Education, Indigenous Rights, and Ethnic Mobilization in Peru

10.1177/0094582X02239145ARTICLELATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES García / EDUCATION, RIGHTS, MOBILIZATION IN PERU

The Politics of Community

Education, Indigenous Rights,and Ethnic Mobilization in Peru

byMaría Elena García

Wrapping an alpaca blanket around my body, already layered with ther-mal underwear, two long-sleeved shirts, a sweater, and a fleece jacket, I sathuddled close to Juana,1 a good friend and the director of a small school inCcara, a community in a harshly cold and desolate region of Cuzco, Peru. Wewere listening to a small group of self-labeled authorities on education pol-icy, including a representative of the Peruvian government’s regional educa-tion center, a teacher-trainer from a local nongovernmental organization(NGO) involved in education programs in the area, a health specialist fromthe nearest medical post (about a five-hour walk away), and a teacher from acommunity near the highland city of Cuzco. Packed into one of the threeclassrooms that made up the school, women and men from Ccara listenedpatiently to the reasons the visitors presented for the forthcoming change intheir children’s education. By way of introduction, the NGO representativeproudly informed them that Ccara had been chosen as one of ten communi-ties that the Ministry of Education in Lima (the Peruvian capital) had recentlyadded to its jurisdiction. This meant, among other things, that teaching attheir school would no longer be conducted in Spanish only.

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María Elena García received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Brown University. Her researchexplores the impact of education reform and cultural revival programs on the development ofindigenous mobilization in the Peruvian highlands. She spent two years as a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for the Americas at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and isnow an assistant professor of anthropology at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Theresearch on which this article is based was funded by the Watson Institute for InternationalStudies at Brown University, by a Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship, and by a Foreign Languageand Area Study Fellowship, and it was supported generously by the Center for Latin AmericanStudies at Brown University. The author thanks Tom Perreault, Donna Lee Van Cott, and PatrickC. Wilson for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. She is grateful to theanonymous reviewers of the article for their very useful recommendations. She thanks JoséAntonio Lucero for his always challenging suggestions and constant support. Of course, shetakes full responsibility for the final piece.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 128, Vol. 30 No. 1, January 2003 70-95DOI: 10.1177/0094582X02239145© 2003 Latin American Perspectives

At this point, the highland teacher who had come with the authoritieslaunched into a discussion about the importance of using a child’s native lan-guage—in this case Quechua—prior to a second language—Spanish—inteaching reading and writing.2 “If your children learn how to read and write inQuechua,” he said, “they will then be able to learn Spanish much better andfaster than if we try to develop reading and writing skills in a language withwhich they are not familiar.”3 At this, some of the parents, with obvious dis-satisfaction on their faces, began muttering among themselves and raisingtheir hands as a sign of their desire to speak. Realizing that the communitymembers’ concerns might not be heard, Luis, the president, stood up andchallenged the proposal. In eloquent Spanish, he claimed to speak for all theparents of children from his community and stated that teaching the childrenof Ccara in Quechua would only limit their future possibilities. “They learnQuechua from us, their parents, in their homes with their families. In schoolthey need to learn the skills that will help them become something more thanjust campesinos. Look at you,” he said, pointing to the teacher. “You aredressed in misti [mestizo] clothes, you speak Spanish and probably English,and you are in a position of power. Did you learn how to read and write inQuechua or in Spanish?”

The struggle for language rights and higher-quality education in Peru is atthe heart of debates in the highlands about the rights of indigenous Peruviansas full citizens of the nation-state.4 Since the early 1990s intellectuals andcultural activists—including linguists, anthropologists, writers, teachers,and pedagogos (education theoreticians)—have advanced a radical educa-tion reform in the highland regions.5 Working simultaneously from withinPeruvian state agencies and regional NGOs, with support from European-based international organizations and indigenous leaders in neighboringAndean countries, this group of activists promotes the development of a uni-fied Quechua ethnic identity among highland Quechua peoples through theimplementation of bilingual intercultural education. These activists demandthe incorporation of indigenous languages and cultural practices intonational language and education policy. Making the national education sys-tem more intercultural,6 activists argue, will better equip indigenous peopleto empower themselves and demand that the state grant them rights as indige-nous citizens. In this way, they claim, their efforts also contribute to the dem-ocratic development of civil society in the country.7 Paradoxically, however,leaders in the move toward indigenous rights have encountered the strongestopposition to their proclamations from indigenous highlanders themselves.For Peruvian Quechuas, citizenship is equated with economic advancementand the ability to elevate one’s social status. While advocates for educationreform claim that these goals can be reached through education that

García / EDUCATION, RIGHTS, MOBILIZATION IN PERU 71

emphasizes cultural and ethnic diversity, the Quechua-speaking people withwhom I worked for 17 months in Cuzco believe that climbing the Peruviansocial ladder is possible only by learning Spanish. “The right to language,” aQuechua mother of two young boys told me, “means having the right to knowthat my two sons are being taught well in school. In other words, they need tolearn how to read and write and speak in Spanish!”

In the following pages I explore recent efforts of indigenous Peruvians totransform local politics in the Southern Peruvian highlands. Through anexamination of the dialectic between various groups and individuals involvedin discussions about the identity, rights, and education of indigenous Peruvi-ans, I hope to illustrate how the actions of education and cultural activists inthe Peruvian highlands in recent years, although problematic in many ways,have intensified indigenous mobilization in the country. I should note here,however, that activist efforts at changing education and language policies inthe country are not the sole basis for grassroots organization. Rather, indige-nous politics in the Peruvian countryside are shaped by activist efforts, high-land teacher interpretations of these efforts, Quechua parent mobilizationagainst activists and toward the attainment of their own goals, and recentactivist reactions to this rejection—particularly the emphasis on the trainingof indigenous intellectuals.8 All these actions have collided to spark a verydifferent movement from the one originally envisioned by activists. This par-adoxical synergy lies at the core of indigenous politics in Peru.

