“¡Amo kitlapanas tetl!”: Heritage Language and the Defense Against Fracking in the Huasteca Potosina, Mexico

Abstract

In this chapter I explore the relationship between language and environment loss and the use of heritage languages in resistance related to the defense of natural resources. This link is shown by analyzing the case of Nahua and Tének communities of the Huasteca Potosina in northeastern Mexico, which between 2013 and 2018 were involved in a range of collective actions against the threat of fracking, a highly damaging method of gas and oil extraction. One particularly interesting aspect of these activities was the spontaneous use of the Indigenous languages Nahuatl and Tének in various anti-fracking activities. Against the backdrop of several centuries of gradual reduction of the vitality of the two languages, this new domain of their use is a surprising but very welcome development for language revitalization. Using insights from participant observation and interviews, I demonstrate that the motivation to use Indigenous languages was not only to facilitate communication, but also to strengthen the Indigenous regional identity as a tool for solidarity building and Indigenous resistance against damaging extraction projects. I also show that fracking is perceived as not only a threat to the environment but also to the native cultures of the region.

Verse

Verse When the last tree is cut and the last fish killed, the last river poisoned, then you will see that you can't eat money. Native American saying (Speake, 2009, p. 177)

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between language and environment loss and the use of heritage language in resistance related to the defense of natural resources. This link is shown by analyzing the case of the Nahua and Tének communities in the Huasteca Potosina in northeastern Mexico, which between 2013 and 2018 were involved in a range of collective actions against the threat of gas and oil extraction in the area using hydraulic fracturing (fracking). One particularly interesting aspect of these activities was the spontaneous use of the Indigenous languages of the region—Nahuatl and Tének—in spoken discourse as well as on banners, T-shirts, and in artwork expressing the opposition of the local population to this damaging technique of fossil fuel extraction. Against the backdrop of several centuries of gradual erosion of Indigenous language use, the new extension of use of Indigenous languages in this new domain is a surprising but very welcome development for language revitalization.

In this chapter, I explore the reasons behind the use of Nahuatl and Tének in the anti-fracking movement, using insights from participant observation and from interviews with activists and members of local Indigenous communities. I demonstrate that the motivation to use Indigenous languages was not only to facilitate communication, but also to strengthen the Indigenous regional identity as a tool for solidarity building and Indigenous resistance against damaging development projects. I argue that the use of the two languages in—precisely—the opposition to fracking (and water pollution) is extremely significant, because water and other natural resources that would be destroyed as a result of fossil fuel exploitation, apart from being essential to survival, also form an integral part of the local Indigenous worldview. Therefore, the danger of fracking is perceived as a threat not only to the environment but also to the Native cultures and languages. I postulate that this relation could be utilized in designing future sustainable development projects to support the integrity of Indigenous communities that would include the protection of natural resources, local cultural heritage, and also language revitalization initiatives.

The structure of this chapter is the following. First, I provide a brief description of the Huasteca, including its history, biodiversity, and linguistic situation. Then, I proceed to explain what fracking is and what the energy sector reform of 2014 in Mexico involved. I then move on to characterize the anti-fracking efforts that emerged in the Huasteca and I list activities in which Indigenous languages were used. What follows is a discussion in which I interpret the use of Nahuatl and Tének in the context of anti-fracking resistance, leading to my concluding remarks.

Huasteca Potosina—Geography, History, Demographic, and Linguistic Situation

The Huasteca is a geographical and cultural region in the northeastern part of Mexico. It extends from the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range eastward to the Gulf of Mexico. Its northern border is the Sierra de Tamaulipas and its southern border is demarcated by the Cazones River. The Huasteca is a predominantly rural region and it includes the northeastern part of the state of Hidalgo, southeastern San Luis Potosí, southern Tamaulipas, northern Veracruz, northern Puebla, northeastern Querétaro and a very small portion of the state of Guanajuato. The Huasteca Potosina, which is the focus of this study, refers to the part of the Huasteca region located in the state of San Luis Potosí.

The Huasteca has a humid/subhumid climate, a varied landscape, and considerable biodiversity. Whereas the northern and eastern parts of the region are quite flat, the rest of it is mountainous. One of the characteristics of the Huasteca is the presence of numerous caves and sótanos (underground openings up to several hundred meters deep) located on the hillsides. The region is also abundant in water springs and rivers, which are often located in deep canyons. A common sight in the Huasteca is the waterfalls, the biggest one being Tamul. Most of the rivers empty into the Pánuco or the Cazones rivers. These, in turn, empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The Huasteca is covered mostly with tropical cloud forest with an abundance of wild animals and plants. The region is rich in wildlife including birds (e.g. macaws, owls, eagles), mammals (e.g. deer, jaguars, armadillos), and many species of reptiles, amphibians, and insects. The region is also abundant in agricultural crops such as maize, beans, squash, and various chili peppers. Apart from the traditional Mesoamerican crops, other crops introduced after the Spanish conquest are also harvested, including coffee, sugarcane, bananas, and citrus fruits.

The Huasteca Potosina region is also characterized by its substantial ethnolinguistic diversity. The two most widely spoken Indigenous languages today are the Western Huasteca variety of Nahuatl (Uto-Aztecan, ISO 639–3: nhw) and a Mayan language called Tének (Teenek, Huastec, Wastek; Mayan, ISO 639–3: hus). A small part of the Huasteca located where the state of San Luis Potosí borders Querétaro is also home to the third ethnolinguistic group, namely the Pame people, known in their own language as the Xi’iuy (Otomanguean, ISO 639–3: pbs, pmq). The Spanish conquest of Mexico at the beginning of the sixteenth century introduced into the picture another language—Spanish—which gradually became the dominant language of Mexico and the Huasteca.

