Via Global Voices comes the issue of language and power, specifically the criticism coming from a Peruvian newspaper that an indigenous congresswoman, Hilaria Supa, should not have her position because she doesn’t know proper Spanish.

El Correo de Lima wrote in a front page story:

Se trataba de Hilaria Supa, parlamentaria del Partido Nacionalista Peruano elegida por la región Cusco, y a decir de lo que descubrió una reveladora foto de Correo, sus limitaciones en cuanto a ortografía y sintaxis dejan mucho que desear. Las tomas obtenidas del cuaderno de notas de la mujer de 49 años hablan por sí solas.

My translation: This is about Hilaria Supa, Congresswoman form the Nationalist Peruvian Party chosen by the Cusco region, and based on a revealing photograph from el Correo, her limitations when it comes to her ability to spell and use of syntax, leave much to be desired. The images from a notebook of the writing of the 49 year old woman speak for themselves.

Supa has a long history of work in the Quechua community, including language rights issues and the mass sterilization of women in Peru under former President Fujimori. She’s been a Congresswoman since 2006 and was the first parliamentarian in Peruvian history to take the oath in an indigenous language, Quechua.

So is this discriminatory? Racist? Classist?

Yes, yes, and yes.

It is clear that Supa can communicate and organize. She has made her life’s work out of it. Here what we have is a clear desire to deny agency to an indigenous woman because she doesn’t live up to a standard of proper Spanish usage. Never mind that with an indigenous population of about 50%, Spanish isn’t the original language of the country, just the language adopted as the official one when Peru was colonized.

Supa clearly represents some portions of the indigenous Peruvian population, which is vital, I would argue to the development of the country. Here very typical classism and anti-indio found in Latin America. Education, especially higher education is reserved for the elite, which certainly does not include rural indigenous populations.

From el Gran Combo Club:

Forty years ago, illiterates were not able to vote, and in the department of Cusco only 5% of voting age voted. The poorest peasants and indigenous were illiterates and did not have representation, and in that case, Congress did not pass laws to benefit them. Now it has to do with barriers to entrance to political activity, a similar objective.