PERUVIAN INDIGENOUS POLITICSIN THE LATIN AMERICAN CONTEXT

As do leaders of indigenous organizations in other Latin American coun-tries, advocates of bilingual intercultural education in the Peruvian Andesdemand government attention to the cultural and political rights of indige-nous groups by asking for the recognition and legitimation of linguistic andethnic differences (Stavenhagen, 1992; Brysk, 1996; Van Cott, 1994).Although the Peruvian case can be examined as an example of the particularways in which Latin American indigenous groups and their representativesare demanding ethnic and cultural autonomy throughout the region,9 it ismore often cited by scholars as an anomaly (Albó, 1991; Degregori, 1998b;Yashar, 1998). In other Andean countries, such as Ecuador, Bolivia, andColombia, the 1990s saw the emergence of powerful national indigenousorganizations. Yet in Peru—a country in which approximately 40 percent ofthe population are considered indigenous—no national highland indigenousorganization exists.10

72 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Scholars and advocates of indigenous movements lament the lack ofindigenous political activity in Peru and offer a variety of explanations forthis “absence” of ethnic mobilization.11 Among these reasons are the Marxistgovernment policies of the late 1960s and 1970s that organized highland pop-ulations around class-based labels and social programs. The prohibition ofthe use of the term “Indian” by Velasco Alvarado (1968–1975), promotinginstead Quechua identification as peasants, is also commonly presented as anexplanation. However, one of the most common arguments points to the per-vasive fear of arrest or death that deterred most from organizing politically inthe 1980s and early 1990s. During this time, political violence, repression,and persecution—on the part of both the Peruvian government and SenderoLuminoso and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (Túpac AmaruRevolutionary Movement—MRTA)—had a tremendous negative impact onthe spaces available for grassroots organization in Peru. Sendero militantseliminated all rival sources of political power, and government forces inter-preted any sort of gathering as potentially subversive. Because Sendero origi-nated in the highlands, the government (especially in the early 1980s) oftenassumed a link between the organization and Andean indigenous communi-ties, making it particularly difficult to organize around ethnic banners.12 Thisclimate of fear and suspicion was still present during my time in Peru, thoughit had begun to subside toward the end of my fieldwork in 1998.13

While the political violence of the past two decades clearly inhibitedsocial mobilization in the country, another part of this story has to do with thelabels that social scientists and indigenous rights activists attach to indige-nous organizing. The emergence of indigenous politics in Latin America hasbeen described, for example, as resulting from broader processes of both “re-Indianization” and “de-Indianization.” Scholars such as Charles Hale (1997)and Jean Jackson (1991) contend that the relatively recent appropriation byindigenous groups of indigenous designations such as Aymara in Bolivia andMaya in Guatemala and their rejection of both the term indígena and the term“mestizo” imply the re-Indianization of these groups. For others, such asPeruvian anthropologist Marisol de la Cadena, this same process is bestdescribed as de-Indianization, since broader indigenous identity is pushedaside to make room for more specific ethnic or linguistic designations.According to her, historical conditions have led Peruvian Andeans(Cuzqueños specifically) to appropriate and redefine the term “mestizo” as away “to develop de-Indianization as a decolonizing indigenous strategy”(2000: 325). De la Cadena examines primarily the lives of urban Cuzqueñointellectual elites, university students, market women, and others who, sheargues, expand their mestizo identity to include indigenous practices. More-over, after examining perceptions of race, culture, and ethnicity in Peru


historically, she argues that the gradual collapse of racial and ethnic identifi-cation under the broader label of “culture” accounts for the lack of recognizedethnic mobilization in the country because the possibility of indigenous mes-tizo activism is not usually considered “ethnic” activism.

I agree with de la Cadena that the complex historical construction of eth-nic activism is crucial to understanding indigenous politics. However, myresearch in rural and urban Cuzco points to different ideas about indigenousidentity, particularly as a political strategy. The forceful attempts byintercultural activists to introduce Indianness as a significant identity cate-gory among Quechua highlanders, the awareness, rejection, and manipula-tion of this category by Quechua parents, and the self-presentation of newlytrained indigenous leaders as indígenas all indicate the beginning of some-thing quite different from that described by de la Cadena. Peruvian indige-nous politics is unfolding in local, national, and transnational spaces. As Ihave discussed elsewhere (García, 2001), the emergence of a new generationof Peruvian indigenous intellectuals in transnational institutions is particu-larly interesting. However, while the local and the transnational are interre-lated, for the purpose of this article I focus on highland community contexts.

MOVEMENTS, LANGUAGE, AND IDENTITY

Initiatives by advocates of bilingual intercultural education—such asteacher-training workshops, parent schools, and the implementation of theprogram in highland classrooms—are developing into potential new spacesfor sociopolitical debate and action. William Roseberry provides a usefulframework for understanding the development of identity politics in Peru. Heargues (1996: 83–84) that we should understand ethnicity as “languages ofcommunity and contention”:

Languages of ethnicity [and] nationalism . . . draw upon images of primordialassociations and identifications but take their specific and practical forms aslanguages of contention and opposition [in the present]. They typically involvemovements for “our” people, “our” culture” . . . against . . . minority rule. Theimages, and the movements they inspire, are products of and responses toparticular forces, structures, and events . . . and they derive their community-forming power from their apparent relationship to those forces and events.

On the surface, bilingual education activists in Cuzco appear as leaders ofan emerging ethnic movement speaking on behalf of Quechua people againstcriollo elite minority rule. Promoting indigenous language revival and main-tenance, cultural pride, and ethnic identity through attempts at education


reform, their actions are conditioned by the sociopolitical environment inPeru after over a decade of civil war (1980–1992). They are also heavilyinfluenced by the internationalization of indigenous Latin American move-ments (Brysk, 2000). Yet, a closer look might show that these activists arefailing in their efforts at indigenous ethnic mobilization. Parents of Quechuachildren in highland schools reject bilingual education and generally con-sider the activists outsiders trying to impose disadvantageous educationalchanges. Teachers of Quechua children either reject the program or find itworthy in theory but impossible to implement, even after intensive trainingworkshops and sessions geared toward inculcating in them an “intercultural”mentality. These teachers continue to face tremendous obstacles in their rou-tine attempts at teaching indigenous children, although they now criticize theactivists specifically for presenting pedagogic guidelines that, according to manyof them, have proven useless for the improvement of education in the highlands.

Nevertheless, by exploring the effects of criticism of bilingual inter-cultural education and its proponents and by examining the consequences ofthe conflict caused in highland communities and schools by its implementa-tion, my research in Cuzco reveals the development of certain kinds of “lan-guages of contention and community.” As Roseberry suggests, these “lan-guages” point to particular ways in which ethnicity in the Peruvian highlandsis being played out. Teacher and parent responses to and participation in theprocess of education reform and cultural and linguistic revival play a signifi-cant role in the evolution of such community-organizing discourses, butactivist answers to these responses also form part of this process.

