Remembering Yuka+ye: Wixarika teacher and activist left a storied legacy
Jesús Lara Chivarra and Cilau Valadez face the entrance to First Majestic Silver Corp. headquarters in Vancouver, demanding entrance to the annual stockholders meeting. Photograph ©Tracy Barnett
While most people were celebrating the holidays, others from Canada to Mexico mourned the loss of a leading Wixarika scholar and teacher, a cultural ambassador and an indigenous activist whose work on behalf of indigenous unity spanned North America.
Yuka+ye Jesús Lara Chivarra’s path took him from the Huichol Sierra to the halls of power. He hobnobbed with rock stars and artists, he faced down police and corporate executives, he taught college students, film producers, attorneys, journalists – but he was always most at home in his village.
Yuka+ye Jesús Lara Chivarra’s death in December after an automobile accident came as a shock to all who knew him. The tireless traveler, writer and public speaker touched countless lives during his 54 years, including this reporter. Lara Chivarra was an educator by training, a teacher and the author of a Wixarika-Spanish dictionary. He worked within his community to keep his culture alive and at the same time worked to make his language and culture accessible to those on the outside, even developing a method to teach the arcane Huichol language more easily.
He was one of those at the forefront of the movement to save the sacred territory of Wirikuta from Canadian mining companies, and he traveled extensively in the United States and Canada to garner public support for this cause. It was in these travels that he gained the most public exposure, but his work in defending Wixarika territories began nearly two decades earlier.
Jesús González de la Cruz, a friend from his early days in the sister community of Tuxpan de Bolaños, remembers him as a clear and eloquent thinker even as a youth. He recalls him presenting his ideas to the general assemblies while still a college student.
González de la Cruz would go on to accompany his friend and tocayo (a person with the same name) in the struggle to recover and defend Wixarika territories for their communities, including an unforgettable standoff at Mesa del Tirador in the late 1990s. The federal government had identified 14 focos rojos (trouble spots) throughout the country, and Tuxpan was one of them. González de la Cruz was serving as a delegate of the Unión de Comunidades Indígenas while Lara was president, and he remembers the young leader as a force for calm and reason. Follow link below to continue reading...
