex meaning system. And so I always feel like one thing actually means four things. And so no represent, can you talk a little bit about, know, really, my understanding is it represents movement, but also, like wisdom, knowledge, maybe even joy. I've seen that it can represent that as well. And so that's all within the name of Sheila Puno,
Speaker 3 29:11
yes, like no, also, it's represented by the rubber, you know, like all in the back is another name that is very close to it. It's in navat in mountains are part of energy, and they're always moving in also, we always say that the mountains are ancestors, and they carry the wisdom. So that's why, you know, this is a city full of movement is in full of wisdom. And also Florida, like I saying is joy, because my ancestors will go up into the mountains or or to the weeds, as I mentioned the pyramids, and then they will start calling the creator for the rains, or for the stop of the rain. And so for today. The Mayans. This is a sacred, sacred valley because of of the name, no,
Speaker 2 30:07
so we wanted to take maybe a five minute break and have you all kind of think about this. I also thought it was really interesting, because you're all teachers, right? You're all kind of, for lack of a better word in the business of knowledge. And so I thought, How fascinating that we're talking about no right, which is also like the novel for knowledge. So the novel know is centered on ideas of movement, wisdom and the mind. How are these things related? How are they connected? For you as a teacher, and this is just something we can take a short pause and kind of think about based on some of the things that we've learned today.
Speaker 4 30:45
Oh, and we do have a question before we jump in, what why a 20 day calendar? Jamie's asking,
Speaker 2 30:51
I think you're going to have to take Willie's advanced course
Speaker 3 30:56
to learn. My ancestors develop a calendar based on the cycle of life. And we counted 10 fingers in 10 toes that will be, you know, 10 attached to the to the center of the earth. You know, there are toes and fingers that can reach the skies. You know, the heavens. And from there we will have a number, another number that is 13. There is their major joints in our body. So if we multiply 20 by 13, we have 260 days, and that's the cycle of nine months for a baby to be born so and also, if we, if we also have nine times 20, it's 180 days. There is the path of the sun from north to south. That will be a solstice, you know, from Solstice to Solstice. So that's why I think 20. It's the magic number for me. So Americans to keep track of time, that will be my answer for now.
Speaker 4 32:03
It's amazing, and I'm just kind of reflecting on the amount of scholarship and research and observation that went into this. It's pretty mind blowing, and we have an emoji that reflects that in the chat.
Speaker 2 32:14
All right, great. So we're going to keep going with our presentation. If folks want to share anything that was shared in the reflection break in the rooms, maybe you could put in the chat. I would love to read it and hear it, but we'll keep going with our presentation. So go ahead, Willie, if you want to share a little bit about Quetzalcoatl, which is part of where quezal penango comes from, right?
Speaker 3 32:43
Yes, so probably some of you have heard the name quezar cuatro, you know in Mexico or cucul can if you have gone to Yucatan, but cucumatz is not very popular. It's a name, but the three of them means the same thing. You know, this is the bird, that it's one of the most beautiful birds in Mesoamerica, from Central Mexico all the way down to Costa Rica, you can find these birds. And these birds, sometimes they're blue or sometimes they're green. And then it's important that in the Mayan language, blue and green has the same meaning, has the same meaning. You know, rash in what the green color as the Jade. You know, it's so important for the Mayans. We don't really care about gold and silver, but Jade in feathers was the most precious things that you can ever have. So Quetzal is the name of the bird. And coat means snake. Cook means in Yucatec, Mayan Yucatec bird, bird, and can means snake. And then kiche Cook, it's also Quetzal. You know, the bird in kumats means snake, you know. From here comes the mythology of the serpent bird, you know. And the feathers were very, very, very important, especially for rulers. And from here, you know, Quetzaltenango. I don't if we can go to the next slide. That's the name of my town in this map. You see, you know that this is the entire myth of Quetzalcoatl. And from here, you know, remember, we mentioned all the volcanoes, and usually around those volcanoes, and the Pacific slope is where these birds grow in. It was important, you know, to catch them and get the feathers from them, because that would be used for, for, for the best, you know, dresses for, for, for rulers. And this is not just for the Mayas, but all the way from the Aztecs and the toti wacans. They would use these feathers. And if we can go to the. Next slide, we can see, you know that this, this, this, this dress headdress, is one of the museums in Europe that it was part of the Tron for for rulers in central Mexico. And