Most examinations of the cultural distinctiveness of Amerindian groupshighlight the endangerment of indigenous languages (Hornberger, 1997a)and propose solutions for their defense and development (Godenzzi, 1992;Hornberger, 1997b). As these scholars and other activist groups have shown,the fight for linguistic rights is clearly linked to the fight for culture, territory,and full civic participation. The question of language rights is especiallyimportant, however, when we consider that often the speakers of endangeredlanguages are fighting not for the defense of their own language but for theacquisition of a second language as a strategy for improving their economicconditions. While the social and political conditions that create such a needshould be challenged, linguistic studies focusing on the revival or “rescue” ofindigenous languages should cautiously weigh the consequences of theirassertions against the social reality of the speakers of those languages.

Commonly considered an “oppressed language” (Albó, 1977),14 Quechuais intimately linked to the struggle of its speakers against imposed linguistic,cultural, religious, and political structures. However, while in the PeruvianAndes such imposition usually involves the forced Castillianization of


indigenous Quechuas, Quechuas in highland Cuzco struggle against whatthey perceive as the imposition of education in Quechua, not in Spanish.While parents certainly reject mistreatment of their children and recognizethe discrimination against them in highland schools, they also express theirbelief in education as one way to mitigate these prejudices.

For indigenous leaders working toward self-determination for their com-munities as for bilingual-education activists, the link between language andboth cultural and national identity is clear. But while defending, maintaining,and preventing the “deterioration” of Quechua is of vital importance to bilin-gual-education activists,15 acquisition of Spanish—as the language of widersocial accessibility—is essential for the social advancement of indigenoushighlanders. Activists claim to be working toward the elevation of Quechuato equal status with Spanish, and they focus on Spanish, English, and “globaltools” as part of the training offered to select indigenous intellectuals. How-ever, Quechua parents and community leaders feel that they do not addressthe linguistic hierarchies in place in the country today. While activists recog-nize these hierarchies and acknowledge that they will take a long time tochange, their work with teachers, parents, and children does not seem to takethem into account.

It is worth mentioning that there is a strong sense among Quechua-speak-ers in the highlands of Cuzco that Quechua will never disappear. In her exam-ination of bilingual education in Puno, Peru, in the 1970s and 1980s, NancyHornberger also alludes to this faith in the lasting capacity of the Quechualanguage, which she terms a “linguistic ideology of loyalty” (1988). Activ-ists, however, fear that teaching Spanish at the expense of Quechua will inevi-tably lead to the extinction of the Quechua language and, by extension, to theloss of Quechua cultural practices and identity.

A critical distinction between indigenous politics in Peru at this time andother indigenous movements in the Andes is that the Peruvian activistsinvolved in the implementation of bilingual intercultural education inCuzco’s highland schools do not self-identify as indigenous. Most of themare mestizos16 from Lima or Andean cities (Cuzco, Puno, Arequipa). Manyactivists also espouse an indigenista17 ideological and political stance and inmost cases were directly involved with the progressive education and lan-guage policies implemented by the government of Velasco Alvarado in thelate 1960s and 1970s. All have achieved at least a university education.18

In her study of the globalization of indigenous movements, Alison Bryskinsists that cultural rights such as bilingual education and language revivalare among the “unambiguous improvements” achieved by indigenous orga-nizing in Latin America (2000: 254). The linkage of language policy issues toindigenous mobilization has, indeed, had some important consequences,


among which are access to resources for the promotion of the study andrevalorization of indigenous languages. Activists in Peru and throughout theregion see these educational initiatives as a way to remove the stigma fromindigenous languages, promote literacy in those languages, and elevate thesocial status of indigenous people to allow for intercultural dialogue ratherthan just multicultural tolerance. The case of intercultural education in Peru,however, complicates Brysk’s “unambiguous” picture and the optimism ofbilingual-education activists.19

QUECHUA PARENTS AND THEPOLITICIZATION OF COMMUNITY

As a way to promote their ideals among parents who tend to reject bilin-gual education, activists established parent schools—gatherings of activists,teachers, and parents in which all are expected to interact and discuss the edu-cational changes taking place in highland schools and the problems that,according to activists, hinder children’s learning. Activists tell teachers thatthe principal focus of these schools is to educate parents about their chil-dren’s health, to convince them of the positive effects of intercultural andbilingual education, and to provide a forum in which they can raise questionsand exchange ideas about these subjects with teachers and activists. Theactivists and teachers leading these schools address issues such as malnutri-tion, first aid, family abandonment, school dropout rates, child abuse (physi-cal, emotional, and sexual), and illiteracy.

One of the first times I attended such a school was in Yanacocha, a com-munity in the highlands of Cuzco. When I arrived, approximately 20 men andwomen were in a small classroom. Most of the men were seated on desks orbenches that had been made available for the meeting. Except for a select few,the women were all seated on the dirt floor of the classroom. As they waitedfor the organizers to arrive, the men sat quietly and the women tended to theinfants that most had brought with them. Once the session leaders entered theroom, the parents rustled around a bit, but no one spoke until the director wel-comed them, in Quechua. At this meeting, the teacher-trainer began the ses-sion by asking parents, in both Quechua and Spanish, to compare the situa-tion in education before bilingual education reform and after. One afteranother, men stood up and talked, in Spanish, about respect.

Before, we were hit if we spoke Quechua; we were not allowed to speak thelanguage anywhere, not even outside of school. If a teacher saw us talking inQuechua, he would yell at us and we would get it in school the next day. Now,


we are told these things will change. Our children will not be hit any more, andthey will learn in Quechua and schools will teach Quechua and Spanish.

Once I was in the market with my friend, and we were talking to each other inQuechua, and we ran into our teacher from school. He heard us and said, “Youdumb Indians. You will never be anything but dumb Indians because you willnever learn.” My friend and I didn’t go to school again for a week because wewere scared of the teacher. But the next time we went to school, he had not for-gotten, and he gave it to us with the stick. But the worst part was not the pain ofthe stick. It was the shame of what he said about us being dumb and being Indi-ans. Now, they tell us, our children will not be ashamed, and I think that is good.

Four more men stood up after the first two, all speaking about similar experi-ences and ending with short acknowledgments of the potential benefits ofbilingual education for their children. Encouraged by the apparent support ofthe community for bilingual-education policies, the teacher-trainer thankedthe fathers who spoke for sharing their stories and used them to justify whathe labeled “the new education.” Launching into a discussion about the impor-tance of developing self-esteem among children and using their “previousknowledge” to build new concepts, he then shifted to statements aboutincreased parental involvement with their children’s education: “You are nowresponsible for your child’s education. It will no longer be the sole responsi-bility of the teacher, because you need to work with your children so that theywill be better citizens.”

