Language reclamation as Indigenous resistance

Margarita Acosta explains how Tierra Indigena Montessori is weaving peace education through ancestral language revitalization.

While many people encounter nonviolence as forms of protest and resistance, the constructive side of it, the part that aims to re-establish a sense of self-knowing and trust in one’s community that has been harmed through violence can be overlooked. But it is this kind of work that uplifts a community’s sense of self through a reclaiming of inner power (what we call at the Metta Center, Person Power) that offers a strong foundation for other forms of action. Constructive work on the human image is not a distraction from action, it’s a necessity.

As part of a constructive effort to challenge and offer redress for the ongoing harms of identity suppression through language erasure within indigenous communities around the world, Bay Area educator and somatic coach Margarita Acosta’s Tierra Indigena Montessori is a shining light. Their work “facilitates reparations to Indigenous Peoples by supporting them in establishing educational spaces that maintain, strengthen, and revitalize their ancestral languages and cultures through the Montessori Method.”

She makes the case that language revitalization ought to be a front-and-center topic for our collective concern, no matter which language we speak and know ourselves through. All languages enrich our understanding of our world, and concepts embedded within our various linguistic homes can help us resolve personal and global crises and challenges. Losing language is a loss of our collective potential, and its revitalization becomes an expression of our creative and collective power as well as of reparations and healing.

Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence