Original Ar ticle
K a Tzi j : The Maya diasporic v oices f r o m Contacto Ancestral
A l i c i a I v o n n e E s t ra d a California State University, Northridge
Abstract This article explores the ways in which the Los Angeles-based Maya radio show Contacto Ancestral challenges the processes of Americanization carried by local and national state entities and reinforced through mainstream Spanish and Englishlanguage media. It specifically addresses how the program carves an audible space in the city’s airwaves, and on the World Wide Web, to reaffirm a Maya identity that also vindicates indigenous cultural, political and economic rights. In doing so, Contacto Ancestral creates a space from which Mayas can maintain an audible local and hemispheric memory, which is simultaneously attuned to contemporary PanIndigenous, immigrant and human rights movements. Through the constructions of an audible “community archive,” to use cultural studies scholar Ann Cvetkovich’s term, Contacto Ancestral preserves the voices and everyday histories of specifically Maya, but also indigenous and non-indigenous diasporic communities in the United States. Thus, the staff members, and listeners, of Contacto Ancestral provide a model for the affirmation of diverse diasporic and transnational identities. Latino Studies (2013) 11, 208–227. doi:10.1057/lst.2013.5 Keywords: community radio; ethnic radio; Guatemalan-Americans; Guatemalan immigrants; Mayas; Maya diaspora
The City of Los Angeles officially marked 20 October 2009 as a day honoring Guatemalans in the region. This population became the second Central American community in the metropolis to be properly acknowledged within the city’s public formation of a cultural archive, and joined others like Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans. Three years earlier, r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 11, 2, 208–227 www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/
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Salvadoran-American Day had been declared on 6 August. The date is also significant in El Salvador, as it commemorates the founding of what is now the capital city of San Salvador in 1525. The 20 October event, symbolically falling on the sixty-fifth anniversary of Guatemala’s October Revolution,1 brought together Mayas and Ladinos from the US Guatemalan diaspora.2 The celebration and recognition of Guatemalan-Americans and SalvadoranAmericans points to the city’s effort to incorporate these burgeoning communities into the larger American family. The inclusion of these populations legitimized a national narrative that constructs the United States as a melting pot where we ultimately become Americans. Furthermore, acknowledgment of Guatemalan-Americans and Salvadoran-Americans assured anxious Californians, post-spring 2006 immigrant rights marches, that these communities are smoothly transitioning to, and not threatening, an American identity. For scholar Beth Baker-Cristales, the affirmation of an American identity and ideals were already evident in the spring 2006 marches, because the marchers were urged, by mainstream Spanish-language media, to carry US flags and wear white t-shirts (2009, 61). Thus, Baker-Cristales asserts the marches homogenized Latino communities and ensured an anti-immigrant US society that Latinos would indeed uphold American ideals. In this context, the weekly Los Angeles-based radio program Contacto Ancestral, created in 2003 by Maya immigrants and aired on the community station KPFK, produces an alternative space on the airwaves from which to record the voices as well as the daily experiences of Mayas in the diaspora. The program aims at carving an audible space in the city’s airwaves, and on the World Wide Web, to reaffirm a Maya identity that also vindicates indigenous cultural, political and economic rights. In particular, the show asserts a Maya identity that maintains a local and hemispheric historical memory, which is simultaneously attuned to contemporary Pan-Indigenous, immigrant and human rights movements. Moreover, in Contacto Ancestral the voices of the Maya hosts are joined with non-indigenous community members, activists and scholars who share similar conditions of marginalization or who stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples. Hence, the program links, through a variety of thematic interviews with indigenous organizations, activists and scholars in the Americas, these varied communities with the show’s Los Angeles-based and World Wide Web audience. In this article, I examine the ways the 1-hour weekly radio program Contacto Ancestral reaffirms and expands Maya identity in the diaspora through the inclusion of segments that address Maya cultural, philosophical and spiritual practices. The program also incorporates live interviews primarily with indigenous activists and community members on a variety of issues that range from indigenous identity, culture and land rights to immigration, homophobia, racism, sexism and labor struggles. In this way, Contacto Ancestral stresses collaborative work with local and transnational indigenous, feminist and LGBT organizations while simultaneously uniting these struggles with US r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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1 This date commemorates the fall of dictator Jorge Ubico’s 13-year regime in 1944, which lead to Guatemala’s 10 years of democracy. The “ten years of spring” ended when the US-led coup overthrew President Jacobo A´rbenz Guzma´n in 1954. 2 Santiago Bastos (1998) explains that the first use of Ladino referred to Indians who spoke Latin during Guatemala’s colonial period. Severo Martı´nez Pela´ez (1973) adds that Ladino is an ethnic identity with wide use and currency in Guatemala, because it encompasses a broader identity that includes anyone who is not Indian or Spanish. Guzma´n Bo¨ckler and Herbert (2002) state that Ladino identity is “fictional,” because it is defined through the negation of the subject’s indigenous identity.
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3 I use Latino/ American when referring to both US Latinos and Latin Americans. Latinos when only referencing those in the United States.