At this last statement, one of the mothers present gathered her skirts,picked herself up from the ground, and began to speak in Quechua:

Our husbands have not made themselves clear. We do not think this change isgood for our children. They speak Quechua with us, and they should speakSpanish in school. That is what school is for. If it is for teaching Quechua, whyshould we waste our time sending our children to school, when they can speakat home? And being a citizen means speaking Spanish.

Finished, she sat back down abruptly and her husband stood up to speak next:

As my wife has said, we are not in favor of this change. We think that nowteachers are not expected to do any work and that you want our children to staypoor and be like us. What I want most for my son is that he is not a campesinolike me. And being an Indian is worse! So you shouldn’t tell [our children] to beIndian!

The teacher-trainer seemed somewhat taken aback by the suddenness ofthese attacks, but he regained his composure quickly and countered with a setof questions: “How much did school help you? Do you think you speak Span-ish well? Did going to school and being spoken to only in Spanish help you


become wealthier? Don’t you understand that this change is not an option? Itcomes from the Ministry [of Education] and is mandatory.”

Reference to the Ministry of Education in Lima was a common strategy.According to many activists, “it helps them listen if they think it is manda-tory,” and once parents are “listening” they present the pedagogical reasoningfor teaching reading and writing in Quechua—why this does not hinder thelearning of Spanish and how it can actually help their children learn a thirdlanguage, such as English. This was not the first time I had heard activistsinvoke the state—identified as the government, the president, or the Ministryof Education—as a way of legitimating their authority. My reaction the firsttime I heard such use of official authority was that by representing them-selves as agents of the state, activists were risking losing the grassrootsmomentum they so desired and turning their “movement” into a local appli-cation of state policy. When I asked Chacho, one of the leading Andean activ-ists, why they linked themselves to the state, he replied forcefully: “We arenot linking ourselves to the state . . . but for now, we do depend on [the govern-ment’s Bilingual Intercultural Education Unit], for example, for materialssuch as bilingual teaching guidelines.”

Another activist responded that, while unfortunate, invoking the Ministrywas necessary, although only at the beginning. “Things will change whenQuechuas look beyond simple language issues to more political ones,” hesaid. This activist ignored the fact that these “simple language issues” hadcurrently become important topics of debate among parents in large partbecause activists had infused them with political import by imposing lan-guage policies that Quechuas found unacceptable. As did most other activ-ists, he also ignored the effect that their use of state legitimation of their activ-ities was having on parents of children affected by bilingual education. Asparents increasingly linked the activists with the state, they also began to actout against bilingual-education policies by demanding changes from thestate’s regional education offices and their representatives. Significantly,during municipal and other local government elections in October 1998, agroup of fathers from several highland communities organized to voteagainst the candidate who supported bilingual education. When I spoke withQuechuas about voting or elections in the country, they generally seemedambivalent about the process, recognizing the corruption characteristic ofpolitical institutions in Peru. Yet during these particular elections, fathersdecided to make the trip to the city of Cuzco and participate.

Returning to the discussion during the parents’ school gathering, theseefforts at legitimation backfired. After this session, activists were unable toschedule another meeting. Parents were angry. After the meeting, Tomás, afather who had attended the gathering, confronted the teacher-trainer with an


interesting question: “You want us to say it is good that you teach our childrenin Quechua,” he began. “But if that is so good for our children, why don’t youteach your own children in Quechua too? Why do you send them to French orEnglish institutes?” Pointing to the fact that many activists do, in fact, sendtheir children to the Alliance Française or to the North American Institute inCuzco and not to regional Quechua-language institutes, this father was mak-ing a statement about the socioeconomic and ethnic identities associated withlanguage. In Peru, only upper-middle-class or upper-class families can affordto send their children to private language institutes. By emphasizing the realconnection in Peru between language, class, and prestige, Tomás was makinga simple point: Teach our children Quechua, and they will remain poor. Teachthem Spanish, English, or French, and they will get ahead. When I spoke withTomás later that evening, he reiterated these concerns: “If Quechua were priv-ileged the situation might be different, and we might even want our children toread and write in our language. But until that happens, our tactics for theimprovement of our children’s education are still determined by our reality.”

Activists often express frustration about parents’ “lack of understanding”and lack of support: “I wish they would see that we are working for them andthat what we want is for them to realize that they have rights! That they havethe right to use their language and to education, for example, because they arecitizens.” The activist who said this insisted that parental rejection was due toa lack of understanding, a lack of internalization of their rights as citizens ofPeru. She failed to see, however, that parents rejected bilingual education forthe same reasons she thought they should support it. Trying to exercise theirrights to language and education, parents demanded the right to access to thedominant language and to education that would provide that access.

CHALLENGING ADVOCACY: INDIGENOUSWOMEN, EDUCATION, AND POWER

A couple who had attended the parent school and heard me talking withTomás after the meeting approached us. After Tomás finished his thought, Iasked the couple why they had attended the meeting and how they felt abouttheir children’s education. The husband answered:

We went because they said benefits would come to those who went. But we alsowent because we wanted to have our voices heard, and we did not want our chil-dren to go to school to learn Quechua. We will continue to fight because if weallow this to happen, our children will continue to exist in this country withoutbeing part of it.


To this his wife, Gloria, added that their daughter, Laura, had recently movedto Cuzco to work as a maid. She looked to her husband, and he finished herthought: “The man from that house abused her. . . . He knew he could do itbecause no one would care about her, because she had no one in Cuzco. Nowshe has returned and . . . she will stay with us. She can’t speak Spanish, andthat is why she was abused.”

Gloria later told me that her own parents had sent her to school, where hermale teacher had raped her. Ashamed, she had never told her parents abouthis abuse, but she had also refused to return to school, and because of this shehad been severely punished by her father. “My brothers also took advantageof the fact that my father hit me, so they would beat me up too and call me stu-pid because I did not like school. But I knew it would be worse if they knewwhy I did not want to go. I was afraid they would hit me harder for that.” Gloriafeared that the same would happen to her daughter if she sent her to school,and this is why she had only sent her sons there. “But,” she told me, “I heardsome mothers talking the other day about learning how to read and write sothey can teach their children at home. This would be good for me, so I canteach my daughter, and she doesn’t have to go anywhere. Do you know any-thing about this?” she asked.

