Indigenous scholar, activist discusses racial inequality in Latin America
A conversation with Dr. Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj
Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj is a Tinker Visiting Professor at Stanford’s Center for Latin American Studies. Originally from Guatemala, Dr. Velásquez Nimatuj is a journalist, activist, and international spokeswoman for Indigenous communities in Central America. She earned a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and was instrumental in making racial discrimination illegal in Guatemala. In the interview below, she discusses her experience as a Mayan-K’iche’ woman, the systemic barriers faced by Indigenous and Afro-descendants throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the importance of decolonizing the curriculum, and the ongoing fight to create a more equitable society.
1. What brought you to Stanford?
I came to Stanford driven by a deep desire to teach graduate and undergraduate students. I wanted to share the knowledge and experience that I have accumulated during more than 20 years of working and accompanying Indigenous communities and organizations in Latin America in their political, economic, and social struggles for access to justice, and for the right to self-determination. Above all, I wanted students to approach, in an analytical way, the territorial demands that the different Indigenous peoples of the continent maintain (mostly because these are demands that vary according to the context and the historical moment but tend to be generalized in academia).
My goal as a professor is that the students who take my classes can come to understand with critical eyes the creative capacity, resistance, and resilience of Indigenous women and men — despite the oppressive, colonialist, racist, and heteropatriarchal contexts.
My arrival to Stanford was also guided by the desire to learn from other colleagues in different fields who contribute to the debate, to the construction of ideas, to the advancement of knowledge, and who are committed to building a world where social justice is fought and built for every living being.
2. What have been some of the highlights from your time at the Center for Latin American Studies?
It is difficult to choose because, despite the pandemic, since my arrival I’ve had great experiences with colleagues and with students. My time at the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) has allowed me to contribute but also to learn. What is clear to me is that CLAS is a jewel within the enormous institution that is Stanford University. It contributes to the permanent, diverse, and constant debate about Latin America, a region that faces political and economic challenges, but also plays a key role in the process of creating diverse and equitable models of citizenship and coexistence from below.
The CLAS team has the ability to bring the Indigenous and Latin American world closer to the Stanford community, through Quechua, Nahuatl, Portuguese, Spanish, among other languages, but also through history, politics, economy, geography, memory, literature, and above all, Indigenous poetry. Every year in March it houses Indigenous and non-Indigenous poets who converge to share their verses in various languages, which strengthens their struggles and their spirits. Finally, the diversity of visiting professors that CLAS brings each year is not only a plus for students throughout the university, but also becomes an important space between the professors themselves to create alliances and exchange experiences.
3. For decades, you have been working with Indigenous communities and leaders throughout Latin America to fight racism and discrimination. What inspires or motivates you in your work?
I was born in an Indigenous community in one of the most racist countries in Latin America, which is Guatemala. So, being a Mayan-K’iche’ woman who had access to a university education, I have always been a minority, from pre-primary school to this day, whether in workspaces in my country or abroad.
From my life experience, I know how difficult and frustrating it is to be an “ethnic minority woman” because you do not have the same power to speak, propose, or maneuver. However, I have learned that, though the prevailing system is oppressive, it does not define me, suppress my abilities, or harness my ambitions. Despite how frustrating or painful it has been to experience racism, colonialism, and patriarchy, facing these oppressions since my childhood has given me the strength to join collective work strategies that have allowed changes.
And although my own experience defines me, I am inspired by the struggles of other Indigenous women and communities that preceded me and that survived genocide, sexual servitude, violence, and economic dispossession, or the racism that humiliates and makes invisible. That is why I fight together with these communities. The Indigenous and collective struggles give meaning to my life, and I want to reach the end of my life feeling like I used the privileges that I managed to access in my life and put them toward the service of the community.
4. Last year, you participated in an event titled “Racismo en Centroamérica: La Comunidad frente al Estado.” Can you tell us about some of the conversations that took place?
This event was organized by the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The objective was to discuss, based on the life and work experience of three Central American women (Professor Juliet Hooker from Nicaragua, poet Shirley Campbell Barr from Costa Rica, and me), how institutional racism operates and how it has defined the history of Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples in Central America.
In the discussion, we focused on three issues. First, we argued that, to understand the racism faced by the Afro and Indigenous peoples in that region, it is necessary to study the foundation of the states and the ideology of the elites because both were key to the design of the nation-state 200 years ago. Second, we explained how to survive as communities, looking at how the Afro and Indigenous peoples have created different strategies that, at times, seem contradictory, such as negotiating with the oppressors. And third, that in the present, Afro and Indigenous peoples live in racialized states that place them in the last position of the social pyramid. And that reversing this pyramid is complex because its permanence is not only based on maintaining economic and political power, but on controlling and inheriting privileges of class, race, and gender.
5. In 2020, we have witnessed protests against systemic racism and police brutality, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, in countries around the world. Why do you believe this movement has resonated with so many people across Latin America?
The protests resonated for two reasons. First, because many Latin American countries are familiar with the systemic racism that encroaches on the lives of Black citizens in [the United States]. Indigenous and Afro-descendants in Latin America are permanently under siege by the racism of the various nation-states. Hence, the racial tension and the violence that emanates from the state security forces is not new. Which leads me to the second point.
State sponsored violence has been a permanent feature of Latin America security forces. For many in the Latin American region, the police is an institution that is feared and that does not generate a sense of safety. The police in Latin America has been at the service of the status quo and thus it has always acted in a violent manner to suppress any type of protest. What we saw happening in the U.S. — the protests but also the violent response — was not new, it is something that marginalized sectors suffer every single day in Latin America.
6. In a recent article for El Periódico, you write about the experiences of Indigenous and Afro-descendants growing up in Central America and the hardships they face on a daily basis. Do you believe a more just, equitable society will emerge in the future?
Fair and equitable societies emerge from the struggle of young generations, who become aware of the historical moment they are living and the challenges they face. And, above all, from a generation that is willing to change the social context in which their grandparents and parents lived because they do not want to pass down these societies to their own descendants.
When we review history, we see that those who have challenged the hegemonic and oppressive power are the slaves, students, young workers, peasants, Indigenous people, women, Afro-descendants, and rural or urban leaders who have the strength of youth but, above all, the conviction that social, racial, and economic transformation is not only possible but deeply necessary.
There is the Haitian revolution (1791–1804), the Nicaraguan revolution (1979), or the Guatemalan October revolution (1944). Although all three were brutally dismantled in different ways, their teachings and the institutions they created paved the way for a different society for more than 40 million Indigenous people and 133 million Afro-descendants who live in Latin America today. Thanks to the struggles of those generations, today many of us are relatively free and enjoy relative privileges. So those were key steps, but the work is not done yet. We have a long way to go, and the role of privileged students, such as those at Stanford, is key to continue in the construction of equitable and just societies.
7. Is there anything else you would like to share?
I would just like to add that, given the political shift of the last four years in this country, now more than ever, it is imperative to push for the collaborative study of Latin America. Not as a region but for what it is: a multitude of territories and peoples, with different needs and challenges. I believe that, to understand the various phenomena that occupy political discourse today (such as migration or the fight against drugs), it is necessary to understand the structural conditions that cause many of these issues. The new generation cannot base its approach to Latin America the same way the older generation did. Latin America cannot continue to be viewed and taught about from an imperialist framework, and thus it is fundamental to have more teachers and classes that provide a perspective about the region from within.