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immigrant plights. In addition, Contacto Ancestral produces shows that commemorate key historical dates for indigenous and human rights movements particularly in relation to Maya communities in Guatemala and the diaspora. Thus, the radio program fashions for Mayas in this city an essential tool of empowerment and resistance towards everyday forms of discrimination and pressures to assimilate to mainstream Latino/American identities that erase, or decontextualize, indigenous cultural and historical frameworks.3 At the same time, Contacto Ancestral creates an audible “community-based archive,” to use cultural studies scholar Ann Cvetkovich’s term, that is attuned to alternative forms of maintaining a historical memory through the incorporation of various community voices, historical perspectives as well as the audience’s personal experiences and responses to the issues discussed on the show (Cvetkovich, 2003, 251). I draw the notion of a historical archive from scholars who attempt to democratize the telling of history by examining what counts as history as well as who can create an archive (Derrida, 1998; Cvetkovich, 2003; Taylor, 2003). Jacques Derrida helped to define this method by deconstructing the processes of exclusion and inclusion through which archives are produced (1998). Derrida’s approach is reworked by scholars such as Diana Taylor, who reminds us that “ ‘Archival’ memory” is contained not only in “… documents, maps, literary texts, and letters,” but also in “archaeological remains, bones, videos, CDs, all those items supposedly resistant to change” (2003, 19). Cvetkovich extends the notion through the concept of a “community-based archive,” which she describes as being concerned with taking “ … the documents of everyday life … in order to insist that everyday life is worthy of preservation” (2003, 269). In a similar way, Contacto Ancestral’s audio archives preserve the voices and every day histories of specifically Maya, but also indigenous and non-indigenous diasporic communities in the United States, while simultaneously linking these experiences to the contemporary and historical struggles of indigenous peoples in the Americas. The show’s space on the airwaves is particularly important, if we consider that radio is more accessible for some immigrants who may not have the economic means, or literacy skills, for digital and print forms of communication. The dynamic produced in Contacto Ancestral provides an audible cultural space, and community, for the affirmation of a broader transnational Maya identity in the United States. In doing so, the program challenges processes of Americanization, which are carried by local and national state entities and reinforced through mainstream Spanish and English-language media. In these assimilation processes Americanized consumerism, individualism and a historical perspective that omits indigenous frameworks and struggles are often emphasized. Hence, the analysis in this article on Contacto Ancestral and the program’s aforementioned “community based-archive” further compliments and extends research on the Maya, and Guatemalan, diasporas. Scholarship on Maya diasporic communities initially focused on the motivations for immigration r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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to the United States linking the displacement of Mayas to genocidal aspects of the 36-year civil war in Guatemala as well as a direct result of global capitalism (Burns, 1993; Popkin, 1999a, 2005b; Loucky and Moors, 2000; Hamilton and Stoltz Chinchilla, 2001; LeBaron, 2005; Foxen, 2007). Many of these studies have examined the contexts of reception in cities like Los Angeles, Houston and Indiantown, Florida (Rodrı´guez, 1987; Burns, 1993; Hagan, 1994; Loucky and Moors, 2000; Hamilton and Stoltz Chinchilla, 2001; LeBaron, 2005; Popkin, 2005b). The struggles for survival and creation of communities in the United States are discussed through social and church organizations that maintain transnational links to specific hometowns in Guatemala (Burns, 1993; Hagan, 1994; Popkin, 2005b; Foxen, 2007). Historian Leon Fink’s analysis on Maya labor struggles in Morganton, North Carolina’s poultry industry further expands scholarship on the Maya diaspora by historicizing the ways these workers organized around specific labor conditions (2003). Similarly, sociologist Cecilia Menjı´var’s article on Guatemalan women’s networks and medical treatment expands this research by focusing on women and healing, and noting that there is a “general lack of interethnic relations between both …” Mayas and Ladinos in Los Angeles, since they “… usually do not cross ethnic lines” (2002b, 439). Like previous work on Maya, and Guatemalan diasporic communities, my article shares an emphasis on the transnational links maintained. However, this article extends the scholarship by examining the ways Contacto Ancestral, through the creation of an audible archive, constructs and records a transnational Maya identity and community that also vindicates indigenous cultural, political and economic rights. In addition, I situate Contacto Ancestral within various emerging indigenous media projects, and scholarship, in the Americas (De Gerdes, 1998; Leirana, 2003; Poblete, 2006; Buddle, 2008; Wilson and Stewart, 2008; Ca´rcamo-Huechante, 2010) to bridge the fields of Latina/o Studies with Indigenous Studies in the United States and Latin America. In this way, my approach and analysis of Maya community formation in Los Angeles is interdisciplinary. As a Guatemalan who grew up in Westlake-MacArthur Park, one of the city’s predominant Guatemalan diasporic neighborhoods, the study is also informed by my collaboration in these communities as well as with various Maya and Guatemalan grassroots organizations in the region. In particular, the information on the structure of the program is taken from my own continuous collaborative work with Contacto Ancestral since 2006. Other data in this article are based on my analysis of thematic shows that aired and can be accessed, or requested, through the Pacifica archives. Moreover, several interviews were conducted with listeners of the show as well as founding, past and current members of Contacto Ancestral. These interviews took place in community forums and other sites after the show aired. I begin by briefly contextualizing Maya immigration to Los Angeles and noting the space Contacto Ancestral constructs in these diasporic communities. This is followed by a discussion of the historical role of Spanish-language radio r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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for Latino communities in the city. I then examine the ways contemporary commercial Spanish-language media contributes to processes of Americanization by emphasizing individualism and consumerism while also dehistoricizing and homogenizing immigrant experiences. Subsequently, an analysis of the space Contacto Ancestral creates in the airwaves and the challenges it makes to those processes of Americanization is provided. The last section analyzes the ways the program creates a community-based archive of the everyday, and hemispheric, struggles of Mayas and other marginalized communities in the Americas. In doing so, the program joins local and hemispheric indigenous media projects, like the Mapuche radio program Wixage anai! aired in Chile, and like that program, also “… establish[es] oral territories of resistance and survival, from the margins of the cotemporary urban and media scenario” (Ca´rcamo-Huechante, 2010, 162). By creating an “oral territory,” to use cultural critic Luis Ca´rcamo-Huechante’s concept, Contacto Ancestral contests the homogenized Latino/American identity created by mainstream media outlets, while also actively reaffirming a Maya transnational identity grounded in indigenous cultural and historical frameworks. I conclude the article by noting that Contacto Ancestral provides varied articulations of belonging and subjectivity that are attuned to difference, cultural plurality and shared histories. Consequently, the program helps frame alternative approaches to understanding the Maya and Guatemalan diasporas in Los Angeles.