Gloria’s comments were the first I heard about mothers organizing liter-acy sessions. I soon became aware, however, that women were organizing todemand literacy training for mothers from the NGOs working in their com-munity’s school. Their strategy was to propose to teachers and teacher-train-ers that if they taught mothers Spanish by teaching them to read in Quechua(“the way [teachers] say they teach our children”), then the mothers wouldsupport activist efforts at modifying their children’s education. “If we learnSpanish,” Rosario, a mother from the same community, told me, “then we canhelp our own children, especially if the schools are teaching in Quechuaonly.” These mothers were proposing to take control of what their childrenlearned by consciously developing a way to use the NGO for their ownpurposes.

During a trip to a community elsewhere in the highlands, I discussed theseexperiences with Ignacio, the community president. After some general con-versation on education I asked him if he had heard about any women in thecommunity who had been organizing literacy teaching groups. He had: “[Agroup of mothers] just asked Madre Leticia (one of the regional bilingual-education supervisors) about this a few days ago. She thought it was a greatidea . . . and asked the NGO director. But she says the NGO cannot get some-one up to the community to teach them until next month . . . and they reallywant to start.” Unfortunately, by the time mothers were beginning to organizeinto literacy groups in late 1998, I was preparing to leave the country, so I was


unable to attend one or follow the development of one of these groups. How-ever, when I returned to Peru in 1999 I found out that two of the NGOs withwhich I had worked in Cuzco were becoming more and more involved withadult literacy. The director of one of them was working on a request for fund-ing for such a project. The NGO personnel with whom I discussed these ini-tiatives all stated that it was a sign of the patience and tolerance of mothersand the intransigence of fathers who continued to challenge their programs.“I love watching these women try to learn how to read. You should see theirfaces,” Ilda, a program coordinator told me. “They are so happy, and for usthis is a great sign of their acceptance of Quechua and of our goals.”

In August 1999 I talked with Chacho about the challenges bilingual-education activists faced in the coming years. When I asked him specifi-cally if the parent schools had helped in their endeavor, he replied: “Some.I’ve heard about literacy programs that some NGOs are conducting withmothers. That seems to be a positive result.” And after a moment of silence,he continued:

What we want is the affirmation of all our indigenous people in the face ofsocial discrimination. But to do that we need to rediscover our own culture, andQuechua highlanders need to discover new possibilities of reading their ownreality. I think parents of Quechua children are only very much aware of theirreality today. Unfortunately, unless they can look ahead—and I know it is hardto do when you have to look at your present, not your future, to survive—parents will remain opposed, in general, to bilingual intercultural educationand to us. This also means that parents will, because of their attitude, maintaintheir children in their existing conditions of marginalization.

For Chacho, it seemed, the fact that mothers were learning how to read andwrite in Quechua and Spanish was a “positive result” that had not capturedmuch of his attention. And yet, Quechua mothers were looking to their chil-dren’s future by learning skills that would help remove them from the possi-bility of marginalization in Peruvian society.

CRAFTING SPACES FORINDIGENOUS EMPOWERMENT:

COMMUNITY-CONTROLLED SCHOOLS

Even if including the concerns of Quechua parents is part of activists’ the-oretical goals, they have failed to do so in practice. Although they acknowl-edge the importance of Spanish, for example, implementation of the programstill focuses on Quechua. The parents with whom I spoke say that this makes


them feel that activists like Chacho disregard their opinions. While activistsclearly state that they recognize the importance of indigenous participation inthe development of education and language policies that affect them, theyalso question Quechua parents’ capacity to choose what is best for their chil-dren and underestimate their understanding of bilingual education as a proj-ect and as a pedagogical innovation. Chacho’s comments and those of manyother activists projected images of Quechua parents discriminating againsttheir own children. As Miriam put it, “[Quechua parents] do not even realizethat they are hurting their children’s self-esteem and development because oftheir own narrow views.” Parents had perceived this attitude and talked aboutit with me. “We understand what they want to do,” Roberto, father of two andcommunity president, told me:

[Activists] think we are stupid. They talk to us as if we were dumb. Why wouldthey think that we want to hurt our children? If this education they proposedproved better, then we would accept it. But we have no results. They have givenus no results. And we live this reality. They are outsiders. We know what ourchildren need, so they do not have to experience the kind of marginalizationthat we have. . . . What we need is our own school, run by our own community,with our own wise men (yachaqkuna) to teach.

The reference to Quechua wise men or elders as teachers surprised me,because these men are respected for their extensive cultural and religiousknowledge and tend to speak only Quechua. The reference to a community-controlled school intrigued me, especially when I thought back to thedemands for literacy, education, and citizenship of the Tawantinsuyu indige-nous movement of the 1920s and the state’s attempts during the 1970s atrestructuring education by promoting collaboration between teachers, staterepresentatives, and Quechua parents. Also, before this particular conversa-tion with Roberto I had traveled to Bolivia, where a friend and director of anagricultural NGO had been involved for many years with the creation anddevelopment of a Quechua community-run school. In Rumipampa, commu-nity leaders had handpicked several yachaqkuna to be trained in bilingual lit-eracy and pedagogy by the NGO. Having first established their own schoolparallel to the local state school, parents in the community gradually began towithdraw their children from the state school and enroll them instead in theirown. Eventually, after years of conflict with the state, residents ofRumipampa won, and the state school was shut down.

Returning to Roberto’s comments, I asked him to expand on his referenceto the Quechua yachaq. He smiled, understanding my confusion, and said, “Anew kind of yachaq. Not elders, but young ones, who are from our commu-nity but who speak Spanish and can help us.” He said that this was something


that he and the other community leaders had discussed several times and thatthey were just trying to figure out how to carry out their plan. Mainly, theywere concerned about training the yachaq, whom they had already selected,so that they would be capable of teaching their children in Spanish.

Rumipampa was an exceptional case. The community’s school had heldon for more than 30 years, evidence of the tremendous commitment on thepart of community members to maintain their autonomy in the face of con-stant challenges by government authorities. It was also a reflection of theNGO personnel’s commitment to assist Rumipampa with its leaders’demands, even after significant disagreement with them. The case in Cuzco isdifferent because all of the NGOs in the area working with education arelinked to official state policy, which does not provide room for separate orparallel educational structures. Nevertheless, this initiative on the part ofRoberto and the community’s leaders was an extraordinary demonstration ofthe kind of local activism that is developing in the highlands as a response todissatisfaction with bilingual education. Even as activists lament the absenceof grassroots mobilization (or at least the kind of mobilization they wouldlike to see), Quechua parents are increasingly not only discussing their dissat-isfaction with the program and with the state but acting upon their feelings.

