Associate Professor of Linguistics Iara Mantenuto is working with community activist don Félix Cortés, community members of San Sebastián del Monte, and CSUDH students in the Mexican state of Oaxaca to preserve the endangered indigenous language there—by documenting and studying local plant life.

Mantenuto’s three-year project, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, uses plants native to the mountainous region as an entry point into the Mixtec language. Researchers are documenting and photographing local plant names, descriptions, and their uses. Indigenous people of Oaxaca traditionally use local plants in cooking, decoration, construction, tool creation, rituals, and medicine. They’re also key to current community-led efforts toward eco-friendly reforestation.

“The Mixtec are a very agrarian culture,” says Mantenuto, “so these plants and their uses really matter to them. We thought that made agriculture a natural entry point into their language.”

The project is also being documented on video, with the goal of producing a 30-minute documentary about the community. Along with filming the project, the team taught videography skills to local youth to empower them to engage with storytelling through technology and to contribute to the documentary.

The team created a comprehensive illustrated field guide on practices involving plant knowledge and traditional uses. The project will also create shorter videos for use in teaching, a lesson plan for language workshops based on the plants and their traditional use, and other teaching materials. The UCLA Botanical Garden is currently supporting the project and working with the team to decide which plants from the Sierra Mixtec to add to a dedicated section of their garden.

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