About Collectivizing Language Justice
Over the past decade, language service cooperatives and collectives have emerged across the United States. There is no one formula or model that all of these groups follow - different structures and approaches carry benefits or disadvantages depending on the group, its goals, and context.
Collectivizing Language Justice, a project of Circular for Hudson Valley Farm Hub, documents how and where distinct groups that practice language justice in the form of cooperatives, collectives, hybrid groups, and others have formed, how these decisions were made, and what the results have been.
While documenting this important history, we also aim to generate and circulate a resource for anyone interested in learning more about language justice groups, those curious about what their peers in language justice work are doing, or anyone who may be interested in starting their own group.
Scroll down to navigate the project.
Project Elements
The Directory includes groups that do work in the United States (regardless of where members reside). We listed only groups that as of publication (August 2022) have public-facing services/programs, and for which we had or could get contact information. Groups in the main body of the directory are all active, as far as we know. Groups that are now inactive are listed at the bottom of the document.
The directory is available in English and Spanish, despite the fact that the groups listed in it work in a multitude of languages. We made this decision based on the fact that the vast majority of the intended audience shares English as a common language, yet we know that oftentimes groups working in indigenous languages from Latin America in the US share Spanish instead of English as a common language.
All the information collected for the directory was also translated into a map showing the location and information of each group.
Special thanks to Ron Garcia-Fogarty of tilde Language Justice Cooperative who generously shared an initial list of coops, collectives and crews that do language justice work.
In addition to identifying groups across the United States, one of the main elements of Collectivizing Language Justice, included the creation of profiles. Fernanda and Allison conducted oral history interviews with 12 language justice groups. Two members of each group participated in the interviews over Zoom, totalling 24 people who participated in the interview phase. Each recording session lasted from one and half to two hours. We selected groups to be interviewed with the goal of showcasing a variety of models (collectives, co-ops, hybrid non-profits, etc.), based on diversity amongst the languages that the groups work, the geographic location where they are based, and how long the groups have been operating.
Allison wrote each of the profiles and curated the featured audio clips. Each profile was written in the language in which the interview was conducted and all translation was done by Alexandra Rodríguez Sierra, courtesy of Hudson Valley Farm Hub. All groups were compensated for their time and expertise and were given the option to review the audio clips and profiles written about their work prior to publication.
Raúl Ayala created all art on this website, as well as the project poster that captures the spirit of Collectivizing Language Justice and its relationship between land, labor and language.
Directory
A living directory of groups of language justice practitioners across the U.S
Profiles
A collection of profiles of 12 language justice groups and audio clips based on oral history interviews with each group.
Map
A digital map that tracks groups of language justice practitioners active at the time of its creation.