REPRESENTATION AND ETHNICMOBILIZATION: NEGOTIATING POLITICS

Roseberry’s exploration of ethnicity as languages of contention formedout of specific political struggles and structured by particular forces is usefulfor understanding the dynamics of identity politics in the Peruvian Andes. InCuzco today, expressions of ethnic identity arise from and are influenced byboth the push by activists to reclaim culture and identity through educationand the effects of state and international policies aimed at indigenous popula-tions. Yet it seems that ideas about ethnicity are also affected by highlandpeoples’ gradual realization of the potential gains associated with adoptingnew ethnic labels. The use of ancestry to manipulate present conditions suchas state funding and international aid is beginning to inspire—followingRoseberry—”community-forming” ideologies.

Exploring the politics of Indianness among the Tukanoans in the Vaupés,Colombia, Jean Jackson discusses the ways in which regional, national, andinternational Indian identity politics influence Tukanoans’ local conceptual-izations of culture (Jackson, 1995). She notes especially that Tukanoans arein a process of “becoming Indian” largely as a result of the effective mobiliza-tion of what is considered “authentic” culture and identity by non-


Tukanoans. What is significant in this process and relevant to the Peruviancase is that notions of culture and authenticity among Tukanoans havechanged as a result of the actions of indigenous activists and heightenedawareness of the potential benefits and political power afforded to their com-munities by retaining, preserving, and asserting their Indian identity (1995:12). In contrast to the Tukanoan case, in which “Indianizing” interactionsbetween local and global actors have occurred during the past decade, thesekinds of dynamics have only recently emerged in the Peruvian highlands.However, it is important to note that indigenous identity is already beingforcefully asserted by individuals designated by activists as future Andeanindigenous leaders.

Moreover, the emergence of Peruvian indigenous intellectuals is a crucialcomponent of ethnic politics in the Peruvian countryside. Selected youths aresent to a master’s program (based in Bolivia) for indigenous students fromfive Andean countries.20 At this transnational institute, students receive twoyears of training in bilingual intercultural education methodology and theoryfrom primarily European, North American, and non-indigenous Latin Amer-ican instructors. They are labeled indigenous intellectuals, leaders, and inter-national representatives of indigenous peoples, and they continuously appro-priate, challenge, and modify these labels. Given that the Peruvian highlandsare noted for a lack of indigenous identification, that the Peruvian studentsidentify themselves as Quechua intellectuals is particularly significant.

Current discussions about the politics of indigenous peoples center onexaminations of self-determination, ethnic autonomy, and political auton-omy (Montoya, 1998). In Peru, the (unintended) consequences ofintercultural policies and politics, as lived by highland Quechuas, conditionthe struggle between indigenous peoples and the state. In the Peruvian high-lands today, discourses of interculturality and ethnic citizenship havereframed the central terms of contestation.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa (1990: 52–53) writes of indige-nous Peruvians:

Indian peasants live in such a primitive way that communication is practicallyimpossible. . . . The price they must pay for integration is high—renunciationof their culture, their language; their beliefs, their traditions and customs, andthe adoption of the culture of their ancient masters. . . . Perhaps there is no real-istic way to integrate our societies other than asking the Indians to pay that


price. . . . It is tragic to destroy what is still living, still a driving cultural possi-bility . . . but I am afraid we shall have to make a choice. . . . Where there is suchan economic and social gap, modernization is possible only with the sacrificeof the Indian cultures.

Vargas Llosa’s message to indigenous Peruvians and to all other indigenouspeoples in Latin America is clear: either embrace “modernization” and“Western culture” and renounce “indigenous culture” or, as Hale (1994) putsit, “remain at the culturally defined margins of political power.” DespiteVargas Llosa’s claim that modernization and development can occur only“with the sacrifice of Indian cultures,” the powerful emergence in the pasttwo decades of indigenous leaders as successful political actors shows thatthe potential for a third option exists. Modeling themselves after Latin Amer-ican indigenous leaders but acting in a political context shaped by 20 years ofcivil war, bilingual intercultural education activists embarked upon a journeywhich, they argued, would lead to the development of Peru as a pluriethnic,plurilingual nation. This national condition, they claimed, would permit theestablishment of indigenous rights and the beginning of organized indige-nous highland mobilization, something that had been conspicuously absentfrom Peru even as indigenous movements in neighboring countries hadthrived. The efforts of these activists in the Southern Peruvian highlands haveindeed sparked the mobilization of Quechua highlanders, although not quitein the ways they had originally envisioned. The beginnings of indigenousgrassroots organization in Cuzco lie, paradoxically, in Quechua rejection ofthese efforts.

In his examination of the engagement of citizens with the nation-state ofwhich they are a part, Michael Herzfeld comments that “the control of cul-tural form allows significant play with cultural content” (1997: 2). Activists’attempts to shape the attitudes of highland parents according to their ownviews about the salience of indigenous language and cultural practices haveled Quechua parents and their community leaders to question the right of oth-ers to determine their children’s livelihood. Using the same tools as activists,some Quechua parents have devised strategies for challenging the impositionof education reform in their communities. The parent schools established toappease community opposition to bilingual education quickly became aforum in which parents could dispute activists’ interpretations of conceptssuch as citizenship and contest bilingual intercultural education. Quechuamothers, tackling the new educational changes in a slightly different way,play on the stereotypes perpetuated about them by activists and use NGOresources for their own very different ends. Organizing to petition NGOs forliteracy in both Quechua and Spanish, they look ahead to the possibility of


teaching their children basic skills in the nation’s official language. One of themost consequential examples of indigenous challenges and one that may leadto broader community organization in the highlands is the dialogue that hasrecently emerged among community leaders about community-controlledschools. While demands for community control over indigenous education inthe 1920s came from a movement composed of indigenous leaders andindigenista intellectuals, in the 1970s attempts to establish closer linksbetween schools and communities were propelled by the state. In both cases,the motivation for such initiatives was supposed to be the advancement ofindigenous peoples through the improvement of highland education. Discus-sion among Quechua community leaders about their own control of educa-tion implies a move toward self-determination. Crucial differences betweenactivist and Quechua ideas about education have turned activists’ intentionsupside down. Their discussion with Quechua parents and highland teachersabout indigenous education and indigenous rights has opened up the possibil-ity for the expression of such rights but as determined by indigenous peoplesthemselves.