Maya Im migra ti on and Co mm unity in Los Ange les
4 The 1954 US-led coup established a series of military regimes in Guatemala. Consequently, Guatemala went through a 36-year civil war (1960– 1996), which left over 200,000 people killed, 40,000–50,000 people disappeared and 1.5 million displaced. Approximately 90 per cent of those 212
Sociologists Nora Hamilton and Norma Stoltz Chinchilla note that the “overthrow of [President Jacobo A´rbenz Guzma´n’s] … democratic regime in Guatemala in 1954 led to the migration of Guatemalans to other countries [including the US]”4 (2001, 27). The Guatemalans that immigrated to the United States mainly arrived to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Several scholars have noted that these earlier migratory waves established important social networks for others fleeing the repressive socio-political conditions created by the military regimes that followed the 1954 coup (LaFeber 1993; Loucky and Moors, 2000; Hamilton and Stoltz Chinchilla, 2001). The immigration of Mayas specifically to Los Angeles became more visible in the 1970s, and increased in the 1980s, as a result of the genocidal tactics used by the Guatemalan army during the civil war (Popkin 2005b; Foxen, 2007). By the 1980s, scholars Loucky and Moors note, Maya-Q’anjoba’l immigrants begin to form social organizations in Los Angeles and Indiantown, Florida (2000). The continued displacement of Maya communities as a result of neoliberal policies implemented in the late 1990s forced thousands more, especially young Maya men, to immigrate. Recent data from the US census states that there are approximately 915,743 Guatemalans living in the United States and the largest community is in r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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Los Angeles (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010, 2011). The Guatemalan Consulate in that city confirms that 50–60 per cent of the current Guatemalan population residing in the area is Maya.5 In addition, sociologist Eric Popkin situates Guatemalans as “the third largest Latino group in Los Angeles after Mexican and Salvadoran populations” (2005b, 694). These statistics also suggests that the Maya population living in this urban metropolis is the largest outside of Mesoamerica. Many of the immigration experiences noted by scholars are reflected in the lives of the founding, former and current members of Contacto Ancestral. For example, three of the Maya founding members arrived in the 1980s. Two of them were forced to flee because of their militancy in Maya and guerrilla organizations and the other because the military burned his village in El Quiche´. Other members include three who arrived in the late 1990s because their work in maquiladoras did not pay a living wage. In addition, two Ladinos who are also members of the program fled the civil war as children with their families in the early 1980s. Correspondingly, these experiences are shared by many of the show’s listeners. In this way, some of the topics discussed on the show are informed by the individual and collective experiences of the programmers and their audience. Through the collective selection of thematic and historical issues discussed on the air, as well as the live interviews with activists, community members and scholars, a variety of relations take place between the programmers, their guests and listeners. It is by means of these varied exchanges of information, knowledge and experiences that an audible community is created in the city’s airwaves. This sense of an extended audible community is also illustrated in the name of the show, as it metaphorically suggests a connection, contacto, with ancestral knowledge, culture, communities and land. Similarly, the beginning of the show stresses this notion of an extended audible community, as every Monday night the program opens with the song “Pukaea (the trumpet)” by Oceania, a Maori musical group from New Zealand. The inclusion of this musical selection highlights the transnational links the program makes with other indigenous peoples. As the song plays multiple voices declare in Spanish: “Maya es… historia, cultura, sabidurı´a, arte, filosofı´a, ciencia, identidad. Maya es…orgullo!” (Contacto Ancestral, 2008a,b; 2009a,b). At the same time, the articulation of a Maya identity, and not an ethno-linguistic, regional or broader Latino identity, carves a specific space in the city’s airwaves for this community. Moreover, the assertion of a Maya identity suggests a sustained effort to keep a shared historical memory alive in the diaspora. Scholars Santiago Bastos and Manuela Camus explain that to identify as Maya means to be part of a historically grounded collectivity, which is tied to common ancestors, history and culture (2003, 18). Through the assertion of a cultural unity that recognizes the ways indigenous people’s legal and basic human rights have been denied since the establishment of the Castilian Crown in the Americas, Maya identity is r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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killed in the civil war were Mayas. For more on the Guatemalan civil war, see the human rights report Guatemala: Never Again! (Archdiocese of Guatemala, 1999). Also, Ricardo Falla’s Masacres de la selva: Ixca´n, Guatemala (1975–1982) (1992); Susanne Jonas’s The Battle For Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and US Power (1991); Beatriz Manz’s Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of the Counterinsurgency in Guatemala (1988); Rigoberta Menchu´’s testimonial I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (1987); Victor Montejo’s Testimony: Death of a Guatemalan Village (1987). 5 Email communication on 29 March 2010.
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6 My translations. The Contacto Ancestral audios quoted are originally in Spanish. E-mail communications quoted, with the exception of Giovanni Batz, are all originally in Spanish.
