For many indigenous communities in the western highlands of Guatemala, immigration is seen as the only means of surviving in the wake of economic contraction and growing societal violence. As a result, area youth grow up without close family members, newly built houses stand empty, few institutions exist to facilitate a future at home and leaving seems inevitable. In this context, state-run entities and non-governmental organizations alike have identified inadequate access to education as simultaneously a root cause and a potential solution to the perceived problem of youth migration.
However, this focus on educational access for Indigenous youth ignores realities specific to the Guatemalan context where the education system has long been criticized for its assimilationist orientation towards indigenous populations. During my time conducting field work in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, Indigenous young people spoke frequently about their experiences within the Guatemalan school system. Experiences in which they were degraded and belittled because of their Indigeneity, told they were less than, that they smelled, or were not competent enough to be worth educating at all. A common default assumption is that education is good, and increased access to education prevents youth migration. However, the experiences of young people striving for educational achievement in a system which does not value them complicates this narrative, and reenforces the need for a reconceptualization of education—what one young person called una enseñanza digna—an education with dignity.
Eliza explained how much she has fought for her education. Her father left the family when she was three months old, her mother, now single, depended on subsistence farming and the support of her grandparents to make ends meet. There was no extra money for school. Somehow at six years old Eliza convinced her mother to let her go to classes, even though, as she explains, the teachers really cared about you being clean, but I was dirty, my hair was never brushed, all the other kids were nicely groomed, I didn’t care. Between grade school and middle school, she got kicked out of school twice and failed the year, once because she broke her hand and couldn’t complete her work, and the other for fighting with a boy in her class. Despite all this, by the time she was 15 she had graduated middle school and wanted to attend high school. When I asked Eliza why she kept striving in a system that did not support her, she explained that she hoped one day her educational attainment might have value in their pursuit of a dignified life.
Every young person I worked with had a similar story of educational perseverance. Many were trying to finish high school, others are working on their bachelor’s degrees, and all have enrolled in cursos plan fin de semana, attending class all day on Saturdays so that they could work in the fields, sell in the market or tend family storefronts the rest of the week. This pathway represents an extreme amount of striving and sacrifice with youth having to choose between paying for school tuition and other critical needs, like medicine for their family members. Also, like Eliza, many have had gaps in their education, dropping out of school and then re-enrolling if and when they can, hoping that the investment might eventually pay off.
These efforts of educational striving are a constant process of deciding to stay, often against the advice of other community members. Elmer recounted how friends and family asked him, don’t you want to build your house? How are you going to have a family? He laughed and assured me he can take the pressure, he is committed to staying, explaining:
These youth who have left are going to end up regretting it. First because they haven’t had the opportunity to study, nobody helped guide them, and I hope they will realize this and they will give the opportunities to their children to become prepared [in term of education]…I hope this country ends up offering us good opportunities, possibilities, and that we have the chance to leave this [current condition] and everything.
In his understanding of the current context, this young man articulates hope for the distant future of his community. The hopes young people conveyed often revolved around the creation of economic opportunity, but also focused on the ability to have their knowledge and experienced valued, to be seen by the system as meaningful, what another participant describes as a problem of inclusivity:
I think this is the problem, if we had an inclusive education, we could all advance, but sometimes the model of education that is there is only trying to delegitimize one thing, and valorize another, and therein lies the conflict. But, if we avoid education and just focus on creating work, we are creating workers who are once again silenced. We need to prepare ourselves [educationally].
For indigenous youth in Guatemala, yes, educational access and opportunity are important—but if the education they receive is not inclusive, if it does not value their whole identities as modern indigenous young people who are trying to imagine a better future for themselves and their families, pushing for education as an antidote to youth migration will fail. Instead, reframing education around the concepts of inclusivity and dignity—as my youth interviewees describe—can serve young people both in their formation of self, and in their ability to frame the futures of the communities in which they want to remain. For the majority of young people I work with, migration is not a desire, it is a necessity, the best of limited options. Positioning education as the better alternative has potential—if it is an enseñanza digna—an education that treats young peoples’ Indigeneity as a critical resource and asset.