As part of this dialectic, however, one of the ideals of activists does seemto be emerging. Recasting activist strategies to suit their particular needs, par-ents are trying to challenge what they perceive as the attempts of outsiders—both NGO personnel and the state—to control their children’s position insociety. Yet part of this challenge has involved, in certain cases, the internal-ization of indigenous identity, one of activists’ principal goals. Activistsargue that as indigenous peoples Quechuas should have the right to a cultur-ally sensitive education, which, for them, is bilingual intercultural education.Departing from a social reality that generally allows highland children onlyan elementary education, indigenous peoples reverse activists’ proclama-tions, stating instead that precisely because they are indigenous peopleslearning Spanish, not maintaining Quechua, is essential to their children’sdevelopment. Pronouncing the development of indigenous identity amonghighlanders, however, may be premature. Even if parents subvert activist dis-course for their own ends, they just as often reject the imposition of the labelindígena, especially when applied to their children. While recently Quechuacommunity leaders have begun to at least discuss the possibility of manipu-lating this category as a way to acquire resources available to indigenousgroups, whether indigenous highlanders will emerge as indigenous citizensand new actors in Peruvian civil society remains to be seen. The emergence ofself-identified Quechua intellectuals and professionals may, however, be acrucial stepping stone to the activist ideal of a national highland indigenousorganization.


The first class of Quechuas and other indigenous leaders graduated in Feb-ruary 2001 from the transnational institute as Peruvian indigenous leadersholding a master’s degree in education and linguistics. After more than twoyears of interaction with other indigenous leaders, with instructors fromNorth America, South America, and Europe, and with representatives ofinternational aid organizations, not to mention immersion in works of politi-cal theory, social thought, and radical pedagogy, these new social actors arewell-positioned to occupy unique spaces in civil society. One of the most sig-nificant outcomes of this is that their very existence challenges the linkbetween class and ethnicity, poverty and Indianness, so often assumed to beunbreachable in Latin America (van den Berghe, 1975; van den Berghe andPrimov, 1977; Bourque and Warren, 1981; de la Cadena, 1995). Much as inthe case of Guatemala, where as a result of pan-Maya activism middle-classMayas are now a legitimate social group (Warren, 1998), Quechua intellectu-als, because of the status they have gained through education (de la Cadena,2000: 9), represent a new social category.

While the emergence of these indigenous intellectuals is a benefit of activ-ist efforts at ethnic mobilization, it also raises interesting questions about thenature of ethnic politics and representation. Indigenous leaders trained inbilingual intercultural education methodology are expected to diffuse thiskind of education among highland communities. For these leaders, speaking,reading, and writing in Quechua has become a status symbol. Beyond verbalfluency, written fluency in an indigenous language, along with the manipula-tion of other cultural markers such as dress, qualifies these intellectuals asindígenas. As such, they form part of the increasing number of individualsthroughout Latin America who are seen by states, international donor organi-zations, and NGOs as representatives of indigenous peoples and whose socialstatus is elevated accordingly. The elevation of status of these individuals,due in part to their manipulation of vernacular languages as languages ofauthenticity and Indianness (Anderson, 1990), is also a consequence of theirability to manage global tools, technological innovations, and internationallanguages (e.g., computers, the Internet, and English). Their unique positionas bilingual (in many cases trilingual) mediators between “the traditional”and “the modern,” also bears on the notion of bilingual intellectual elites ascrucial actors in emerging nationalist movements (Anderson, 1991 [1983]), afact that may have served as incentive for activists’ recent efforts at trainingthem.

Until now, bilingual-education activists and teacher-trainers have almostalways acted as mediators between Quechuas and the state and between thestate and international funding agencies interested in social developmentprojects aimed at indigenous groups. What has usually come to the surface,


then, has been activist interpretations of local developments among Quechuahighlanders, which, as I have shown, are not the same as those that Quechuapeoples might highlight. In this context, regardless of parental challenges,activists have been the primary representatives of indigenous highland Peru-vians and usually voice their own opinions, not those of parents or teachers,about the needs of indigenous peoples in the country. Partly because of ques-tions (from indigenous leaders in neighboring countries as well as from par-ents) about their capacity to represent highland Quechuas, they have focusedon selecting and training individuals who would fit better as leaders of anindigenous organization. Yet, as Les Field (1996) suggests, “the term [‘indig-enous intellectual’] does not connote that either genealogically or culturallymarked Indianness naturally endows indigenous intellectuals with the capac-ity to represent the ideas and interests of indigenous peoples.” Again, the dis-tinction between literate, bilingual indigenous leaders and frequently illiter-ate Quechua farmers critically separates the realities of these two groups.While proclaiming indigenous identity and Quechua cultural traditions hasbeen a seemingly painless process for the selected Peruvian leaders at thetransnational institute, reinforcing indigenous identity among Quechua high-landers is perceived by them as reinforcing their marginal social conditions.With this in mind, it will be interesting to explore the outcome(s) of indige-nous intellectuals’ return to their communities as leaders and Quechuas’per-ception and acceptance (or lack thereof) of these new indigenous actors. Ifthe efforts of indigenous parents and community leaders evolve into abroader, more visible grassroots movement, they have the potential to modifyindigenous politics in the country by challenging not only the involvement of“outsiders” in their communities but also that of “insiders” such as indige-nous intellectuals.

Clearly, the absence of a national indigenous federation should not beequated with a lack of ethnic mobilization (García and Lucero, 2002). Theconscious manipulation of ethnic labels by Quechua highlanders, the organi-zation of mothers for literacy training, the promotion of academic and scien-tific works in Quechua, the internal suggestion of community schools con-trolled by indigenous leaders and community members, and the emergenceand training of indigenous intellectuals all indicate movement—albeit mod-est—toward ethnic mobilization at various levels. Again, these developmentsfollow precedents set by indigenous leaders in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,Guatemala, and Mexico. The likelihood that the development of a new indig-enous citizen, as social actor, will have political and cultural impact beyondlocal boundaries is great. Taking into account the recent political history ofthe country, the simple fact that ethnic mobilization is a clear possibility is a


crucial sign of the expansion of civil liberties. To sum up, the words of aQuechua leader from Cuzco during my last trip to a highland community areappropriate. Toasting with chicha (corn beer) and savoring some bakedguinea pig, Choque told me to remember that “the mere fact that we candebate with each other about interculturality and our rights as Quechuas andPeruvian citizens is in itself revolutionary.”

