About The Wixárika Research Center
The Wixárika Research Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit public foundation founded and registered in the State of California in May of 2001. We strive to promote public awareness of the Wixarika (Huichol) culture of Mexico through an open access bilingual online archive of Wixarika art, history, and culture along with a news section dedicated to current events. In addition to the archive, we provide support for educational and community initiatives that advance and preserve Wixarika culture and territory.
The Wixarika Indigenous peoples, whose ancestral lands are located in the western Mexican states of what are today Jalisco, Nayarit, and Durango have actively preserved their autonomy, land base, language, civic organization, and spiritual practices. Over the past two decades, threats to Wixarika autonomy have escalated through the desecration and encroachment of large development projects across their vast sacred geography which spans eastward to San Luis Potosí.
Our founders, Juan and Yvonne Negrín, began working alongside Wixarika artists in 1972. Over time, their relationships deepened and their work diversified, leading them to the establishment of several small non-profit initiatives in Mexico that focused on Wixarika art, health and territorial defense from the 1970s through the 1990s: Asociación para la Investigación, Capacitación y Asistencia Wixárika, A.C. was co-founded with Rocío Echevarría, who continues to direct the health-centered organization in Guadalajara; Asociación para el Arte Sagrado Wixárika, an sacred arts organization co-established with Wixarika elders; and Asociación para el Desarrollo Ecológico de la Sierra Madre Occidental, an organization that pioneered important land defense initiatives across three Wixarika communities through the 1980s.
The Negrín's dedicated preservation of documents, manuscripts, news articles, and audio archives, motivated the Wixarika Research Center's central mission to be that of the digitization of the Negrín archive and the creation of a free bilingual online platform for accessing information on Wixarika history, art, and contemporary politics. We have expanded and added content from other archives and collections as well, including that of contemporary content creators and scholars.
Since our foundation in 2001, we have supported the defense of Wixarika sacred lands and cultural rights and, when requested we have provided the support for the design, implementation and seed finance for educational and ecological projects. We are committed to supporting new generations of Wixarika scholars and university students. This includes our scholarship fund for college students which was established in 2018 and has supported nearly 90 students across all communities, universities and disciplinary majors.
We hope you can take some time to explore the present website to learn more about each thematic area we have continued to add content to.
