There’s a certain irony in Feb. 21 serving as International Mother Language Day even as the heritage—and safety—of indigenous immigrants to the United States are under direct attack.
The United Nations declared Feb. 21 International Mother Language Day to celebrate “the importance of language preservation in safeguarding cultural heritage, improving education, and fostering more peaceful societies.” More broadly, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 2022-2032 International Languages Decade to “draw global attention on the critical situation of many indigenous languages and to mobilize stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization and promotion.”
Far from celebrating and protecting mother tongues, however, the Trump administration’s current immigration crackdown is especially damaging to vulnerable indigenous languages and the people who speak them.
While indigenous people make up less than 6% of the global population, they speak more than 4,000 of the world’s languages. Estimates are that 50%-95% of mostly indigenous languages could disappear this century along with the collective knowledge they contain.
Despite their linguistic richness, indigenous people are three times more likely to live in severe poverty and face unique challenges, including displacement from their ancestral lands. It’s no wonder then, that indigenous people migrate—and bring their languages with them.
Although the exact number of indigenous immigrants to the U.S. is unknown, there are enough that in 2023 the Department of Homeland Security produced an Indigenous Languages Plan. It lists 20 indigenous languages; all but one are from Mexico and Central America, and at least one is endangered.
President Trump’s shut-down of asylum is particularly hard on indigenous people. No numbers are available about indigenous asylum seekers specifically, but a 2024 report by the non-partisan group USA Facts listed nationals from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico –countries with high percentages of indigenous people– among the top asylum recipients.
Even more vulnerable are the many indigenous children who seek asylum, especially when they migrate without an adult.
“The majority of children currently crossing the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied are from Guatemala,” according to Georgetown University’s Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, “and many are Indigenous Mayans.” A 2023 study in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health notes that unaccompanied minors are “exposed to discrimination, particularly if they are identified as Indigenous… or other minoritised groups.”
At the same time the Trump administration cut off asylum, they increased deportation efforts. Again, this imperils indigenous people even more, returning them to the same dangerous conditions that impelled them to migrate in the first place.
Climate change also disproportionately affects indigenous communities, despite their deep ties to the land and tiny environmental impact. For example, indigenous deportees return to a Dry Corridor that cuts across Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua where more frequent and severe droughts destroy the agricultural practices that sustain the indigenous communities’ cultures and form the backbone of their economic activity.
To make matters worse, many USAID projects to improve conditions in their home countries have been defunded by the Trump administration.
To be sure, the U.S. immigration and asylum systems were already problematic for indigenous people. Routine misidentification as Spanish speakers caused miscommunications, missed legal opportunities and worst of all, death. Between December 2018 and May 2019, five indigenous children died while detained.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Sound language policies can protect indigenous languages and people. In the case of Native Americans tribes within the U.S., former President Joe Biden put forth a language revitalization plan and formally apologized for the Federal Indian Boarding School era (1819-1970s), when Native American children were forcibly removed from their families with the explicit purpose of eradicating their cultures, including their languages.
Communities within the U.S. can embrace and protect their indigenous immigrant neighbors and their languages. In my mid-size Illinois town, Champaign Urbana, the Maya community keeps their traditions alive through practices such as religious services held in their language, Q’anjob’al, and a language cooperative that shared factual information during COVID and now empowers the community with reliable information about their rights as immigrants.
The University of Illinois engages with that local Maya community and their languages in meaningful ways, too. For example, they share Q’anjob’al language resources with the public. In my Spanish in the Community course, students learn a little Q’anjob’al. First they listen to the pronunciation of words. Then they form very simple sentences using a vocabulary list. By the end of that class period they have a very limited understanding of Q’anjob’al, but more importantly they realize that everyone can learn and support indigenous languages and people.
Indigenous communities that maintain their languages in the face of centuries of colonization —and the colonizers’ languages —possess a strength and resilience that point to forms of resistance and forever enrich our shared world.