NOTES

1. To respect the privacy of those mentioned in this article, the names of people have all beenchanged.

2. Quechua is one of the two highland indigenous languages of Peru. The other, Aymara, isspoken primarily in southern Andean regions near Bolivia.

3. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.4. The observations presented here are based on 17 months (1997–1999) of ethnographic

research in the Southern Peruvian highlands and form part of a larger project on education, indig-enous mobilization, and citizenship in Cuzco, Peru.

5. Educational change in Peru is taking place both in the highlands and in the lowlands.However, because of geographic, cultural, and social contexts, the theoretical and practicalimplementation of bilingual education has developed differently in the two regions. In this arti-cle, I focus on the highlands.

6. The concept of intercultural relations in Peru is similar in its meaning to the concept ofmulticulturalism in the United States, though it stresses not only recognition of differences butalso the development of respectful relationships among the country’s different cultural groups.

7. See Perreault in this issue for a glimpse of bilingual intercultural education in Ecuador.8. See García (2001) for more on the process of selecting and training Peruvian indigenous

intellectuals in both local and transnational spaces.9. For further discussion of indigenous political and ethnic mobilization, see Nagengast and

Kearney (1990) and Stephen (1997a; 1997b) for examples from Mexico, Warren (1998) on thepan-Maya movement in Guatemala, Turner (1995; 1998) and Warren (2001) on Brazil,Rappaport (1994; 1996) on Colombia, Albó (1994) on Bolivia, Lucero (2001 and in this issue)on Ecuador, Van Cott (in this issue) on Venezuela, and Stavenhagen (1992) on Latin Americagenerally.

10. Although there is currently no organized indigenous movement in Peru comparable tothose in other Andean countries, throughout the 1900s there were various small groups of intel-lectuals in the Peruvian highlands that called themselves Indian movements of one sort oranother. Among these, the Comité Pro-Derecho Indígena Tawantinsuyo, the Movimiento IndioPeruano, and the Movimiento Inka, for example, operated in very limited circles and proposed toreclaim the term indio, declared war on “Western imperialism,” and sought the return of a uto-pian Inca state. For discussion on these and other organizations, see Kapsoli (1984), Montoya(1998), Femenías (1999), and de la Cadena (2000).

11. For varied perspectives on this situation, see Albó (1991), Remy (1994), Marzal (1995),Degregori (1998b), Yashar (1998), and de la Cadena (2000).

12. For a discussion of recent sociopolitical history in Peru and particularly of political vio-lence during the 1980s and 1990s, see Poole and Rénique (1992). For examinations of the ori-


gins, organization, and “defeat” of Sendero Luminoso, see Degregori (1990; 1996; 1998a),Gorriti (1990; 1999), and Palmer (1992). For detailed explorations of social relations during thistime and meticulous case studies of the political, cultural, and social upheaval created bySendero, see Stern (1998).

13. In 1996 and 1997, the political climate in Peru inhibited explicit discussions about indig-enous rights among activists, who were careful to frame debates about language and educationwithin broader ideas about democracy and peace.

14. According to Albó, Quechua, along with other indigenous languages, is oppressedbecause it is spoken by a large percentage of the population in Peru but is of little, if any, officialimportance. He considers its oppression to derive from the domination and exploitation ofQuechuas by Hispanic Peruvian elites.

15. Many activists working in Cuzco are linguists concerned with the loss not only of indige-nous culture/identity but also of indigenous languages. Studies on linguistic interference or bor-rowing focus primarily on the influence of Spanish on Quechua (Godenzzi, 1992). Highlightingthe negative consequences of such influence, these writers emphasize the diglossic condition ofQuechua in Peru (Cerrón-Palomino, 1982; 1989) and not diminishing numbers of monolingualQuechua-speakers as primary justification for efforts to rescue, revitalize, and spread Quechuathroughout the highlands.

16. The term “mestizo” is a broad identity category that encompasses large sections of thePeruvian population. Most commonly, it refers to individuals of mixed ancestry (usually indige-nous and European), though it is also used to designate individuals who, regardless of ancestry,speak Spanish and claim “Hispanic” cultural traits but who are not considered “white.” Marisolde la Cadena, drawing on extensive historical documentation and ethnographic research in con-temporary Cuzco, explores the evolution of this term and argues that “subaltern Cuzqueños havelived, practiced, and created alternative meanings of mestizaje . . . crucially [redefining] the term‘mestizo’” (2000: 33). This redefinition of mestizo identity involves viewing it as a “social con-dition with room both for literacy and urban education and for the continuation of regionalcostumbres, the customs that they call authentic” (2000: 30). This definition is significant pri-marily because, unlike most other interpretations of mestizaje, it emphasizes the fact that whilebecoming a mestizo does change one’s social conditions, it does not necessarily mean sheddingor discarding indigenous customs. Interestingly, many activists prefer the label “Andean” tomestizo.

17. The intellectual cultural movement known as indigenismo emerged in Peru in the early1900s among middle- and upper-class intellectuals in urban centers such as Lima, Cuzco, andPuno. While primarily a literary and artistic movement portraying romantic visions of Andeanpeasants and Indians through novels, poetry, paintings, and music, indigenista ideology deeplypenetrated political discourse. Most indigenista intellectuals—usually mestizos—advocated thepolitical and economic emancipation of indigenous communities.

18. Some activists have Ph.D.’s in linguistics and anthropology from European universities.19. The history of bilingual education in Peru and its relation to indigenous communities in

both highland and lowland contexts is important. With only two exceptions—education reformin the 1940s and Velasco’s progressive policies toward indigenous languages and education inthe 1960s and 1970s—the implementation of bilingual education in Peru has taken place throughexperimental, internationally funded projects. However, as part of the institutionalization ofmulticultural policies throughout Latin America, in 1997 the Peruvian government created theBilingual Intercultural Education Unit (now the National Division of Bilingual InterculturalEducation) in the Ministry of Education and invited a prominent linguist and bilingual-educationactivist working in Cuzco to head the division. Through this organization, the state works closelywith NGOs—both international and local—in promoting bilingual intercultural education in the


country. For a more detailed examination of the history and implementation of the program andof NGO-state relations in Peru, see García (n.d.).

20. See García (2001) for a more extensive discussion of this program and of the cultural andethnic politics among and between students, instructors, and international funding agents at thisinstitute.

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Documents

Education, Indigenous Rights, and Ethnic Mobilization in Peru