On Wednesday, our program was pleased to attend the monthly meeting for the OSP Latino Club. Juan Carlos Gonzalez Zacarias, a UO alum and current member of staff presented his research on the Aztec culture and Nahuatl language to over 140 members of the club. Among other highlights, he spoke about the importance of language and identity, the challenges of preserving a language, and the various communities in Mexico that speak Nahuatl dialects to this day. In spite of the common belief that Spanish is the only language spoken in Mexico, there are in fact 68 official languages for the country, with Nahuatl as the second most widespread.
Juan Carlos received multiple questions and comments from the crowd, and an enthusiastic response from the club leaders as part of their growing efforts to create and support educational opportunities for their members.
At the conclusion of the event, the club president invited members to share if they spoke languages other than Spanish and English. We were treated to greetings in multiple languages and dialects, from Turkish to Hebrew, and then were surprised and delighted to discover two members of the club were native Nahuatl speakers! An additional pleasant surprise—a new club member is Deaf and speaks American Sign Language, and Juan Carlos surprised us all by engaging in a conversation in sign.
When our program is invited to events like this we are always glad to contribute to the educational life of people at OSP beyond what we can offer in for-credit college classes. Just like the UO campus offers a broad range of programs and speakers to our campus community.