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politicized (2003, 18). Hence, Contacto Ancestral’s introduction not only frames the program, but also the daily experiences of the diaspora within this history and cultural unity. This effort to create community through a shared history is evident in the issues discussed on the show, which often link the displacement of indigenous people, and specifically the Maya, to (neo)colonial processes in the region. Furthermore, the topics explored on these thematic shows not only connect shared experiences of marginalization with other disenfranchised communities, but they also highlight the specific experiences and needs of indigenous peoples. The visibility that these shows provide to the particular conditions of indigenous immigrants can be empowering for Mayas and central in community formation. This is because indigenous immigrants face multiple forms of discrimination from both Anglos and Latino/Americans. The varied and specific forms of abuses Maya diasporic communities face were visible on 12 May 2008 in Postville, Iowa, during one of the largest immigration raids in the history of the United States. At the court trials that followed the raid, underage Maya workers from Agriprocessors Inc. disclosed the physical and verbal abuse they faced at the plant. In an interview on 28 July 2008 with Contacto Ancestral, Sonia Parras-Konrad, one of the lawyers representing many of the 390 detained, the majority Maya-Kaqchikel, described what some of the young men experienced: “they were treated like animals … they were [verbally] insulted … [the overseers would throw large chunks of meat at the workers] … [and] they would work six days a week”6 (2008a). Their conditions were further complicated because some spoke limited Spanish. Federally certified interpreter and scholar, Erik Camayd-Freixas, notes that these immigrants were criminalized and in an effort to fast-track their deportation the federal government left “absolutely no defense strategy available to counsel” (2009, 134). In his poignant personal account of the raids, Camayd-Freixas says that the judicial process “oddly resembl[ed] a[n] … assembly line, where the [Maya] meat packers were mass processed” (2009, 127). He adds that at some point in this judicial process, it became clear to him “that aside from their nationality, which was imposed on their people in the 19th century, the [Mayas] too were Native Americans, in shackles” (2009, 124). Camayd-Freixas’s realization also highlights the shared histories of indigenous peoples in the Americas. For many months after the Postville raid, Contacto Ancestral produced several shows that exposed the experiences of these Maya immigrants as well as the systematic frameworks in which the raid took place. Echoing Camayd-Freixas’s claims, the programs also made visible these shared and continued histories of oppression. In addition, several follow-up interviews with immigration lawyer Sonia Parras-Konrad provided crucial information on legal rights for undocumented immigrants (Contacto Ancestral, 2008a). The programs motivated indigenous immigrants working in the local garment and construction industries to call the show and share their personal experiences on r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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and off the air. Some of these listeners cited other forms of discrimination they suffered particularly when dealing with Ladino Latino/Americans in Los Angeles. They noted that often non-indigenous immigrants used paternalistic and derogatory terms when interacting with Mayas, or other indigenous immigrants. These declarations by Maya listeners of Contacto Ancestral reinforce previous research illustrating the ways members of the Latino/American diasporas often perpetrate the discrimination that indigenous immigrants face, as many Latino/Americans espouse the racist ideologies they were raised with in their respective countries (Menjı´var, 2000; Casillas, 2008; Hiller et al, 2009). This racism is evident in mainstream Spanish-language media where stereotypes of indigenous peoples as culturally backwards are reproduced. As Latino media studies scholar Mari Castan˜eda Paredes notes, many nationally syndicated Spanish-language radio programs make racially charged jokes, or use derogatory proverbs common in their countries of origin, about indigenous peoples, homosexuality and women (2003, 62). Nationally syndicated Spanish-language radio programs construct Latino/American culture deploying an assimilationist rhetoric that obscures Latino/Americans’ ethnic and racial diversity. The blurring of these differences facilitates the Americanization process, as they homogenize regional affiliations. And though Contacto Ancestral’s shows on the Postville, Iowa raids stressed on the shared conditions of immigrants in the United States, they also noted the different experiences and histories of Maya, and indigenous migrants (Contacto Ancestral, 2008a). Hence, although the program emphasizes a sense of collectivity and community, it does so by acknowledging difference. In this way, Contacto Ancestral shares elements of earlier grassroots Latino radio programs in Los Angeles, which unlike current mainstream Spanish-language radio, created community through an emphasis on cultural empowerment.
T he Ch a n gi n g S ou n ds o f Sp a n i s h -l a n g u a ge Fr e qu e n c i e s Scholar Ame´rica Rodrı´guez’s (2004) historical review of what she calls Hispanic radio suggests that, since the establishment of US radio in the 1920s, Spanishlanguage programming has been present. She notes that during this period Latinos did not own radio stations, because they were more expensive than print forms of communication and were regulated by state entities like the Federal Communications Commission, which required that “one had to be a US citizen” to own a radio station (2004, 712). Spanish-language radio programs in the 1920s were limited to unpopular air times offered by English stations. Latino programmers attracted an audience through local advertising in their communities; they addressed issues important to those populations like immigration, education and job opportunities. One clear example was the radio show Los Madrugadores created by Rodolfo Hoyos and established in Burbank, r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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California in 1927 (Gutie´rrez and Reina Schement, 1979; Rodrı´guez, 2004). Rodrı´guez notes that Rodolfo Hoyos maintained and expanded his radio show by spending … much of his time walking through the commercial district of his southern California barrio (neighborhood) making personal calls to potential sponsors … [It is] during these sale calls … [that he would solicit] … musical selections, or a recent community event that might be mentioned on the air … (2004, 712). This form of grassroots radio kept Hoyos’ program on the air for over 10 years, while it also helped create an audible Latino community in the city’s airwaves. Hoyos’ continuous interactions with these communities made him aware of