you'll see all the feathers there. So Quetzaltenango, you know, our town, it became, in the we call the post classic era, a market for these feathers. And that was the name given to our town until today, Quetzaltenango, which means the place of the Quetzal feathers. Yeah. So here, you know, you see all the Mayan sites that were found before the Spaniards came, and all those are in red, but suddenly you'll see a blue dot there called Sal Caja, which is a town, you know, just a few kilometers from my home in sakaja, means white, White House there was the first church, the Spaniards, built in 1525, there, you know, a year after the invasion. We call it not conquest, but the invasion. And then this is the first church where they will start teaching us Spanish, and then they would give us the Bible, and then we would have, you know, more than 5000 4000 years of history, and suddenly there's a clash of cultures, and we have to learn Spanish and start reading the Bible. But like I said, the elders who were never learned the Spanish, they kept the traditions of what we are saying today. And then, obviously, there are some good things about that colonization, because some kids of the warriors who got killed, they start
Speaker 3 36:53
writing articles and texts that we still have today of proof of the of the ancient names, and then the mythology, like the sacred book that we have today, called popul book, we have another one called the title of totonica pan in the title of Josh, they would you know that to the you know, all these books are in major libraries in the US and Europe. But now people like Florian I, who speak English, we can recover these books, and we can go back into our communities and reconstruct the whole history of ancient civilization, as we call today the Maya. And yeah, this is a picture of my house today in this is the site where I see the full moon coming out. And today we have, you know, this is like the second most famous song in Guatemala, after the national anthem, called Luna, the Sheila, who you know, in this, he says, You give me inspiration. In every Guatemalan today knows the sun. And then for us today, the moon is so important. In keeping these stories, in recovering our memories are part of inspiration. And I also hope you know that if you ever have a student from Mayan or Mesoamerican descendant, it's important to give back these stories, you know, to the next generations, especially, you know, I said for the diaspora in the US, because we all have roots, you know, we'll have ancient cities that we all have to visit, you know, in order to have a future, as you
Speaker 2 38:35
can see, like the bulk of the workshop actually focused on the pre colonial kind of ancestral knowledge. And we did that on purpose, right? Because once we start talking about colonial invasion, a lot of the history is also very like sad. And we wanted to instead say, you know, there were these encounters that happened beforehand, too, where there was not just a trade of material objects like feathers, but also of names and languages. But I did also want to talk a little bit about the colonial invasion period. So Pedro del barado, who's the Spaniard, or I don't even know if it would be a Spaniard, but the person you see there, he actually meets the cool new man in battle in Quetzaltenango in 1524, and so tekuno Man is defeated. And there's a whole story around how the Quetzal got its red chest. And tekuno man is also kind of positioned as this, kind of sometimes he gets, like, appropriated as a national hero, of like, of the Guatemalan nation, but really, I think it's more like understanding him as a leader and somebody who, like, confronted the Spaniards right in battle. And we also wanted to highlight that a lot of places in Guatemala do have names with now, what roots? And you know, there's still kind of debates to some extent. About why that is so quetzalcoat, right? That's, I mean, get something go. That's a Nawa root name, and so some people used to say. And by some people, I mean, like historians and scholars and stuff, said that the Nawa of Mexico, like the Michika, that they accompanied Spanish colonizers when they came into Central America, or what's now called Central America, and so that's why a lot of our towns have these now. What based names? Even though, you know, everyday people still retain the names in their own languages too. But Willie was also sharing that, you know, this exchange of like, this ancient exchange of goods and various like, objects and stuff might have also been part of the reason why this place also had this name. And then we also wanted to highlight you've all gotten, like, this very small like taste of like, how complex the knowledge system is within, like the Mayan world. And I also wanted to point out that one of the things that happened during this colonial encounter is that priest really considered books to be dangerous, books and language to be really dangerous and potentially subversive. So one of the things that Diego de Landa, who was a priest, did was he burned what we would call Mayan books, which are the codices, right? Which are the the books that kind of fold like an accordion style. And it said that he burned so many of these that the fire lasted like more than a whole night. And so we only have a handful of codices that kind of survived the colonial encounter and the devastation of of caused by the colonizers. But one of those, which is one of the oldest ones, is actually a codex that's currently being like interpreted and trying to be understood. And it's actually based on astronomy, right? So like I said, astronomy, our writing, all of all of those things were actually intermixed within our knowledge system. And folks can, like, Look these different names up to get more information. And so part of what we wanted to challenge was this idea that, as a result of the colonial encounter this we have this like completed conquest that resulted in this watermelon country, right? And other people who migrate are understood as Guatemalans or Latinos. But really push back on that narrative a little bit to to say like that is one version of the story. But there is a different version of the story that continues to exist within the communities themselves, right? And that's that Quetzaltenango is actually still Sheila, who know that it still retains these names in other languages, and that our migrations today are actually connected to, like these ancestral routes that have been traveled, right? Even though we want, even though, like the settler governments, want to claim that US crossing these boundaries that they created in their documents makes us, quote, unquote, illegal, right and law breakers or whatever. But that's not necessarily the way that we understand ourselves, and so it's really important when we think about encounter, there isn't always a unified narrative, right? That gets produced. Sometimes there are these two very conflicting narratives. And then I just and I can just send this out
Speaker 2 43:34
as a link. But the other thing I wanted to share that Sheila is also a site of an site of encounter in resistance, right? And so in 1991 there was this continental gathering. And where did it take place? It took place in Sheila, and it was a really important space where people, you know, brought indigenous communities from all over the western hemisphere. And I'll share the link to this as well, so folks can take a look at it. It's a short video, but I really appreciate that, even though it's kind of told alongside Rigoberta, men choose narrative because she was such an important figure at that time, it includes like excerpts with like native people who were there, like Native American people who were there, and so that might be useful for you all as well. And we just wanted to have just some ending comments, which are really, I wish we had more time together. Of course, right, time is never enough, but it's also, you know, it is what it is. But you know, we could have kind of constructed a workshop that was more focused on the genocide, right? Because Guatemala also experienced a 36 year civil war that included a very devastating and brutal genocide against Mayan people in the 1980s right? So we're talking very, very recent. UCLA, and that's one of the driving factors for our migration, right? Is we were fleeing political state violence and terror, and so that often gets kind of highlighted, which is very, very important. But at the same time, you know, Willie and I have also been talking about the fact that we're not just we're not just victims, right? We're not just victims of the colonial encounter, and we're not just victims of the genocide in the war. And so as you all kind of engage your own students, we also want to make sure that there's space for narratives of resistance, narratives of resilience, right? That we have maintained these knowledge systems, and we're still learning, and we're still sharing with others, and so really, kind of anchor, kind of some, some of these materials in this concept of hope, right, truth, but also hope. Yeah, so that's where we ended, and I did want to, just before we leave, really quickly, share this additional resource. Since folks are in LA, one of the projects we did at UCLA a few years ago was this mapping indigenous la project, and it's attempting to tell the story of Los Angeles as the site of encounter for indigenous nations from everywhere. And so we did that through a few different story maps. And I wanted to show you all one how to access the story map I'm about to show you, but there's a Latin American, indigenous diaspora story map that is actually a mapping of Los Angeles, but it includes different Mayan and sapotek, and I'm not sure if mistake are included as well, but different indigenous communities in Los Angeles, and so you can kind of share that as well. This is a collective that I helped form here in LA. We also have some elders and day keepers as well here in LA and you can watch those videos. But there's also sites for Zapotec people, for Oaxacan people as well. So that might just be, you know, something that you could also think about as a site of encounter. But I'll end my comments there.
Speaker 4 47:23
Thank you so much. Willie and Flori, if we can all just give a round of applause, you can unmute and clap it up. You can hit those little emojis. That was really terrific. I.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai