Mexico is considered a multicultural country with enormous linguistic diversity. However, many of its Indigenous languages ​​are on the verge of disappearing and some of them may disappear completely in the near future. See why these languages are disappearing and what is being done to preserve them.

There are many methods of exploring your Indigenous California Roots. These include the California Mission Indians Records (Baptisms, Marriages & Burials) and the Huntington Library’s California Early Population Project. But the National Archives (NARA) can also be very helpful. It is also important for people to know that Ancestry.com has a database for all the Indian Censuses between 1885 and 1940. Finding that your ancestors were listed in this census could help you locate more information.

The Otomanguean Language Family is the most diverse language group of the ten language families of Mexico, consisting of 18 ethnic groups and 220 linguistic variants (i.e., dialects). In addition to discussing the present-day status of these languages, John P. Schmal will discuss the factors that influenced language diversification and development which led to the creation of so many Otomanguean languages.

The Story of the Lipan Apache of Texas is told on their website, one page of which has been reproduced here.

https://www.lipanapache.org/LAT/aboutus.html

Between the years of 1000 and 1400, a large group of Apache people moved south from Canada. Some of this group settled in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Mexico. These groups which separated became the Navajo Nation, Lipan Apache, Chiricahua Apache, Mescalero Apache, Jicarilla Apache, the Plains Apache, and other Apache tribes.

Not everyone is lucky enough to snag a job that falls in line with their personal interests. However, when USC alum Jonathan Rodriguez entered the workforce in 2019, he realized he could combine his deep love for Indigenous cultures with his Master’s in Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST).

Rodriguez’s time at USC Dornsife’s Spatial Sciences Institute not only helped him pursue his passion, it also prepared him for the future.

Explore the untold story of California’s Indigenous peoples - from ancient languages and tribal lands to colonization, resistance, and survival. This detailed report follows their journey across centuries of upheaval and resilience.

For the better part of a century, both sides of the Rio Grande feared Indigenous raids that led to increased tensions and retaliatory raids. Many treaties and alliances were made and broken.

Boundaries between countries were not only in flux, but almost totally ignored by some of the more aggressive Indigenous groups [the Comanches and Apaches]. However, after several decades, the Indigenous threat to Texas from sanctuaries in Mexico would end with six cross-border campaigns against the Kickapoo and Lipan Apache in 1873 and 1876-1878.

Before the land was parceled into cities, ranchos, and suburbs, what we now call Orange County, California was home to Indigenous nations whose presence stretched back thousands of years. The Tongva (often called Gabrieleño), the Juaneño (Acjachemen), and the Luiseño each held territory here. We trace the region’s transformation from Indigenous homelands to Spanish mission territory and, later, to Mexican ranchos. We examine the impact of colonization, beginning with the 1769 expeditions and the establishment of the mission system.

The State of Jalisco is the ancestral home of many Mexican Americans. However, very few people much about the history of Jalisco’s Indigenous people. Five centuries ago, the State of Jalisco had a very dynamic and diverse Indigenous population, but that changed with the conquests of Nuño de Guzmán. In this article, we explore the native groups that inhabited every corner of Jalisco in the Sixteenth Century. Today, they live on through you, their descendants.

The nature of the so-called Chichimecas has varied in time and place. Originally the Spaniards and their Indigenous allies referred to the semi-nomadic people who inhabited the frontier area of Nueva Galicia as Chichimecas. They waged a 40-year-war against them. But two hundred years later, the Spaniards also used the term for the nomadic Coahuiltecan tribes of the northeast.

Nearly 700 years ago a group of people founded a city known as Tenochtitlán. These people would set forth great conquests and dominate much of central and southern Mexico. Tenochtitlán would grow to become an engineering marvel, a metropolis of between 200,000-300,000 inhabitants by the 16th century. But what do we call these people? Aztec or Mexica?

At its height in 1519, the Aztec Empire was a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual realm stretching more than 80,000 square miles and ruling over 15 million people. But, for all its strength and breadth, the Aztec Empire failed to conquer several regions that represented “independent enclaves” within their vast dominion. One of those enclaves contained the people then known as the Tlapaneco (now known as Méphaa). Their enclave was known as Yopitzinco.

The saga of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, as recorded in his own narratives, serves as one of the most fascinating chronicles of European exploration in North America and offers one of the earliest and most detailed European perspectives on indigenous life and landscapes in the 16th century.

Mesoamerica was filled with hundreds of cultures, all interacting with each other sometimes as foes fighting for power or as allies joining a common goal or beneficial arrangement. In the case of the Aztecs, their biggest ally was the Acolhuas of Texcoco.

For at least 15,000 years, the people of the Americas – for the most part – had been isolated from the entire Old World (which included Europe, Asia and Africa). This meant that many diseases which had regularly plagued the Old World were never experienced by the Native American populations.

Many Yaquis came to Arizona either alone, in small family groups, or as unrelated groups who shared a common heritage. The Yaquis followed the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks establishing the first Yaqui communities in the Tucson area. Many continued to journey north, following the railroad tracks and establishing communities in Marana, Eloy, Sacaton, Phoenix, Yuma.

Náhuatl is one of the most spoken indigenous languages in the Americas with over 1.7 million speakers and is part of the Uto-Aztecan (UA) family language. A language family that historically spanned from the US state of Idaho down to Northern Costa Rica. This family contains a variety of different languages that all came from a common ancestor thousands of years ago. Over the years various migrations occurred and groups eventually diverged from each other and started to become their own independent culture and language.

Tracing an indigenous family across the generations is challenging, but it is definitely possible when the records you are exploring are indexed. In order to provide your links to the past, you want to find as many direct bloodline ancestors as possible, but it is good to also find the records of collateral ancestors [siblings of your ancestors]. Sometimes, the records of siblings can be useful in assembling your lineage. The baptism of the sibling may be more readable and more detailed than the baptism of your direct ancestor.

Doing research on one’s indigenous roots in Guanajuato can be a challenge. In the Eighteenth Century, many Indigenous People simply did not have surnames. Instead, they were likely to have two given names. Other Indigenous People would carry a Spanish surname for a period of time and then discard it in favor of another surname, or none at all.

Today, Jalisco is the seventh largest state of Mexico with the fourth largest population. Its diverse terrain gave rise to an incredible diversity of tribal groups. Professor Eric Van Young has noted that the area of central Jalisco “supported relatively dense populations” and a “considerable ethnolinguistic variety prevailed within a fairly small geographic area.” But thanks to the Spanish conquest, Dr. Van Young also notes that “the extensive and deep- running mestizaje of the area has meant that at any time much beyond the close of the colonial period the history of the native peoples has been progressively interwoven with (or submerged in) that of non-native groups.”