the local changing demographics. In many ways, Contacto Ancestral continues to uphold this form of grassroots radio programming. Although Contacto Ancestral does not solicit business sponsors, as it is part of a community radio station (KPFK), like most public media in the United States it requires listener funding support. The face-to-face communication with community members has been essential for listener sponsorship as well as the expansion of the program’s audience. These types of interactions have kept the programmers connected to the growing Maya, and indigenous, immigrant communities in the city. The personal communication with diverse community members takes place through the programmers’ participation in a variety of events, forums, conferences; they are similarly involved in several grassroots organizations. And like Hoyos’ Los Madrugadores, Contacto Ancestral also announces community events during the program. This approach to radio maintains a strong sense of cultural and community empowerment, which vastly differs from current mainstream Spanish-language media. Most Spanish-language radio programs changed in the 1960s, when US companies started to perceive Latinos as a “sleeping giant” that would become a profitable market (Castan˜eda Paredes, 2003, 2008; Rodrı´guez, 2004). The programs became an important space for raising corporate profits and assuring that Americanization was not threatened, but embraced by Spanish speaking communities. Mari Castan˜eda Paredes notes that from “1980 to 2002, the Spanish-language radio market grew 1000 Percent. There are currently more than 660 Spanish-language radio stations in the US, and according to analysts the growth in the industry is just beginning” (2003, 5). These new radio stations diverge from grassroots programs like Contacto Ancestral, as many Spanishlanguage radio programs today depend on corporate sponsorship and emphasize American consumer culture. This became more pronounced in the summer 2002 with the merger of the two largest Spanish-language media broadcasters: Univision, Inc., and Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (Castan˜eda Paredes, 2003, 10). 216
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Currently, many of the radio programs produced by mainstream Spanishlanguage media follow four principal formats: talk radio, tropical, Mexican regional music and pop music (Chambers, 2006, 40). These four categories not only homogenize the layout of Spanish-language radio, but also construct a Latino identity that enables processes of Americanization. As Castan˜eda Paredes notes, the widely used formats in Spanish-language radio resemble English programming (2003, 12). Consequently, Spanish-language media’s construction of a homogeneous Latino culture situates the industry as mediators “in the acculturation and assimilation processes of Latinos in the United States” (2003, 59). This was evident in the role Latino media played in the spring 2006 marches for immigrant rights. As Beth Baker-Cristales reminds us, mainstream Spanish-language media framed the vocabulary and strategies of the 2006 marches. In doing so, Spanish-language media sanctioned those who “did not conform” to the protest tactics outlined, which emphasized individualism, capitalist consumerism and romanticized notions of the American Dream (2009, 78). Hence, it is important to note that the dependency of these radio stations and programs on corporate sponsorship limits the type of advocacy they can engage in, as they are subject to the companies’ principles. In this way, Contacto Ancestral serves as an essential space in the airwaves for the advocacy of indigenous, immigrant and human rights. This is because the program not only continues to uphold a grassroots approach to radio, but also creates an audible community for Maya, indigenous and diverse immigrant populations, which are often invisible, or misrepresented, in mainstream Spanish-language media.
K a Tzi j: Affirming Maya Identity on the Airwaves Contacto Ancestral, created by a group of Maya immigrants from Guatemala, is one of Southern California’s few multilingual and multicultural programs on public radio situating indigenous struggles alongside immigrant hardships. The weekly show first went on the air on 21 July 2003. According to Contacto Ancestral’s mission statement, the purpose of the show is to forge interethnic coalitions and exchanges as well as to record the experiences of indigenous and diasporic communities. These efforts transcend local, national and international borders. They coincide with the historically fluid borders and exchanges between indigenous populations that disrupt static national formations. Maya-Kaqchiquel scholar Raxche’ Demetrio Rodrı´guez Guaja´n reminds us that the history and cultural links between Maya peoples pre-date nation-states (1999, 112). Contacto Ancestral maintains those historical links and exchanges through live interviews with indigenous activists, scholars and artists as well as through the incorporation of cultural segments that include music and literature from various indigenous communities (2008a,b; 2009a,b). r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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Between 2003 and 2010, Contacto Ancestral opened KPFK’s evening Spanish programming. KPFK is owned by Pacifica Radio, “a listener supported community radio network of commercial free stations” serving “their local communities and beyond” (www.pacifica/about/). Pacifica’s stations started in Berkeley, and since 1949 have been promoting, “cultural diversity and pluralistic community expression” and education (www.pacifica/about/). Contacto Ancestral is the result of a long effort by immigrant community organizations and the station’s board of directors to expand KPFK’s cultural and linguistic diversity through the production of Spanish-language shows. Though KPFK is an alternative radio station with a progressive vision, primacy is given to English-language programming: 18 hours of airtime are in English and 6 in Spanish. For the first 6 years, Contacto Ancestral was a half-hour weekly show. In 2010, the show was expanded to an hour, but moved to a later airtime (10:30–11:30 p.m.). The initial limited air space (thirty minutes) and then, after the 1-hour expansion, the late time the show airs, produces obstacles for listener participation. In spite of these restrictions, audience involvement takes place in a variety of other ways: face-to-face interactions at community events, Internet social networks and email. And although the show’s structure has changed over the years some elements have continued. For example, the program’s incorporation of Maya languages, even if in brief segments, creates an important link and sense of community for Maya, indigenous and Ladino immigrants. Rube´n Rucuch, Maya-Kaqchiquel and staff member of Contacto Ancestral since 2005, noted, in an email communication on 29 March 2010, that the segments in Kaqchiquel “are Nimalaj Rejkalen, of great importance, [because] … our lived experiences and existence is shared in our language … giving [us a] feeling of