The European exploration of the Huasteca beginning in 1523 (Pérez Zevallos, 2010, p. 47) constitutes a turning point in the history of the region. The colonizers quickly recognized a potential economic opportunity in the rich natural resources and agricultural lands of the area, its large population, its established trade routes between the south and the north, and its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico (Palka, 2015). One of the initial consequences of the Spanish colonization was demographic change: a significant decrease in the Indigenous population as a result of deadly diseases brought by the Europeans to which they had no immunity. Depopulation also occurred as a consequence of slave trafficking. In 1525, as many as 10,000 Indigenous people of the Huasteca were sold and sent to the Antilles as slaves in exchange for cattle (Escobar Ohmstede, 1997, p. 34; Márquez, 1986, p. 203). The Spanish colonizers also imposed social and political changes, including new ways of using the land (Pérez Zevallos, 1983, p. 134), that included organizing the local population into encomiendas, in which Indigenous people were considered vassals of the Crown and were forced to pay tributes with agricultural produce or labor shifts. Due to evangelization, which was mostly performed in the Huasteca by the Augustinians, many Indigenous people had to abandon their original settlements and were forced into congregations (Pérez Zevallos, 1983, p. 99ff.). Another result of evangelization was the introduction of Christian elements into the traditional Indigenous cosmovision.

Although struggles regarding the division of land and natural resources between different cabeceras in the Huasteca had their origin in pre-Hispanic times (Pérez Zevallos, 1983, p. 93), they worsened after the arrival of the Spanish. The conflicts became especially intense in the eighteenth century due to political changes and new taxes introduced in New Spain by the Bourbons (Escobar Ohmstede, 1998, p. 55). Moreover, during the eighteenth century, territorial conflicts were provoked by the expansion of private properties required for increased agricultural production of such crops as sugarcane, maize, and animal farming (Escobar Ohmstede, 1997, p. 40ff.). It was during those times that the most fertile flatlands were often taken over by the owners of large haciendas and the Indigenous populations were forced to move to mountainous terrain (Escobar Ohmstede, 1998, p. 60ff; Pérez Zevallos, 1983, p. 61). Among several forms of Indigenous resistance to the exploitation of resources, violent protests were often regarded as the only way to recuperate lands that had been lost to non-Indigenous owners (Escobar Ohmstede, 1997, p. 65).¹

Significant legal changes regarding land ownership occurred in Mexico after the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917), which redistributed the land from many large haciendas back into the possession of local Indigenous populations. As a result of these reforms, Indigenous land tenure arrangements are now based on membership in local communities in the form of comunidades agrarias or ejidos. Indigenous peoples have collective and communal ownership of the lands on which they reside, and both ejidatarios and comuneros make important decisions regarding land use in official community assemblies. The official titles to the land are held by the community and usually cannot be sold to outsiders, although, as a result of the PROCEDE land certification program in the 1990s, some of the indigenous lands were privatized and divided into individual parcels (see Smith et al. [2009] for more details).

Among many other consequences of the Spanish conquest of Mexico was the decline of the Indigenous languages. The replacement of Nahuatl with Spanish as a new lingua franca of Mexico was, however, rather gradual. In the early part of the colonial period Spanish was only spoken in the Huasteca by an extremely limited number of people (Escobar Ohmstede, 1998, p. 45), and Nahuatl and Tének were used in several official contexts. In particular, Nahuatl and Tének were used for evangelization, as confirmed by the existence of Christian doctrines and catechisms translated to both of these Indigenous languages (de la Cruz, 1571; de Quirós, 2013 [1711]; de Tapia Zenteno, 1753, 1767). This situation officially changed at the beginning of the seventeenth century when Philip IV imposed the policy of Castilianization, which lasted until the end of the colonial period (Fountain, 2015; Heath, 1972). Mexican independence in 1821 brought freedom from the Crown, but it actually resulted in the reinforcement of the use of Spanish in Mexico. Ironically, the colonial language was considered one of the unifying factors in building a new nation. The dominant position of Spanish was further consolidated in the second part of the twentieth century when it became the language of obligatory schooling. The project of alphabetization was carried out throughout the country, including remote Indigenous communities which prior to that time had little exposure to Spanish.

Language Domains in the Huasteca Potosina

Today, the two main ethnolinguistic groups in the Huasteca Potosina are the Nahuas and the Tének people. The former speak a local variety of Nahuatl, which, together with other closely related varieties of Nahuatl spoken in the Huasteca Veracruzana, Hidalguense, and Poblana, as well as in other states of Mexico, is the most widely spoken Indigenous language in the country. According to data provided by Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography), the total number of speakers of Nahuatl in Mexico over three years old is 1,651,958 (INEGI, 2020). The principal municipalities of the state of San Luis Potosí where Nahuatl can be heard are Tamazunchale, Matlapa, Xilitla, Huehuetlán, Tancanhuitz, Tampacán, Coxcatlán, Axtla de Terrazas, San Martín Chalchicuautla, and Tampamolón Corona. The total number of Tének speakers over three years old is estimated to be 168,729 (INEGI, 2020). Almost 60% of all Tének speakers live in the state of San Luis Potosí in the following municipalities: Aquismón, Tancanhuitz, Tanlajás, Xilitla, San Antonio, San Vicente Tancuayalab, Ciudad Valles and Tampamolón Corona. The remaining 40% of Tének speakers live in the state of Veracruz. As a result of ongoing migration, there are also speakers of Nahuatl and Tének in such urban centers as Monterrey, Mexico City, and Guadalajara in Mexico, as well as in various parts of the United States. Almost all speakers of Indigenous languages of the Huasteca are bilingual with Spanish.

