Muestra de Culturas y Lenguas Indígenas Prepa Tec Tampico 2019

During our August-December semester in Prepa Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Tampico, our Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages teachers designed special academic activities centered on indigenous languages and cultures of Mexico, and, on the 21/November/2019 we had a school-wide exhibition of the learning and artistic products made by our students. These activities were of a wide variety:

• Research projects in which students not only used available sources to investigate about these indigenous communities’ history, current conditions, challenges and cultural information, but also video-interviewed real indigenous community members about said topics (Chinantecos, Zapotecos, Triquis, Mixtecos, among others).
• Hands-on community-intervention projects in which students helped a shelter that’s regularly attended by indigenous people (mostly Huastecos) translate signboards into Tenek language, so as to facilitate the navigation of visitors who can’t speak Spanish within the facility.
• Artistic replication and reinterpretation of artifacts of indigenous cultures (with due credits given to the cultures who originally made the designs and formats), like mats, paintings, and art installations labelled in indigenous languages (like Nahuatl, Otomi and Purepecha).
• Artistic reinterpretations of indigenous cultures’ myths and legends in formats like plastic arts, music and live dramatic performances, inspired by the short stories and poems that comprise the 68 Voces (68 Voices) project.

We also had the participation of José Castañeda, a communicator and musician who’s worked with indigenous communites extensively, developing environmental and economic projects throughout Mexico. Mr. Castañeda gave us a presentation on his life experience in this kind of work.