27-05-2025
A cultural bridge between Ecuador and the MSU community: The resilience of Kichwa language
Elsa Caín-Yuquilema, a member of the Kichwa Puruhá ethnic group from Ecuador and a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at MSU from 2024 to 2025. | Photo by Erick Diaz Veliz
For Elsa Caín-Yuqilema of Ecuador, language expresses one's culture and when a language is lost, its culture will also vanish, and with it, its people.
To do her part in making sure that doesn't happen, Caín-Yuqilema kept her Kichwa language alive in the classrooms of Michigan State University by sharing it with community members.
'Kichwa is an endangered language, and if it ever disappears, it will be because of us: from the language not being passed down by parents to the change in traditional clothing. I believe that in Ecuador, we lack appreciation for ourselves, we Kichwa speakers,' she said.
Caín-Yuqilema, 32, arrived at MSU from Ecuador a year ago, as part of a cultural and academic exchange through the Fulbright Program. Elsita, as her friends affectionately call her, embarked on this adventure once again outside her country, but this time not just as an exchange student, but also as a teacher of her culture.
Through engaging classes and cultural events, Caín-Yuqilema taught Kichwa, her first language and the native tongue of the Andean peoples in South America, to undergraduate students. At the same time, alongside Indigenous student organizations, she organized cultural events for community members, never missing an opportunity to showcase a piece of the Indigenous traditions of Ecuador that she grew up with and lived with.
Caín-Yuqilema has a soft and calm voice. Filling her voice with warm emotion, she shared how the MSU community has appreciated and admired every part of her culture. Every Kichwa word spoken in class, every song shared at a cultural event, is a thread she wove, connecting the two worlds: the Indigenous traditions of Ecuador and the American society.
Among her students, words of excitement and gratitude are expressed at having learned about a new culture through language. They appreciated that these types of classes are offered at the university, where cultural exchange and the expansion of perspectives are encouraged through native-speaking professors from other countries.
'I looked through the MSU catalog and saw that Kichwa was being taught in person, so I was really excited to see that and kind of jumped at the opportunity to start learning. I'm so, so happy that I did. I didn't have much of a connection with Ecuador or any other South American country. I do now.', said Drake Howard, a linguistics student.
'We're really lucky at MSU to be able to take courses in a language that doesn't have very many resources online,' Howard highlighted.
This process of cultural exchange made her feel much more confident about her own culture. Caín-Yuqilema belongs to the Kichwa Puruhá ethnic group, from the region of Riobamba, in the province of Chimborazo, Ecuador. She learned Kichwa from her family, passed down by her parents and grandparents, while Spanish, her second language, was taught at school and in the community. Later, as a young woman, she learned English at university.
Although English and Spanish are the dominant languages in Ecuador, Kichwa has remained within her as her own. Caín-Yuqilema explained that it is common to see young people who no longer know the native language or wear traditional clothing. For many Kichwa speakers, not speaking Spanish 'properly,' as a second language, makes them subject to uncomfortable stares and corrections, even in their own country.
'After several decades of struggle by our fathers and mothers, fortunately in Ecuador, Kichwa has been more accepted by society in recent years; however, there is still much work to do,' Caín-Yuqilema said.
According to UNESCO, in Andean countries with a Kichwa majority, such as Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, there is an accelerated loss of the language, primarily due to migration and the death of speakers. Furthermore, the low appreciation for culture and language means it is not passed down from generation to generation, driven by social and cultural integration in places where Spanish is the dominant language.
Despite being a vulnerable language, Kichwa, more than just a language, has become a cultural bridge that connects Indigenous roots with international academic spaces, including in Michigan. Caín-Yuqilema built and maintained that bridge by bringing with her her words, her clothing, her stories, and her worldview to the MSU community members who may have never heard about the lives of Andean peoples in South America.
'Kichwa education brought me here, and this experience has been a learning experience. I'm taking the best of education and culture from here, and I hope I've left the best of mine,' Caín-Yuqilema stated.
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