There are several forms of official recognition of Indigenous languages in Mexico, but their value is mainly symbolic. One of these is bilingual education offered in some Indigenous villages where preschool and primary school children receive reading and writing classes in their respective heritage language. This model does not educate through the medium of the Indigenous language, however, and its de facto aim is to gradually introduce Spanish, which becomes the sole language of education starting from secondary school. Nahuatl and Tének, as well as other Indigenous languages of Mexico, are recognized as national languages by the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas (General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2003). This law states that Mexico is a multilingual country in which the Native languages should be protected and promoted in official contexts and no person should be discriminated against for speaking their heritage language. However, the linguistic rights of the Indigenous peoples of the Huasteca (and other regions) are mostly not respected. As an example, during my stays in Xilitla between 2014 and 2020 it was almost impossible to communicate with local government officials, apart from those from the Department of Indigenous Affairs, in Nahuatl or Tének. Similarly, medical centers, hospitals, and courts usually lack staff who would be able to attend Indigenous people in their Native languages.

The visibility of Nahuatl and Tének in the Huasteca is also limited. In Xilitla, for instance, there are no official signs in Indigenous languages in the local government buildings or in the streets. However, a number of the local businesses, including several shops and hotels, have adopted names in Nahuatl, most likely for commercial reasons. Certain tourist attractions located near Indigenous communities sometimes have multilingual information panels in Spanish, English, and a respective Indigenous language. Although there are no newspapers published in Indigenous languages in the Huasteca, nor a TV station, there is a local radio station XEANT—Voz de la Huasteca (Voice of the Huasteca) which broadcasts portions of its programs in Nahuatl, Tének, and Pame.

Spanish is taking over more and more domains, nevertheless, Indigenous languages are used in families—especially with older members—and in the local community life. In certain villages Nahuatl and Tének are still employed in communication among neighbors and in community gatherings. In some households heritage languages are used for everyday communication, but there is a growing number of homes where Nahuatl or Tének are solely used when speaking with the elderly. Many parents, despite being able to speak Nahuatl or Tének themselves, decide not to transmit their heritage languages to their offspring and opt for Spanish instead. As reported by several Nahuatl and Tének language activists I spoke to during my fieldwork in the Huasteca, the official language is associated with prosperity and a desired lifestyle, and many people consider the heritage languages backward and associate them with poverty and discrimination (see also Grin, 2007; Harbert, 2011; Ladefoged, 1992; Sallabank, 2013).

Indigenous Economies and Resources

The everyday life of the Nahua and the Tének peoples revolves around the place where they live and rely on the resources that can be found in their community and nearby. Many Indigenous peoples have collective and communal ownership of lands on which they reside. Apart from small-scale farming they also practice foraging and they collect wild fruit, edible wild plants and mushrooms, and engage in animal hunting. Many families also keep domesticated animals including chickens, turkeys, ducks, pigs, rabbits, as well as dogs and cats. Occasionally they sell their crops, such as coffee or squash, the surplus of eggs, homemade local foods, or fruit gathered in the wild to buyers at the weekly market in the altepetl, the municipal capital. The region has practically no industry and unemployment is high. Lack of jobs has forced many Indigenous peoples to leave and find jobs in urban centers, particularly in Monterrey, Nuevo León. Those members of the family that stay in the Huasteca often rely on financial help from the relatives who work in cities or abroad. Many Indigenous peoples also receive modest, but regular social help from the government, such as the Social Inclusion Program PROSPERA.

The Nahuatl and Tének speakers mostly reside in remote communities and their access to utilities is limited. Although most Indigenous communities in the Huasteca are connected to the electricity grid, few residents have landline phones or connectivity with a mobile phone network. It is unusual for an Indigenous community to be linked to a municipal water supply. In many cases the only sources of water are springs located outside the villages from which the residents fetch water to use for drinking, cooking, and other needs. Some communities have a local system of pipes that transport water from a nearby spring to the households. Many people also gather rainwater in plastic or concrete cisterns and use it for daily needs as well.

Natural resources, and water in particular, play a crucial role not only in daily survival but also in the spiritual and cultural life of Indigenous communities. Caves, mountains, and water sources are sacred places for both the Nahua and the Tének people and the local landmarks are present in their oral tradition (see e.g. van’t Hooft & Cerda Zepeda, 2003; Sobkowiak, 2016; Trejo Arenas, 2015). Several centuries of co-existence among the Tének and the Nahua people in the Huasteca resulted in the emergence of similar themes in their oral traditions (including the origin of fire, the origin of corn, or the arrival of floods). These tales have been passed on from generation to generation in an intimate space of the family in order to secure the integral development of the speakers, which comprises “ecological integrity, life quality, and a management of resources” (van’t Hooft, 2009, p. 67). The significance of water for the local people of the Huasteca is summarized by van’t Hooft:

Water paved the way for the present world to come into existence; time started in a new pace after the retrieval of the universal flood waters that wiped out the former world. Today, the cosmos, as created after the flood, is divided into different realms, one of which represents the water world called Apan, which runs across communities in the form of lakes, rivers and wells. [...] Water is also a core element in the foundation of a village, providing it with a right to exist. Huastecan Nahua communities are built around the sacred hill that harbours water as one of its main components. (van’t Hooft, 2007, p. 253)