community.” Language is an essential element in the creation of community for many Mayas, because Spanish is not their maternal language and their linguistic practices are rarely heard on the radio, or other US media broadcasts. Language is also important, as it maintains specific cultural references and linguistic differences. For Ladino immigrants like Ana, a listener who communicated her support at a community forum held on 16 February 2010 in the Guatemalan Consulate, “listen[ing] to the different Maya languages [on Contacto Ancestral ] … reminds [me] of the different cultures in Guatemala. It makes me feel proud of my roots.” Ana’s association of Maya languages is with the Guatemalan landscape, and not a specific ethno-cultural community like it is for Rucuch. Similarly, her affirmation also suggests that for some Ladino listeners of the show, their identity is not defined through a negation, but rather recognition of their indigenous heritage. Although the significance of hearing Maya languages on the air for these Maya and Ladino listeners differs, they both emphasize the bridge languages create between home/ lands. Furthermore, the presence of Maya languages on the airwaves counters Western languages and discourses that hold a monopoly in communication systems. 218
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And though, the transmission of Contacto Ancestral is mainly in Spanish the show’s content maintains a Maya cultural reference and framework. For example, since its foundation the program has aired short readings from various ancient Maya texts, including Popol Wuj, Annals of the Kaqchiquel and Chilam Balam. These readings reaffirm Maya history and worldviews. The program also features contemporary indigenous productions from Maya writers like Calixta Gabriel Xiquı´n, Gaspar Pedro Gonza´lez, Humberto Ak’abal, Rosa Cha´vez, Maya Cu´ Choc, Victor Montejo as well as Maya musicians like the Maya-Rock group Bitzma Sobrevivencia, or the musical groups Aj and Sotz’il Jay. The particular emphasis placed on reading and broadcasting not only ancient Maya texts, but also contemporary indigenous cultural productions open up an important space for these artists to expand their audience and connect with the diasporic communities that listen to the program. This is essential given the limited spaces for the dissemination of indigenous cultural productions in both national and international media outlets. For the Maya diaspora that listen to the show, these cultural productions reaffirm Maya identity and further create transnational links with their communities. In addition, for young Mayas who were born and raised in the United States, the show allows them to communicate with an extended ethnic community. As Giovanni Batz, a former staff member of Contacto Ancestral and the son of Maya-K’iche’ and Ladino immigrants in Los Angeles, noted in an email communication on 9 February 2010, the program has allowed him “to learn and grow in … [his] own process of re-covering … [his] K’iche’-Maya roots.” This effort of “re-covering,” to use Batz’s term, occurs in dialogue with other members of Maya, indigenous and diasporic communities. At the same time, this process of “re-covering” their cultural roots, for some children of Maya immigrants, takes place in-between cultures. A space where kaqchispanglish, a term coined by the Maya writer Calixta Gabriel Xiquı´n when referring to the intermixing of the three linguistic practices (Kaqchiquel, Spanish and English), may be spoken. And though, the articulation of a Maya identity, for some youth, is a process of recovery, the space produced by Contacto Ancestral, where transnational exchanges are created and maintained, allows these young Mayas born and raised in Los Angeles to affirm a Maya, and not GuatemalanAmerican or Latino, identity. Moreover, the indigenous cultural expressions aired on Contacto Ancestral also facilitate a critical space from which notions of identity and belonging can be expanded and understood. For instance, on 12 August 2009, Batz produced, with other members of Contacto Ancestral, the show entitled, “Mi identidad: Mi mu´sica/My Identity: My Music.” The topic originated from Batz’s personal experiences as a musician and the struggles to affirm his Maya identity in the United States. This program focused on how Maya and Zapotec youth utilize their ancestors’ music, the marimba and banda, a Mexican-Oaxacan regional genre employing a mixture of Zapotec and Western instruments. During the r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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show, Batz argued that Maya identity is complex for those growing up in the United States, because “public education socializes and indoctrinates [the youth] to US dominant culture” (Contacto Ancestral, 2009a). Edgar and Eric, two young Zapotecs, echoed this point, adding that learning to speak Zapotec is difficult, as the US education system forces them to learn Spanish and English first (2009a). In this context, music proved vitally significant, as it allowed them to connect and claim a space of belonging despite their lack of fluency in their maternal language. This is because, as scholar Josh Kun notes, “ … music is experienced not only as sound that goes into the ears and vibrates through our bones but as a space that we can enter into, encounter, move around in, inhabit, be safe in, learn from …” (Kun, 2005, 2). The space afforded by Contacto Ancestral permitted these young Maya and Zapotec men to publicly affirm their indigenous identities. In doing so, these indigenous youth challenged the pressures they experienced from state institutions, and mainstream Latino media, to assimilate. Additionally, the affirmation of their indigenous identity on the air produced an audible space for collaboration and dialogue with other indigenous, and immigrant communities across generations and geopolitical borders. Contacto Ancestral also schedules a small segment where the day, according to the Maya-Tzolk’in calendar, is explained. The program’s inclusion of the Tzolk’in calendar is significant because of its interconnection to Maya cosmology. Each day in the Tzolk’in calendar is a reference to a particular nawal, which in Maya cosmology provides spiritual and material guidance to individuals’ born on that day and their communities at large. These segments encode the lives of Mayas in the United States with cultural and philosophical references that are fundamental in the articulation of a Maya identity. Besides the short clips on the Tzolk’in calendar, there are frequent programs dedicated to the teachings of elders, who from Guatemala impart lessons on Maya spirituality, which further reinforces the transnational connections between these communities. The different cultural segments are coupled with mainly live interviews with various Maya, indigenous and non-indigenous, activists, community members, writers and scholars. It is through these interviews that Contacto Ancestral records and archives the historical struggles and daily experiences of Maya, indigenous and diasporic communities in the Americas.
