For more than 300 years, the Monterey Bay area has served as a cultural and linguistic crossroads where diverse communities have met, mingled, and exchanged ideas.
One of the lesser-known but deeply significant elements of this multicultural landscape is the indigenous languages spoken by immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico.
The Humanities Institute (THI) at UC Santa Cruz has been developing a community-engaged research project to create an exhibition delving into the role those languages play in sustaining Oaxacan immigrant culture in California’s Central Coast.
This work builds from Nido de Lenguas, a long standing research, education, and advocacy collaboration between linguists at UC Santa Cruz, led by Professor Maziar Toosarvandani, and the non-profit Senderos, developed by Senderos co-founder Fe Silva Robles.
The Nido’s mission is to share the beauty and value of Oaxacan languages, informed by original research conducted by campus and community scholars. That research has recently included innovative field-based psycholinguistic experimentation in Oaxaca seeded by THI and supported by the National Science Foundation.
In 2024, THI received a $607,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to support the Oaxacan Languages of the Transnational Central Coast project, which includes a team of paid graduate and undergraduate fellows to work on the research and develop an exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH). Curators of this exhibition, set to open Spring 2027, will consider language science, indigenous Oaxacan languages, Latinx language and identity, Latinx language and history in the Monterey Bay.
These UC Santa Cruz students will participate in THI’s Public Fellowship Program, which creates opportunities for Humanities students to contribute to research, programming, communications, and other activities at non-profit organizations, companies, and cultural institutions.
THI already has a strong history of public fellowship partnerships with Senderos and the MAH, including previous year-long positions for graduate and undergraduate students.
The new cohort of THI Oaxacan Language Public Fellows will develop an exhibition in collaboration with and under the layered mentorship of library professionals, museum professionals, local transnational Indigenous activists and scholars, and academic faculty.
“This project is a deeply exciting way to share with our community the work that scholars at UC Santa Cruz and at Senderos have been leading for many years, and to help uplift a vibrant and important strand in the story of our region and California“ comments Pranav Anand, THI Faculty Director and Project PI.
Hundreds of distinct indigenous languages
Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s most ethnically diverse states, is home to a wide variety of indigenous peoples, including Zapotec, Mixtec, Mixe, Chatino, Trique, and many others.
The region is notable for its hundreds of distinct languages, each tied to a single town or community. In recent decades, over 100,000 Oaxacans have migrated to California, with 15,000 to 30,000 of them settling in the Central Coast area.
According to a 2007 report from the California Institute for Rural Studies, these immigrants speak a wide array of indigenous languages — often with roots deep in their hometowns and their families' history.
Despite their richness and importance to community identity, these languages have long faced stigma. Due to misconceptions that indigenous languages are "alien" or "inferior" to Spanish, many native speakers have been discouraged from using their mother tongues, even within their own families.
This stigma persists in the diaspora, as many immigrants find themselves navigating a complex linguistic landscape where English dominates, Spanish holds official status, and their indigenous languages struggle to survive.
However, the exhibition aims to counter this narrative, highlighting how indigenous Oaxacan languages continue to serve as a vital thread connecting immigrants to their cultural roots and familial ties.
Through this project, which combines academic scholarship with the voices of local transnational indigenous activists, the exhibition hopes to bring greater recognition to the linguistic diversity of the immigrant community and shed light on the complex dynamics of language, identity, and power in the modern world.
This story is not just particular to the Oaxacan community. It reflects broader themes of multilingualism, migration, and the ongoing negotiation of identity among Latinx immigrants, especially those who carry indigenous heritage.
The exhibition will explore four key themes: language science, indigenous Oaxacan languages, Latinx language and identity, and the historical context of language in the Monterey Bay region. The project will also emphasize the importance of language preservation and revitalization efforts within the Oaxacan immigrant community.
The development of the exhibition and work to document and preserve Oaxacan indigenous languages is possible through key partnerships with Senderos and Special Collections and The Community Archiving Program at the UC Santa Cruz Library. The project aims to help tell and uplift the stories of indigenous language speakers and contribute to the preservation of this important cultural heritage.
While focused on the experiences of Oaxacan immigrants in the Central Coast area, the project also aims to spark broader conversations about the role of indigenous languages in diasporic communities, inviting the public to consider how languages of the past are shaped by historical power dynamics and how they can be empowered today.
The exhibition promises to share significant local culture and history and offer a powerful reminder of the importance of language in shaping community, memory, and identity.
Partners
- Comparative Language Sciences Center (CLaS)
- Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH)
- Senderos
- UC Santa Cruz Special Collections and Community Archiving
The project is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Center for Comparative Language Sciences (CLaS), and The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.
Banner Photo: Flor de Piña dance in Oaxaca by Jose de Jesus Hernandez