The rich natural resources of the Huasteca, and water especially, have attracted attention from external national and international companies that seek to use them in a number of projects. A current project involves, for example, a thermoelectric power plant near Tamazunchale, and potential projects include, among many, the construction of an aqueduct that would transport water from the Pánuco river to the arid area of Monterrey (the so-called “Monterrey VI” project), damming of the Coy river or development of the Ciudad Valles-Tamazunchale highway. Despite the fact that these initiatives directly affect the Indigenous communities and are located in proximity to Indigenous land and water sources, very rarely are the Indigenous people consulted in the authorization of the projects. What is more, many believe that the infrastructure that has been developed in the Huasteca so far is, in fact, related to plans to begin large-scale extraction of oil and gas in the future. This prospect generates fear among the local population as it would cause further contamination of air, water, and soil. These speculations became more justified in 2013 when the Mexican government initiated a reform of the energy industry that was aimed at opening Mexico’s fossil fuel resources for exploration by foreign companies, including in the Huasteca. One of the methods of exploitation that was contemplated involved fracking.

Fracking in Mexico

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is a technique used to recover gas trapped in shale, a type of sedimentary rock located deep below the surface of the earth. It involves horizontal drilling and pumping of large quantities of water mixed with a number of chemicals and sand at very high pressure into a well in order to cause fracturing of the shale rock and a release of natural gas.² Fracking can be a highly effective method of exploration and has even changed the United States from a gas importing to a gas exporting country (Bertram, 2019). The success of fracking in the United States has led to the promotion of this method of gas and oil exploitation across the world.

Mexico is one of the countries that are richest in shale gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated in 2013 that Mexico’s technically recoverable shale gas was in sixth place in the world and that its technically recoverable shale oil reserves were in eighth place in the world (EIA, 2013). These reserves are accumulated in marine-deposited, source-rock shales located along the onshore Gulf of Mexico region located in five geologic provinces that span over eleven Mexican states: Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Puebla, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Chiapas (see map in: EIA, 2013, Chapter 2, Part II, p. 1). One of the regions rich in shale resources is the Tampico Basin which extends partly into the Huasteca.

Mexico’s shale resources have been explored since 2010 but it was not until 2013 that the Mexican national oil company, Pétroleos Mexicanos S.A. de C.V. (PEMEX), reported its first successful shale gas test well in the Burgos Basin (Alire García, 2013), where there are already approximately 3,500 active conventional gas wells (Pskowski, 2020). Subsequently, several other test wells were drilled by PEMEX (Burnett, 2015), but the Mexican shale reserves remain unexploited despite a very optimistic prognosis.

Developing of fracking in Mexico has, in fact, proven rather slow and problematic. One early obstacle involved a shortage of water, for example in the Burgos Basin located in arid northeastern Mexico (Godoy, 2013). In addition, many areas rich in shale gas are controlled by drug cartels which have demanded that foreign companies performing preliminary drilling pay for access to prospective well sites. Moreover, the history of theft of oil from pipelines has cost PEMEX huge losses (González, 2015) and is also highly discouraging for prospective foreign investors (Meyers, 2015). A more complicated problem involves the high costs of fracking and a lack of infrastructure that impedes PEMEX from performing the exploration on its own without the cooperation of foreign investors. Under the Mining Law of Mexico, the only company allowed to exploit and develop gas and oil resources was PEMEX. Although PEMEX was allowed to sign contracts with private companies, the existing regulations in Mexico did not guarantee oil companies to receive incentive payments based on a percent of production (PEMEX, 2012). Because of this, there was little incentive to develop fracking in Mexico under the existing legislation (Miroff & Brooth, 2013).

This problem could not be solved without a reform which would allow private and foreign investors to get more involved in Mexico’s fossil fuel sector. Thus, the energy reform started in December 2013 with the Mexican Congress voting to amend the Mexican Constitution. In August 2014 the amendments were signed by President Enrique Peña Nieto, and this step opened Mexico’s fuel industry to private and foreign companies (Villers Negroponte, 2014). The next step occurred when the Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (National Hydrocarbons Commission) announced in December 2014 the guidelines for bidding by private companies. The first stage, or the so-called Ronda cero (Round zero) involved PEMEX identifying the projects it was interested in pursuing. Subsequently, the auction of development blocks was announced, which comprised the so-called Ronda uno (Round one). Despite significant initial interest, only nine oil and gas auctions were conducted in Mexico and approximately 90 contracts for onshore and offshore work were awarded until July 2018 (Barrera, 2018). The election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as the new president of Mexico in 2018 brought a temporary ban on fracking for three years (Bertram, 2019). Investors interested in Mexican oil and gas reserves are waiting for further administrative reforms, as well as more favorable economic conditions that would guarantee the security of their investment.

Controversies Regarding Fracking

The plans to develop fracking in Mexico are controversial for several reasons. Fracking is advertised as a modern and advanced method that can reduce Mexico’s dependence on foreign natural gas imports, reduce the cost of petrol and domestic gas, create business opportunities, improve infrastructure, and offer much-needed employment. Many people remain unconvinced, however, because of the environmental impact fracking can have.

Fracking remains an extraction technique that has a number of environmental consequences. First of all, it involves the extraction of fossil fuel sources which are not renewable. Secondly, it uses excessive amounts of water and causes water pollution. Since the majority of water used for fracking comes from rivers and streams, this can contribute to drought in places where water is in short supply, such as in Coahuila in northeastern Mexico. Another problematic issue associated with fracking involves the use of harmful chemicals, some of which are linked to cancer and infertility in humans and loss of life among mammals and aquatic fauna. Moreover, the water used in fracking activities cannot be returned back into the environment until it is treated. Untreated post-fracking water poses a risk of contaminating groundwater. Fracking is also linked with the risk of earthquakes after large quantities of contaminated water have been injected into underground disposal wells after fracking activities are concluded. Because of the negative environmental consequences of fracking, many countries and localities have banned the use of this technique, including the states of New York, Maryland, and Vermont in the US, and Scotland and Wales in Europe (Meyers, 2015).

