The Sierra: Reclaiming a Voice
[April 2017]
There’s this eerily creepy scene in The Little Mermaid where Ariel trades her voice box for human legs. In losing her voice, her main power of communication, she loses her ability to define herself to the world. She can no longer explain where she came from, elaborate her thoughts and feelings, offer her insight, convey her needs, or share where she’s going as she wants to. Without her voice, she’s at the mercy of the perceptions of whoever happens to be standing around her. And Ariel turns out to be one of the lucky ones, because out of all “those poor, unfortunate souls” decimated by the deals of the sea witch Ursula, Ariel at least escapes alive. Even though we know the ending, in that moment when she exchanges her voice for temporary legs, we all shudder aghast at the cruelty of someone as manipulative as Ursula, who would steal the voice of a harmless girl to use it as her own. Then we roll our eyes at the ludicrousness of her evil coercion and can walk away laughing because, after all, it’s just a fairy tale.
Far worse deals strip people of their voices in the real world with no fairy-tale solutions to save the day.
I spent a month on my own in the Andean highlands of Ecuador learning firsthand the stories of indigenous men and women who have personally felt the sting of oppression denying them a voice. I witnessed the successful results of their ongoing fight to access radio, journalism, and audiovisual production as a means of cultural representation. I celebrated the way their perseverance has strengthened public pride in the native Kichwa tongue. But comprehending their success requires first understanding the discrimination that has long barricaded their access.
Military attempts to confiscate radio equipment. Government approval for use of a channel mysteriously delayed over months, then years. The Kichwa communities of Ecuador are halted by these supposed mix-ups in full force with regular frequency, even though these are the very communities for which the Ecuadorean constitution explicitly guarantees a right to presence in mass media communication. After centuries of exploitation, indigenous communities continue to lack control over the way they are presented to the country at large.
Most often, if they appear at all, the appearance highlights a scandal or a touristic gig. What about the current struggles that affect the Kichwa community like any other? What about the wisdom gleaned from ancestral heritage in these mountains? Those are scarcely mentioned for this section of the population. The people remain caricatures in their own ancestral homeland.
Misrepresentation can happen due to prejudice, but it can just as easily happen from simple ignorant misunderstanding of a foreign people. With this two-fold danger, misrepresentation is bound to happen sooner or later when an outsider (like me) expounds on communities that are given no room to speak for themselves. Centuries of legislation and scholarly work have denied the Kichwa community its own voice and usurped it for another’s use. When a society’s structure systematically fails to support a voice for underrepresented groups due to social, political, or economic reasons, those people must be provided resources for representation to reach viable solutions. Today, that lack of self-representation looks like a systematic inhibition of indigenous self-representation in the media, denying equal access to free speech.
Without free speech allowing diverse perspectives to shine light on hidden problems, a claim to progress cannot be authentic. Defending free speech means asking to feel uncomfortable, confused, or even offended at times. It means that sometimes people will be utterly wrong, and sometimes their words may hurt. It also means that what was already present in the dark can be addressed in the light, providing hope for change.
Free speech doesn’t mean words without consequences. On the contrary, it is precisely words with consequence that we most need, because those consequences can be good as well as bad. Sure, sometimes people will get things wrong and the consequences will be problematic. Often, though, people have good things to say. Really, really good things. Necessary things. As a society, we must provide room for those.
Today, local Kichwa leaders in Otavalo are working together to build their autonomous voice in the way that is most widely heard in the modern world: media. Through persistent collaboration, they have entered radio, journalism, and television with educational information, musical entertainment, ancestral knowledge, relevant news, cultural traditions, and cinematic drama. Their programs bring poverty, health, education, racism, protection of land, gender inequality, and other prevalent issues into public dialogue. In recent years, they have begun to do so not only in Spanish, but also in their own native Kichwa language.
By autonomously representing themselves in the media, indigenous communities can begin to break free of the cycle of dependence perpetuated by a system in which others usurp the stolen indigenous voice. Both the internal indigenous community and the external world at large can celebrate the Kichwa people for their full worth on their own terms. Within the context of modern media, the Kichwa community is reclaiming its stolen voice to proudly transmit its identity.
APAK and Radio Iluman/Asociación de Jóvenes Kichwas de Imbabura generously offered me opportunities through which to explore Kichwa media production during my time in Otavalo.