Zapotec Communities Case Study

Although, the Zapotec communities revitalization projects are not as massive as native american efforts to revitalize the language in the United States, efforts are being made in a smaller scale in Oaxaca, Mexico and in California. One of the problems that the Zapotec communities in the United states face is the rationalization of Mexican immigrants as one ethnic group. It becomes complicated to know what specific communities of Zapoteco speakers are coming from because of the racialization process that takes place and the assumption that all brown people closely identified with Nation state identities such as Mexican. This is a misconception that Zapotec communities face given their many efforts to resist the Mexican mainstream mestizo culture and retain their cultural sovereignty. …show more content…
The varieties of Zapoteco are defined by geographical locations and linguistic diversity. This is important to have in mind, because governmental and academic publications often do not specify which variety of Zapoteco their worked is focused on or generalize all of these varieties under the big umbrella term Zapoteco. On the other hand, when searching for peer review articles that fucues on revitalization efforts of Zapoteco Chichicapan in the Oaxaca and in the United States they are very specific on just one region. Unfortunately, up to now there is yet not one case study that closely studies Zapoteco Chichicapan; hence, this paper will emphasize the need for linguistic revitalization work on this region and highlight other revitalization efforts carried by other Zapotec regions as