In Mexico, another controversy involves how fracking could affect the Indigenous peoples, their land, and their natural resources. They would be one of the most affected groups as many of the prospective fracking activities would be performed within or near Indigenous areas, especially in northern Veracruz and in the state of Puebla.³ As I was told by Rogel del Rosal Valladaraes (p.c., March 20, 2020, Xilitla), an advocate for Indigenous human rights affiliated with Coordinadora de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de la Huasteca Potosina (COCIHP, Coordinating Committee of the Rural and Indigenous Organizations of the Huasteca Potosina), most Indigenous peoples who live outside the urban centers and rely on the local environment often associate fracking (as well as conventional methods of fossil fuel exploration) not with an opportunity for development, but rather with deception aimed at the exploitation of the Native land and its resources. This hesitancy is justified in view of a long history of external actors taking advantage of the poverty and lack of information among the Indigenous peoples. On numerous occasions Indigenous land was leased and local resources were misused without explaining the reasons or informing the local population about health or environmental hazards (Meyers, 2015). In Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo León many farmers felt they were not consulted and were disrespected in the course of fracking activities (Morales Ramírez & Roux, 2018; Morales Ramírez et al., 2018). During the experimental phase, wells were drilled without informing farmers about the details of hydraulic fracturing and its potential effects on the land, water, and health. Moreover, residents of many communities complained about problems with water supply and crops, as well as an increase in violence (Morales Ramírez & Roux, 2018). The health of many Indigenous communities has also been affected (Ramírez, 2015).

Taking into account the above-mentioned controversies and learning from the environmental devastation caused by fracking in the United States, many activists in Mexico became alarmed by the prospect of similar consequences in Mexico. Therefore, around the time when the energy reform was announced, a nationwide resistance movement against fracking started in Mexico. One of the regions where anti-fracking activities were undertaken was the Huasteca.⁴

Resistance Against Fracking in the Huasteca Potosina

The oil and gas reserves in the Huasteca Potosina are part of the Tampico Basin and this region is considered an attractive zone for fracking due to its rich water reserves. A map showing the Huasteca Potosina and the municipalities that could potentially be affected by fracking is presented in Fig. 8.1. According to this map, fracking was most likely to affect the municipalities of the region classified as alto grado de exploración (‘high level of exploration’) located in the eastern part of the region. According to the official data, in Round zero, PEMEX explored parts of only two municipalities in the state of San Luis Potosí, namely Ébano and Tamuín (CartoCrítica, 2014). However, according to Francisco Peña de Paz from El Colegio de San Luis Potosí (Valadez Rodríguez, 2018), the Mexican Secretaría de Energía(Secretariat of Energy) also authorized PEMEX to inspect other municipalities including Tanlajás, San Antonio, and San Vicente Tancuayalab.

Fig. 8.1

Copyright: Francisco Peña de Paz and Mario Hernández Infante, Laboratorio de Análisis Cartográfico y Socioambiental, El Colegio de San Luis

Exploration of fossil fuels in the Huasteca Potosina.

The anti-fracking movement in the Huasteca Potosina began around the time when the Energy Reform was announced in 2013 and slowed only in 2018 when the new president announced a temporary ban on fracking in Mexico. The most active organization involved in informing local communities about the potential threat of fracking and their collective rights was COCIHP, which, previously had been involved in other activities aiming at the defense of Indigenous rights in the Huasteca Potosina. COCIHP was also one of approximately forty NGOs that worked together as the Alianza Mexicana contra el Fracking (Mexican Alliance Against Fracking). All of the anti-fracking events were planned in cooperation with the local authorities corresponding to the location of each event.

The anti-fracking movement in the Huasteca Potosina involved a number of activities including community-based participative research (i.e. studies of popular epistemology), creation of alternative reports, development of collective action, judicial activism, media-based activism, public campaigns including informative meetings, marches, and street protests, as well as artistic and creative actions such as painting. The biggest event took place on August 25, 2018, when as many as 4,200 people gathered in the village of Chimalaco in the municipality of Axtla de Terrazas (Hernández Borbolla, 2018). The core of the activities comprised open informative meetings organized in approximately 150 villages (Cravioto Lagos, p.c., June 30, 2021, phone interview) located across different municipalities of the Huasteca Potosina. The villages included both Indigenous Nahua or Tének communities, as well as rural mestizo communities. Some gatherings also occurred in local municipal capitals, including Xilitla in 2016. Often, in addition to the residents of the villages where meetings took place, the participants also included people from other communities who were transported free of charge to the location of the event. The activities quickly became eagerly awaited events with hundreds of participants present in each of them. The aim of these events, which generally lasted 4–6 hours, was to explain what fracking is, to raise awareness of its consequences as well as to discuss Indigenous peoples’ rights in the face of the threat. The meetings included introductory sessions in which invited guests would talk and show slides about fracking, followed by work in groups and presentation of the results of group work. Throughout the events, posters with anti-fracking slogans were usually displayed. Another form of anti-fracking activities also involved street marches which took place in, among others, Tamazunchale, Tanlajás, and Xilitla.