Au di ble Com mu ni ty Arch ive s The program’s format also keys into dialogue and analysis on a wide array of issues ranging from indigenous culture to immigration, environmental concerns, social violence, human rights and education as well as feminist and labor struggles. Interviews with activists, community members, cultural workers and scholars on a range of pressing struggles allow Contacto Ancestral to produce the aforementioned audible “community-based archive.” The archive is 220
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maintained in digital form on the KPFK webpage, and by Contacto Ancestral staff members who also archive all audios produced as well as videos and photographs for some of the shows. In doing so, this community-based archive “… differs dramatically in its goals and practices from a research institution” (Cvetkovich, 2003, 249). Its most notable difference is based on the ability to construct an archive that is inclusive of the multiple transnational voices and experiences presented by indigenous subjects, women, LGBT activists and members of immigrant communities. In addition, the archives are often created in the margins, or as Homi Bhabha explains, from the metaphorical and physical “outside” space of the territories they originate and live in (2004). In this context, Benedict Anderson’s discussion on the significance of radio in creating what he calls “an aural representation of the imagined community” is important to consider (1987, 54). Anderson stresses that radio was essential to nationalist projects fashioning a sense of an “imagined community” through the standardizing of languages that reinforced colonial ideologies (1987, 54). However, Contacto Ancestral’s efforts contest specific national formations by emphasizing, and recording the heterogeneity and fluidity of Maya, indigenous and diasporic communities. Because the program can also be accessed through archives on the Internet, it allows for the incorporation of histories transmitted in Contacto Ancestral in a global exchange of information and culture, which takes place with other indigenous communities and non-indigenous peoples. This is particularly significant for the Maya diaspora in Los Angeles, as it creates a place from which to affirm a collective transnational history while claiming a public space on the airwaves and Internet that has historically been denied to indigenous communities. The transmission of these transnational histories from multiple perspectives and voices challenges “what counts as national history and how that history is told” (Cvetkovich, 2003, 251). These experiences and memories on a variety of social issues stemming from displacement, sexual violence and genocide are told on the air in Maya languages, or in a Spanish that is encoded with indigenous worldviews. In doing so, the programmers and guests on the show also construct a public record of these historical memories. Equally important is the space the program affords to the voices of those who have, what scholar Marianne Hirsch calls, a “living connection” to these local and hemispheric histories (2008). Some of these personal memories and collective histories are shared on shows dedicated to the remembrance of key dates for Mayas in Guatemala. For example, on the Monday before 31 January, which commemorates the massacre in the Guatemalan Spanish Embassy, interviews are conducted with relatives of the victims, or activists who were present outside the Embassy on the day it was burned.7 In addition, the names of those who died in the Spanish Embassy are read on the air. Other shows are dedicated to remembering the foundation of historically important Maya organizations in Guatemala like the Comite´ de Unidad Campesina (CUC) and the Coordinadora r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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7 On 31 January 1980 the Guatemalan state burned the Spanish
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Embassy and killed 36 people. The Embassy was occupied by Maya campesinos, students and activists who wanted to bring international attention to the military violence in the highlands. Among those killed was Vicente Menchu´, the father of 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchu´. 8 Guarcax was a teacher and founding member of Sotz’il Jay. He was killed on 25 August 2010. Archbishop Gerardi was killed on 26 April 1998, two days after presenting the Human Rights Report, Guatemala: Never Again! Maquı´n helped lead land rights movements in Alta Verapaz and was killed in the 1979 Panzo´s massacre. Torres Lezama was an influential union leader in Guatemala and died on 8 February 2012. Historian Jan de Vos wrote extensively on Mayas in Chiapas, Mexico and died on 24 July 2011. Contacto Ancestral
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Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala (CONAVIGUA) as well as the memory of Maya, and non-Maya leaders whose work made significant contributions to indigenous communities. Some of the programs have focused on: Leonardo Lisandro Guarcax, Archbishop Juan Jose´ Gerardi, Mama Maquı´n, Enrique “Quique” Torres Lezama, Jan de Vos, among many others.8 At the same time, several shows are centered on national struggles and solidarities. For instance, in the days before the thanksgiving holiday, a program contextualizing the date from the perspective of Native American communities is produced. Other shows focus on more recent local struggles and solidarities such as, the program on 10 November 2008, which discussed the historical statewide efforts of LGBT communities to regain their right for same-sex marriage. In this program Javier Angulo, Deputy Political Director of the No on Proposition 8 for HONOR PAC, and Rau´l An˜orve, director of the Institute of Popular Education in Southern California (IDESPCA), were interviewed.9 Manuel Felipe Pe´rez, Maya-Achı´ and a founding member of Contacto Ancestral, noted during the interview with Angulo that minimal attention was given before the November election to educating Spanish-speaking people, who reportedly voted in large numbers for Proposition 8, which denies the rights of LGBT communities. Angulo responded by stating: … we did not have the funds until two weeks before the elections when we started [paid] announcements in Spanish-language media … it is important to recognize that 8 years ago Latinos voted 70% to eliminate the rights of the LGBT community. In these elections it was 53% [that voted in favor of Proposition 8] … (Contacto Ancestral, 2008b) Javier Angulo’s assertion that funds are needed to access mainstream media illustrates the underlying tensions of conventional Spanish-language media, which limits advocacy work unless it serves to uphold American ideals and capitalist interests. In contrast, grassroots radio programs, like Contacto Ancestral, aim to create a space for community empowerment through the articulation of transnational identities that are inclusive of ethnic, racial, class, linguistic and sexual differences. This is demonstrated in Pe´rez’s response to Angulo: [in this discussion] it is important to make more visible the [solidarity] work of the LGBT community with the [historical] struggles for immigrant rights … the link also needs to be made more clear in regards to how a mentality of discrimination is what also marginalizes immigrant [and indigenous] communities and what led people to vote for Proposition 8 … (Contacto Ancestral, 2008b) Pe´rez’s attention to how we understand discrimination and marginalization is central in generating a space from which to deconstruct dominant notions of r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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Latinidad, particularly, if we consider the ways that mainstream Spanishlanguage radio, in its mediation and construction of Latino culture, inserts homophobic, racist and sexist discourses. Moreover, his assertion, and dialogue with Angulo, supplements the historical record on the every day struggles faced by LGBT communities in the state. Pe´rez’s emphasis on the historical solidarity between marginalized communities in the area helps maintain a public record of various forms of coalitions between diverse peoples and communities in the city. This type of solidarity is equally reflected in the transnational collaboration Contacto Ancestral maintains with various indigenous and human rights organizations. The 21 December 2009 program focused on the recently uncovered Guatemalan military documents called “Operation Sofia,” which details the military’s strategic plans to eliminate Mayas in the Ixil region during the civil war. Three guests from Guatemala representing human rights and Maya organizations were interviewed: Pedro Sambrano, a Maya-Ixil political analyst, Estuardo Galiano, a Ladino Guatemalan from the human rights organization Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM), and Lucı´a Quila´ Colo, a Maya-Kaqchiquel activist and founding member of the Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala (CONAVIGUA). In this particular program, calls were taken during the broadcast. Francisco, a caller, began his comments on the air in K’iche’. Later, he switched to Spanish and noted: “I am from the northern part of El Quiche´ from a community called El Desengan˜o in San Miguel Uspanta´n … it was there where I lost my family … my father, who to date we have not been able to exhume his body” (2009b). His bilingual declaration publicly denounced the systematic violence he and his family personally experienced, while also contesting US and Guatemalan national histories where the voices of the 1.5 million displaced, many of them Maya like Francisco, are silenced. Furthermore, the linguistic exchange in K’iche’ and Spanish not only highlights the heterogeneity of Contacto Ancestral’s audience and resistance by the Maya diaspora towards assimilation, but also the ways in which the program creates a space where transnational identities and communities are created and affirmed. The dialogue on the historically significant “Operation Sofia” documents takes places across geographical areas, generations and ethnic communities. This is evidenced in the ways Francisco’s experience is shared by another caller, Ne´stor, a Ladino Guatemalan who states:
produced his last interview. 9 Rau´l An˜orve had just ended his 21-day hunger strike. He started the hunger strike before the November elections to bring national attention to the struggles of immigrants and the hopes of a just immigration reform.
I want to make a call to action to all the family members, like me, who were affected [by the civil war] to continue fighting for justice … My father was a union leader … He fought for the rights of workers … recently, a week ago, on December 12, I found out that there is a clandestine cemetery where an exhumation will take place … And it is believed my father could be buried there … My wish is to find my father’s body [and give him a burial]. (Contacto Ancestral, 2009b) r 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
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The personal experiences shared publicly by Francisco and Ne´stor as well as their “living connection” to the past allows for a transgenerational transmission of these histories to take place. It is from the voices of these living witnesses that young Maya, and Ladino, Guatemalans born after 1996 and, or, in the United States learn about the history of that nation’s civil war and its links to their lives in this country. Moreover, these transnational exchanges on personal and collective histories are also in tune with an “emotional memory, [that includes] those details of experience that are affective, sensory, often highly specific and personal” (Cvetkovich, 2003, 242). It is the ability to record this “emotional memory” that makes Contacto Ancestral’s audible community-based archive essential in the contestation, elaboration and preservation of these transnational histories. By making visible the collective memories of Maya, indigenous and Ladino diasporic communities, Contacto Ancestral allows for the recognition of these transnational identities in the United States. The array of voices and languages heard on Contacto Ancestral facilitates the re-enactment of broader transnational Maya histories. These voices in Maya and Guatemalan Spanish transmitted in the airwaves and cyberspace highlight and record the heterogeneity of Latino/American identities and cultures.
E n a c t i ng a Tran s n a t i o n a l Maya Id e nt i t y Contacto Ancestral contributes to the hemispheric efforts of indigenous organizations to reaffirm and revitalize indigenous sociocultural and political rights. The program’s production also demonstrates a continuous resistance to the everyday violence that immigrants, and particularly indigenous migrants, face in the United States. Contacto Ancestral serves as a transformative space for Mayas, because, as communication studies scholar Clemencia Rodrı´guez notes, this type of program becomes a producer of news, information and culture. By actively providing their own form and content in terms of the information disseminated on the airwaves, the show’s programmers cease to be, as Rodrı´guez adds, mere consumers of communication systems (2001). Their work challenges the processes of Americanization promoted by state entities and commercial Spanish and English-language broadcasts. Similarly, the program’s community-based archive provides an alternative space from which to understand the histories and experiences of indigenous peoples in the Americas and diverse diasporic communities. Moreover, Contacto Ancestral’s emphasis in transmitting multilingual voices on the airwaves allows diasporic communities to question and expand conventional notions of history, identity, home, belonging and citizenship. These efforts are not only shared with other, non-commercial grassroots, Latino radio programs in California, but are simultaneously complicated by the very act of sharing them. This is important, considering the rapid expansion and 224
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homogenization of mainstream Spanish-language radio. Finally, Contacto Ancestral’s focus on interethnic collaborations and cultural empowerment produces, to borrow literary critic Mary Louise Pratt’s concept, a contact zone, one where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other (1991). It is in this contact zone, where a broader transnational Maya identity is re-enacted, emitted and heard.
About t he Auth o r Alicia Ivonne Estrada is Associate Professor in the Chicana/o Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. Her research focuses on Maya cultural productions in Guatemala and the United States. She has published articles on contemporary Maya literature and film. She is currently finishing a book manuscript on the Maya diaspora in Los Angeles, California and beginning a new research project on contemporary literature by Central Americans in the United States (E-mail:
[email protected]).
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