Indigenous Central America
Resources for teaching and learning about Indigenous Central Americans.
Indigenous History in Central America
In this unit for middle school developed as part of the Central American Studies in K-12 Curriculum Project, students learn about four Central American Indigenous leaders and their fights for their land and equality. First students learn about Tecun Uman as a whole group. In groups they then learn about one of the following modern Central American indigenous leaders: Rigoberta Menchú (Maya K’iche’), Berta Cáceres (Lenca), or Rodrigo Tot (Maya Q’eqchi’). They then create a comic strip version of one of the resistance fighters to share with elementary students.
Resistance and Advocacy of Marginalized Communities (Dual Immersion Spanish)
In this dual immersion Spanish mini-unit developed as part of the Central American Studies in K-12 Curriculum Project, 4th grade students explore the Garifuna and their history of forced migration and displacement. They also study the beneficiaries of erasure, as well as the resistance and advocacy of minoritized groups in the U.S. Students create a multi-media collage representing a minoritized group and their journey of resisting erasure in the face of oppressive systems.
Native Land Digital Map shows Indigenous territories, languages, and treaties.
Popol Vuh Maya Creation Story video and Popol Vuh Maya Creation Story PDF. The Popol Vuh narrates the Maya creation story, the tales of the Hero Twins, and the account of the creation of the sky, the Earth, and all life. Created by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
Smithsonian’s NMAI “Living Maya Time” website includes information about the Maya people and curricular resources for teachers.
“Keeping Garifuna” video and website about Garifuna immigrants to the United States
The Pipils of El Salvador by Bill Fowler. See also this brief history of El Salvador.
Jul 17, 2017
A conversation with renowned Honduran Resistance leaders Miriam Miranda and Bertha Zúniga Cáceres on Indigenous struggles for rights, territory, and Mother Earth. Miriam Miranda is General Coordinator of OFRANEH, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, which organizes Garifuna communities in defense of ancestral territory along the Atlantic coast of Honduras. Bertha Zúniga Cáceres is the General Coordinator of Grassroots International grantee COPINH, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, and the daughter of Berta Cáceres, the founder of COPINH and Lenca leader whose murder shook the world last year. This event was sponsored by CLACS NYU with Grassroots International and NYU's Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics.
Berta Cáceres profile from the Zinn Education Project and Teaching Central America bio
I Am You Or You Are Me / In Lak'ech by Luis Valdez (from Pensamiento Serpentino)
Popol Vuh: A Retelling by Ilan Stavans
El Niño de Maiz by Mario Bencastro