The anti-fracking movement in the Huasteca also involved the development of collective actions and judicial activism.⁵ First of all, in more than 100 villages (Cravioto Lagos, p.c., June 30, 2021, phone interview) general assemblies of the ejidatarios and community members declared their ejidos and communities territorios libres del fracking (‘fracking-free zones’). What is more, the councils of 11 municipalities (Cravioto Lagos, p.c., June 30, 2021, phone interview) reached agreement and rejected fracking or other conventional fossil fuel extraction projects in their respective Plan de Desarrollo Municipal (The Municipal Development Plan) for the years 2018–2021. These municipalities included, among others, Ciudad Valles, Tamuín, Tanquián de Escobedo, San Antonio, Tanlajás, Tancanhuitz, Tamazunchale and Xilitla (del Rosal Valladares, p.c., March 20, 2020, Xilitla). One of the most radical decisions taken in Chimalaco in August 2018 involved increasing the existing number of community policemen to protect the residents from the Mexican army and the PEMEX staff in case they came to engage in the extraction of fossil fuels. Another activity of the anti-fracking movement in the Huasteca involved support for the creation of the Ley General de Aguas (General Law of Water) that would guarantee that water is not used to exploit hydrocarbons (Hernández Borbolla, 2018).

Use of Indigenous Languages in the Anti-Fracking Movement

One of the aspects of anti-fracking activities in the Huasteca involved the use of the Indigenous languages Nahuatl and Tének. Domains of use for spoken Nahuatl and Tének included simultaneous translations of experts’ presentations (in Spanish) explaining what fracking is, a practice that normally initiated all informative meetings and workshops. Moreover, Nahuatl and Tének were also used in discussions among participants during group work. In addition to spoken language, the two languages were also utilized in written form on banners, posters, T-shirts, and on a mural.

Several reasons were mentioned as the motivation behind using Indigenous languages in the movement. Francisco Cravioto Lagos, a consultant who took part in numerous gatherings in the region between 2014 and 2017, claims that Nahuatl and Tének were spoken because of their practical communicative value. Use of everyday plain language allowed for clarification of difficult terminology related to fracking. In his words:

It was mainly used to clarify terms, to ground concepts… It is a very complex technique … and in the same way … it is not very easy to explain it in Spanish. Well, it is not easy to explain it in Nahuatl or Tének either, however [what] is being done is precisely to give the most basic explanation but not lacking the details about what the technique consists of and ... on many occasions the authorities and other colleagues supported us with translations.⁶ (Cravioto Lagos, p.c., June 30, 2021, phone interview)

The need to come up with Native equivalents for the term ‘fracking’ arose early on in the resistance movement. The term was translated by Native speakers as kitlapanas tetl in Nahuatl and an pok’ol tújub in Tének, which translates as ‘breaking of the rock’ in both languages. These terms later became part of the anti-fracking slogans ¡Amo kitlapanas tetl! in Nahuatl and ¡Ibá ka pok’ow an tújub! in Tének, which both translate as ‘No to fracking!’. These were frequently used on banners and T-shirts. The origin of the Nahuatl Native creation term for fracking is explained by a Native speaker of Nahuatl who was involved in coining the term ¡Amo kitlapanas tetl!:

In the region where we live, the majority speak Nahuatl, so in order to recognize the location [it was necessary that] a phrase should come out to defend the territory, our Nahuatl region, and from there the phrase that could be used to in defense of our territory was born: ¡Amo kitlapanas tetl!⁷ (FM, p.c., July 12, 2021, phone interview)

Del Rosal Valladares (p.c., March 20, 2020, Xilitla) remarks that the translation of the term ‘fracking’ to Indigenous languages is more literal and descriptive. The term itself conveys what fracking is. In the case of such languages as Spanish for example, which adopted the English term, the true meaning of the destructive technique is omitted. Del Rosal Valladares said:

The translation of the meaning of fracking is essential . . . It is not a literal translation, let's say, it is – rather – a meaning that is directly related to the life, the present and the future of Indigenous peoples . . . It means a lot more to them – doesn't it? – and it has to do with life itself, with the sacred, in this case water, land and the pollution it would cause, and of course . . . the relationship it has with the peoples themselves, their future . . . they also like to be spoken to in their own language.⁸ (del Rosal Valladares, p.c., March 20, 2020, Xilitla)

The Nahuatl version of the slogan also appeared on an anti-fracking mural in Uxtuapan, a Nahua community located in the municipality of Xilitla (see Fig. 8.2). In addition to the two official anti-fracking slogans, other creative anti-fracking messages written in Nahuatl and Tének were coined and placed on the banners used in marches and meetings (see Fig. 8.3).

Fig. 8.2

Photograph by Elwira Dexter-Sobkowiak

Anti-fracking mural in Uxtuapan, municipality of Xilitla.

Fig. 8.3

Photograph: Sebastián Coronado, Facebook/everydaysanluispotosi, 2020

Anti-fracking poster in Nahuatl (¡Ximanaui mo “a”! ‘Defend your water!’) and Spanish during a protest in Chimalaco in August 2018.

Discussion

With regard to the use of Indigenous languages in the anti-fracking initiatives, several interesting observations can be made. In this part I aim to answer the questions of why languages were used in this type of resistance, what can be inferred from it, and what implications this phenomenon can have for the future of Nahuatl and Tének.

Although the reason for the use of Nahuatl and Tének in the anti-fracking movement that was most often mentioned in the interviews was simply to facilitate communication, there are several considerations that seem to contradict this explanation. The first counterargument is that it is now almost impossible to find speakers of Nahuatl and Tének who would not also speak Spanish. As the official language of Mexico, Spanish would be an obvious choice for a communication tool during events in which many participants (including presenters) did not speak Nahuatl or Tének. On average, as many as 95% of speakers of Nahuatl and Tének in the Huasteca Potosina are bilingual in Spanish (INEGI, 2020).⁹ What is more, the monolingual speakers are usually the elderly community members who tend to stay at home, so their participation in the events was very limited. Taking these facts into consideration, in theory it would be perfectly possible to use Spanish as the sole language of the anti-fracking activities.

