My trip to New Orleans was one of the best experiences I have ever had, even though at the beginning I was a bit scared since I was so far away and because it was a very different world than the one I am used to. Of course, I was also scared because of our project “Dimensions of definiteness in Ch’ol: A dialectal comparison, because I knew that there would be many linguists presenting their work at this conference.

After arriving to the place of the conference, I was very excited, there were many linguists and I heard and saw their presentations. That motivated me to continue learning about this discipline. The day of my presentation, I was very nervous, I just wanted everything to go well, and it did. I thank the SSILA committee very much for letting me present my talk in Ch’ol with slides in English. Many other well-known linguists like Dr. Jessica Coon, Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez and others were in the room listening to our presentation. It is also important to say that there had never before been a presentation in an indigenous language at these meetings. The last day of the presentations, various award were given out. One award was given to Jessica Coon and Juan Jesús for the SSILA archiving award for their archive of Ch’ol data at AILLA of transcriptions and audio in Ch’ol. I also received a travel award.

I also had fun in New Orleans and the people that I met were very nice to me. Especially Mary, who took us to meet her family in another city, it was a wonderful trip. It was so nice to be with her family. They are such warm people and I am very happy to have met them. Of course, I would like to thank Carol-Rose for involving me in her research and Jessica Coon for always supporting me. I feel very fortunate to be able to count on them. Thanks to them I have learned a lot!

I feel very proud of my language Ch’ol, I would like that people work on it more, not just keep it for ourselves, it is important to share it and work a lot with it.

-Morelia Vázquez Martínez

On June 13th, 2019, Dr. Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez (CIMSUR) and Carol-Rose Little (Cornell) were invited to appear on the Canal 10 Chiapas show “La voz de nuestras raíces” [the voice of our roots], hosted by Freddy López Vázquez (advisor to the Minister of Sustainable Development of Indigenous Peoples in Chiapas). There, Juan Jesús talked about how he became a linguist and the importance of continuing to speak and write in Ch’ol. Carol-Rose talked about her work with the Ch’ol language and how she became involved with the Ch’ol communities in Chiapas.

Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez, Freddy Vázquez López, Carol-Rose Little, Miguel “Sebsor” (Tseltal rapper)

On July 18th, 2019, Morelia Vázquez Martínez was also an honorary guest on “La voz de nuestras raíces”. During her interview she discussed her work on linguistic projects, starting in 2015. When asked about advice for preserving Ch’ol, she emphasized the importance of teaching Ch’ol speakers how to write in their language.

Morelia Vázquez Martínez and Freddy López Vázquez during the taping of “La voz de nuestras raíces”

“La voz de nuestras raíces” is a TV program on Canal 10 Chiapas which airs in various languages of Chiapas. The Ch’ol version airs live every Thursday at 3pm.