User:Etzel H./Yásnaya Aguilar

Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil (Ayutla Mixe, Oaxaca, 1981) is a Mexican linguist, writer, translator, language rights activist and researcher. Her working languages are Ayuujk (Mixe), Spanish and English. She has carried out projects that address the needs of speakers whose language is in danger of disappearing.

Career
Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil received her B.A. in Hispanic Language and Literature from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and graduated in 2004 with a thesis on the diachrony of constituent order in Spanish. She continued her graduate studies in the Master's program in Hispanic Linguistics at UNAM. During her time at the university, she discovered her interest in the study of language and became interested in the grammatical study of her mother tongue, Southern High Mixe or Ayuujk.

Since 2011 she has has been a contributor to the magazine Este País and author of the blog Ayuujk . In this blog she problematizes the linguistic policies that force speakers of native languages to stop speaking their first language to avoid being marginalized. She also addresses reflections on literature and personal experiences as a speaker and scholar of a native language in an environment of homogenizing cultural policies.

She has participated and given colloquiums, lectures, conferences and workshops in national forums such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico as well as in international forums. In 2018, she was invited by the Indigenous Council of Government to give a talk in Zapatista territory and in the presence of subcomandante Marcos, today known as Galeano.

She was coordinator of Culture and Events at the Biblioteca de Investigación Juan de Córdova, in Oaxaca City. She is currently a member of the Colegio Mixe, a collective that seeks to conduct research on the Mixe language and culture, as well as to spread it.

Linguistic activism
The linguistic work of Yásnaya Elenga Aguilar has become part of the discussion of great analysts in different fields, from anthropology, political science, indigenous law, philosophy, among others. By studying the Ayuujk (Mixe) language, Aguilar Gil reflects on the fact that the lack of a database of linguistic studies on indigenous languages, in contrast to the official language, is the result of a systematic problem in the relationship between the state and indigenous peoples. This homogenization from the state produces a series of injustices that become a part of its discourse and actions turning them into the institutional interlocutory tool through which the state interacts with indigenous people. Acording to the state, these communities were underdeveloped and had to be integrated into the ideal of modern progressivism of the nation-state. For Aguilar Gil, this has been a determining factor for the annihilation of languages and a pattern of action at both historical and world levels, reducing the number of speakers of idigenous languages in contexts where states were formed from subjugation.

She noticed the relationship between the crisis of endangered indigenous languages and the social, economic and political factors of their context. This has led her to position her reflections beyond the linguistic expertise and has contributed with influencial works to the intellectual field in order to position the importance of preserving languages not only for their relevance in linguistic matters, but also because it implies facing all forms of abuse of the rights of peoples in their relationship with the agents of power that have tried to subjugate them.

Her work has also been relevant on the translation flow from and into minotary languages: El 26 de febrero de 2019, Yásnaya fue invitada a la sesión ordinaria de la LXIV Legislatura en la Cámara de Diputados en el marco del Año Internacional de las Lenguas Indígenas, para emitir un discurso en mixe, en el que hizo alusión al estado en el que se encuentran las lenguas indígenas de México. Dentro de su mensaje, señaló enfáticamente: “Nuestras lenguas no mueren, las matan. El Estado mexicano las ha borrado. El pensamiento único, la cultura única, el Estado único, con el agua de su nombre, las borra”.

Conflicto limítrofe en Ayutla
Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil denunció públicamente en junio de 2017, la agresión que sufrió ella y muchas personas de su comunidad, por una emboscada de grupos armados contratados por líderes caciquiles y autoridades de Tamazulapam del Espíritu Santo, después de un despojo de tierras emprendido contra comuneros de Ayutla, donde perdiera la vida uno de sus compañeros comuneros y cuatro mujeres de San Pedro y San Pablo Ayutla fueron secuestradas, mientras que otros más resultaron heridos. De igual manera, recriminó la negligencia del gobierno de Oaxaca al mal emprender acciones que poco ayudaron a dar una solución a un conflicto social que se vive en la comunidad de San Pedro y San Pablo Ayutla y Tamazulapam del Espíritu Santo por recursos naturales. Denunció también la responsabilidad del gobierno del estado de Oaxaca así como del secretario general de Gobierno, Héctor Anuar Mafud Mafud por la omisión institucional luego de que por dichos problemas sociales la comunidad se quedara sin agua potable, ya que los tanques de agua de su comunidad así como sus tuberías fueron destruidas por grupos violentos.

El 31 de marzo de 2020, hubo un incendio forestal en San Pedro y San Pablo Ayutla, lo cual volvió a poner en evidencia la urgente necesidad de agua en la comunidad. Para este momento, el pueblo de Ayutla llevaba más de dos años sin agua (1,044 días) en plena pandemia de COVID-19 en México. Yásnaya Elena Aguilar también ha estado activa denunciando en Twitter con la etiqueta #AguaParaAyutlaYA.

Obra
Ha publicado numerosos textos, principalmente ensayos sobre derechos lingüísticos, mujeres indígenas, lenguaje y violencia, entre otros.