In our attempt to explain the reasons behind the use of Nahuatl and Tének in the movement, an important consideration involves the nature of the threat that kindled the resistance. Fracking became a strongly opposed project because of its potential consequences regarding water contamination. Water, as mentioned earlier, has a special significance for the Indigenous communities of the Huasteca not only because of its vital role in their everyday life, but also because it has a central role in the Indigenous cosmovision. This is shown, for example, by a Nahuatl oral tradition compilation project in 2015–2016 in which tales concerning the protection of water occurred especially frequently (Sobkowiak, 2016). One such story was Iyoltsi atl ‘The heart of the water’ which was written down by a secondary school student from Itztacapa in the municipality of Xilitla, who heard the tale from his grandparents. Essentially, it is a warning against external people who can come and ‘stain’ the water. The story, as follows, could almost be interpreted as a warning against fracking:

Iyoltsi atl

Nepa kampa nieua Itstakapa, kiampa kitokaxtijkej katli paya itstokej, pampa paya toktoya se ueyi kuauitl kampa amextok. Nochi maseualmej kitekiuiaj ni atl. Ni ueyi kuauitl itokax itstakuauitl. Panokej tonalmej ipan ni teyouali, inka kema tlantinenki atl, kiampa kijtouaj. Nopa ateno kipixtoya iyolo tlen tetl. Ni tetl tleya eltoya ipan atl, kiampa inka uaktinenki. Maseualmej kiapixtinenkej kiampa inka kiichtekisej.Se tonali inka aki kiapixki uan maseualmej tlen seyok teyouali panokej uan imoyajkej nopa atl. Kampa yajuantij itstokej kena atlamij, uan kiitakej inka aki tlajpia uajka kixtejkej iyoltsi atl. Kiuikakej kampa yajuantij itstokej uan kiampa inka kema tlami inia. Uan ama tojuantij tijpiaj tijkuitij ipan oksejko teyoualmej uan kiampa tijmaluisej toa. (José Hernández, 2016, p. 28)

The heart of the water

Itztacapa, the community where I was born, was named by its residents in honor of a huge tree that was planted next to a spring. Everybody needed water, the vital liquid. This tree bore the name of itstakuauitl. They say that in ancient times the community never lacked water. The well had a heart of stone that floated on top of the water, preventing it from drying out. The villagers took much care of this treasure so it wouldn’t be stolen. But one day no one looked after the well and people from another community came and made the water dirty. In their village the water had run out and they came here and when they saw that no one was looking after [the spring], they stole the heart of the water. They took it to where they live so they would never run out of water. Now we have to go to search for water in other communities and that’s why we take care of our water. (translation by E. Dexter-Sobkowiak)

The threat of fracking and water contamination provoked a strong reaction among the local residents of the Huasteca because of the special place water has in the Indigenous cosmovision. They associate these environmental dangers with a threat to their cultural survival, of which local language is an integral part. The use of Nahuatl and Tének in the social movement organized around resistance against fracking can be interpreted as a way of giving this movement a special distinction, and as means of strengthening community solidarity. In the story Iyoltsi atl the residents of Itztacapa became careless and stopped taking care of their water source and, as a result, people from another village could rob the stone. As the story demonstrates, solidarity among residents and care for the environment are crucial to ensure the survival of the Indigenous community. Speaking a local heritage language can therefore be also considered essential for achieving this goal.

The history of the Huasteca shows that environmental changes were indeed partly responsible for cultural decline and language loss in Nahua and Tének communities. In recent times, for example, climate change has provoked crop failures, such as coffee, which used to be a reliable source of income for many Nahua and Tének people. As a result, many individuals were forced to find employment in urban centers away from their original speech communities. Their new city life kept them away from their Indigenous traditions and their ancestral language, and they shifted to the mainstream mestizo culture and Spanish. The link between changes in local environment, including the disappearance of animal and plant species, and language displacement has also been noted in other Indigenous communities of Mexico and in other countries. As a result of deforestation, many of approximately 1000 languages of Papua New Guinea became threatened as the natural barriers that allowed local languages to develop in isolation were broken down (Loh & Harmon, 2014). Splintering of speech communities as a result of climate change was also reported for Sulawesi, Indonesia (Riehl, 2018).

In the case of many such dispersed language communities, the loss of their heritage languages caused identity problems. This occurred because local languages are often important components of identity and it is no different in the case of Nahuatl and Tének. It is certainly possible to be a Nahua without understanding or speaking Nahuatl, nevertheless, having a language used only with certain people is a powerful tool for connections and a sense of community. Few who have visited Nahua or Tének communities in the Huasteca would deny that those lugareños (‘the locals’) who speak the respective Indigenous language form part of a more tightly knit community and are less at odds with questions regarding their Indigenous identity. Therefore, I argue that instead of being simply a means of verbal communication, Nahuatl and Tének are a fundamental part of the Indigenous local identity.

The link between the heritage language, resistance against fracking, and the expression of local Indigenous identity was expressed directly in the anti-fracking mural in the Nahua village of Uxtuapan in the municipality of Xilitla (Fig. 8.2). The mural was created as a joint effort between the Tinta Negra collective and the Uxtuapan community members. It depicts the Aztec rain god Tlaloc protecting the local community and its resources (water springs, corn, coffee, and local fauna) against the danger of fracking. The design of the mural is, in fact, closely connected with an oral tradition of Uxtuapan (in English ‘The cave of the water spring’) whose residents have a special relationship with its local landscape (see e.g. the tale Toteyouali Ostoapan ‘Our village Uxtuapan’ in Sobkowiak, 2016, p. 47).

