Orphans of the city: indigenous children in La Laguna

Among a group of children attending a summer school at the Casa del Cerro in Torreón, there she is. She wears Rarámuri clothing and possesses a gaze that holds the memory of other mountainous regions. She is the heir to a language, traditions, and ancient customs that rarely find expression in cities.

Her name is Lupita, she's 16 years old, and she tells me she's lost count of how long she's been living in Torreón. Along with her mother and four siblings, she left the mountainous region of Chihuahua in search of better opportunities.

A resident of the town of Napuchí, where the Sierra Madre Occidental rises like a backbone of endless mountains, Lupita spent her early years walking its slopes and studying the memory of her people.

Today, she wanders through La Laguna like an orphan separated from her land, trapped on an invisible border between two worlds: that of her roots and that of a modernity that, far from embracing her cultural and linguistic rights, pushes her to dilute them.

And although the Constitution recognizes that they have the same rights as any other child in Mexico, indigenous children in La Laguna grow up under the shadow of a historical debt that no one has been willing to pay.

True integration is an urgent need: in Torreón alone, according to 2020 data from the National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Informatics (INEGI), 16,130 people aged three and older identified themselves as part of an indigenous community.

Lupita is part of this indigenous presence growing in the city without public policies to protect its ancient traditions. Her mother passed on the language of her people like someone passing on an ancient seed, but she also taught her Spanish, knowing it would be the key to crossing doors into a foreign world. Now, Lupita lives between two shores: on one, the echo of her mountain and the voice of her ancestors; on the other, the harsh noise of a city that has yet to learn to recognize her.

This newspaper, interested in the current situation of indigenous children in La Laguna, investigated the programs the region offers to assist their comprehensive development, not only through education and access to healthcare, but also through the protection of their cultural heritage.

Also, through the eyes of ethnologist Miguel Ángel Ciprés Guerrero, current director of the Regional Museum of La Laguna, he questioned how the indigenous presence has been in this area, and, above all, c What are the challenges that children from the mountains embedded in the city face today? In this regard, the voice of Vicente Aguilar, an unofficial representative of a Triqui community that has settled in Gómez Palacio since 1994, was heard.

Finally, she spoke with Olivia González Zamarrón, a Laguna artist who is convinced that art can become a refuge and a tool of resistance so that these children, like Lupita, do not lose the voice of their ancestors, even amidst the noise and social indifference.

HISTORICAL DEBT

Ethnologist Miguel Ángel Ciprés Guerrero, current director of the Museo Regional de La Laguna, who has closely studied this map of presence, displacement, and cultural loss, explained for this report that the indigenous figure in the Comarca Lagunera is broad and dates back far, even before pre-Hispanic times.

"Unfortunately, we don't have written records, but we do have archaeological evidence, such as that found in the Cueva de la Candelaria, near Torreón: burials with textiles, ornaments, and skeletal remains that speak of the rituals and ways of life of cultures that no longer exist."

At present, the Rarámuri (or Tarahumara), to which Lupita belongs, are the most visible community They arrived more than 60 years ago, and many of their children were born in La Laguna, although their families still look to Chihuahua, especially Huachochi, as their point of origin.

"But they're not the only ones. There are also Tsotsil and Tzeltal, Mayan peoples who have begun to settle here, although they're barely visible. And there are the Mazahua, who arrived from the State of Mexico three or four decades ago and have become so integrated into urban life that they sometimes fade into the social landscape."

The city, he mentioned, has been a crossroads for many of these communities: migrations motivated by work, the rise of maquiladoras, or the need to escape adverse conditions in their places of origin. The problem, he warned, is that the urban environment doesn't always offer the conditions to preserve their languages and customs.

"School is a catalyst for change. I don't always want to call it a rupture, but it does generate a cultural divergence. Many children learn their native language at home, but outside of it, everything happens in Spanish. And that, little by little, changes the transmission of knowledge. It's not just that a language is lost; it's that the place that community occupies in the city changes."

For Ciprés, Indigenous children in La Laguna face a double challenge: adapting to the "monster called the city" without letting that adaptation erase them as a cultural group. And that requires more than written laws.