Another reason behind the use of Indigenous languages may involve the expression of solidarity in the face of external oppression and an instrument to mobilize the Indigenous population to fight for their collective rights.¹⁰ Cravioto Lagos (p.c., June 30, 2021, phone interview) affirms that local languages are part of the Indigenous identity, becoming a resistance tool (“it is a unifying element, an element of identity and, of course, a seed of resistance”).¹¹ Del Rosal Valladares (p.c., March 20, 2020, Xilitla) claims that the expressive value of Nahuatl and Tének is greater than that of Spanish. He claims that the Indigenous people are more impacted if the message is passed on to them in their respective ancestral language. As a consequence, they also feel more obliged to defend their land and resources:

They translate the talk into their own language and of course people are much more convinced, very shocked about the subject. That makes them have a very strong reaction and get committed to the fight to defend the territory.¹² (del Rosal Valladares, p.c., March 20, 2020, Xilitla)

Cravioto Lagos (p.c., June 30, 2021, phone interview) perceives the ancestral languages not only as symbols of the fight against fracking, but also the fight against all big transnational neoliberal projects. He also regards the use of language as an integral part of the Indigenous mobilization in the Huasteca (“the use of those languages contributed to the process of popular mobilization”).¹³ An anonymous Nahuatl speaker (FM, p.c., July 12, 2021, phone interview) regards Nahuatl as an aid in the fight for the natural resources (“translate it into Nahuatl... is to defend what we have, [to defend] the nature”).¹⁴ Moreover, the presence of Nahuatl and Tének in the linguistic landscape is considered by him as something akin to a protective shield:

It is like a shield in which one defends that those who come from outside do not enter this place ... to destroy ... It is like a sign, so that they see that they cannot enter, [that] they cannot do harm, where one has the richness of the water...¹⁵ (FM, p.c., July 12, 2021, phone interview)

Although the vitality of Indigenous languages in the Huasteca should not be regarded as stable or safe, their use in the anti-fracking movement certainly appears to be an expression of positive language attitudes and ideology. These, in turn, are of great importance in any potential language revitalization effort (Dołowy-Rybińska & Hornsby, 2021).¹⁶ The use of Nahuatl and Tének as means of oral communication, as well as increasing their visual presence on banners and on the Uxtuapan mural has, without doubt, contributed to creating positive language attitudes not only among the Indigenous peoples but also among their mestizo neighbors. In the case of the Uxtuapan mural, its location was chosen by the community members who decided to paint it on the wall of the community basketball court in the center of the village. This artwork quickly became the object of local pride also because it was publicized in various information portals and in social media.

Apart from the positive language attitudes that were generated in the anti-fracking movement in the Huasteca, another favorable aspect for language vitality is the creation of new domains of language use in public for Nahuatl and Tének. This is an unexpected development since until then the two languages were mostly confined to the more intimate environments of home and the local community. Whereas the overall vitality of the two languages can be described as declining due to a decrease in the total number of speakers,¹⁷ loss of intergenerational language transmission, migration to urban centers, and shift to Spanish, an additional domain of use for spoken and written Nahuatl and Tének is a positive development.

In view of these findings, I propose that the perceived link between environmental damage and language and Indigenous culture loss should be explored and used in future language and culture revitalization projects. As seen, for example, in the Nahuatl oral tradition compilation project (Sobkowiak, 2016), revitalization initiatives are more welcomed if they make the participants more engaged with their local environment and themes they can relate to more easily, and which reflect an inherently relational perspective that is still present in local Indigenous ontology. I argue that the link between environment and language protection that can be perceived in the Huasteca can be regarded as a ‘good idea’ (Penfield, 2021, p. 46ff.) for a revitalization project. It may generate much-needed excitement, enthusiasm, and commitment to help the effort of reversing language loss that can be currently observed in the case of Nahuatl and Tének.

Concluding Remarks

The Indigenous residents of the Huasteca have a strong relationship with their land, environment, natural resources, and water in particular. These elements are central in their worldview and, along with the ancestral language they speak, form part of their Indigenous identity. The use of Nahuatl and Tének in the anti-fracking movement in the Huasteca demonstrates that there is a perceived relationship between environmental degradation and cultural decline including language loss. Despite the dwindling vitality of both languages, activities related to anti-fracking activism created another important domain of use for both of them. Moreover, Nahuatl and Tének were employed in the resistance not only for their purely communicative value, but also because of their greater potential for conveying emotions, strengthening Indigenous identity, building solidarity, and mobilizing against the threat of fracking. The presence of spoken Nahuatl and Tének in public spaces during street marches and protests, as well as the increased visual presence of both languages in the linguistic landscape, contributed to improving local attitudes about these languages.

The changing language ideology relating to Indigenous languages in the Huasteca, as well as the link between the environment, language, and culture, should be explored and used in future language revitalization activities and also in broader sustainable development projects. An integral, inclusive, and sustainable development plan should involve the protection of Indigenous cultures and languages which are in a symbiotic relationship with the Huasteca's biodiversity and natural resources. Environmental protection should be planned along with cultural and linguistic revitalization, and language revitalization projects should, in turn, acknowledge the special relationship the speakers of Nahuatl and Tének have always had with their habitat. Although the situation of Nahuatl and Tének is still precarious because of the pressure from Spanish, the use of both languages in the anti-fracking movement is a phenomenon that allows us to feel more optimistic about future revitalization projects and the strengthening of the position of the two languages in the region.