"The Constitution guarantees rights, yes, but it's an abstract model. It needs to be implemented with direct action. And it's not just the State's task: civil society must also recognize others as equal in dignity and rights."

The future outlook will depend on how the city integrates them into its changes. If there's no will, he warns, future generations will have grown up without the cultural wealth that barely survives today.

"The responsibility we have is to recognize otherness. To accept that there are people who think differently, believe differently, speak differently, but are worth the same. Only in this way can we imagine a future in which these children grow up with dignity and their roots remain alive."

THE TRIQUI VOICE OF GOMEZ PALACIO

On Victoria Street in Gómez Palacio, near the corner of Centenario Street, colorful textile and embroidery stalls have been part of the municipality's daily life for at least 30 years.

Vicente Aguilar, a member of the Triqui community linked to the state of Oaxaca, has lived there since he was four years old. Now an adult, he serves as the unofficial spokesperson for his ethnic group, which, according to his calculations, has been settled in Gómez Palacio since 1994.

They arrived as guests of an uncle who had already made the trip from Oaxaca, although at that time his family lived in Mexico City.

"We're all family," she explained, pointing to those working around her. Among them is her mother, Francisca, the matriarch of the group, which includes around 11 children.

Most of them, Vicente told me, were born in La Laguna, although, he also mentioned, they retain, at least in their memories and gestures, the roots of the Oaxacan mountains.

The Triqui language can still be heard in their conversations. Even as I conduct the interview, two children, about five years old, speak to each other using their ancestral language, a sign that the land is calling, because, although they haven't even lived in the Triqui community in Oaxaca, they are somehow connected to their roots.

"The children understand it, but they barely speak it anymore. At school, everything is in Spanish, and with the neighbors too," Vicente lamented.

The backstrap loom is still one of the practices they keep alive. Three poles stuck in the ground are enough to begin the weaving process, which, thread by thread, gives shape to dresses, bags, and blouses that can take months, or even years, to complete.

"A wedding dress, with all its details, can take two years to make," Vicente explained, proudly demonstrating how two women on the floor weave and weave. Although the spokesperson acknowledges that the raw materials are already local, the knowledge and tradition come from previous generations in the Triqui community.

In Gómez Palacio, he told me, there is no formal group that articulates their culture or organizes regular activities to showcase their traditions. What they maintain are family celebrations and some ceremonies adapted to the climate and urban context.

One of the most important is the imposition of the huipil on girls who reach the age considered the beginning of adulthood. They also maintain the Day of the Dead festivities: each family sets up its own altar and visits the others', as is done in the village, although here the heat and city life force them to modify dates and details.

Adapting to the city hasn't completely erased the memory of his hometown, but it has imposed silences. Vicente recalled that, when he was four years old, teasing and discrimination were part of his daily life at school.

"They hit us, they made fun of us... we struggled a lot," she said. Now, her children and the other children, she shared, no longer go through the same thing: they move naturally in Spanish, have friends, and are fully integrated into school life. However, that integration has come at a cost: the language is being lost, and traditions are experienced more as one-off events than as part of the routine.

Economically, the community relies on the sale of handicrafts, jewelry, and, more recently, toys and commercial items that attract more customers.

"We can't sell traditional textiles because they don't sell as well anymore," Vicente admitted. Backstrap loom textiles continue to find buyers, but the fair price and the production time, months or years, clash with the fast, cheap consumerism that prevails in the city.

In that sense, I ask Vicente if he could ask the authorities for something to promote their culture and protect their traditions. What would he ask for? He tells me that perhaps he would like there to be an event every year to commemorate the cultural importance of the Triquis in Gómez Palacio. But he recognizes that "it involves moving the whole gang from there and it's expensive. Sometimes we talk about it among ourselves, but it remains just that, just an idea."

Meanwhile, he does what he can. Since he was four years old, he has remained there at the stalls on Victoria Street in Gómez Palacio, out of necessity, but also as an act of resistance. Vicente and his family uphold the legacy of their ancestors in a city that, according to what is investigated in this report, fails to recognize and preserve the cultural richness that embraces them.