Pilar Valenzuela’s field work in Peru is usually about documenting indigenous languages among people she has worked with since her graduate school days. But now, in the era of COVID-19, she’s working just as hard to save their lives. “How can you do this sophisticated research when people are dying?” Valenzuela says. Through the documentation
It has been estimated that up to 45% of Peru’s ca. 33 million people is Amerindian. Almost 50 different indigenous groups, speaking their own languages, inhabit the country’s Andean and Amazonian regions. Until recently it was almost impossible for Native parents to officially register their children using proper names in their own languages, either because
By SHERRI CRUZ / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER A small plane brought Chapman professor Pilar Valenzuela and student Priya Shah to the village that resides along the meandering, 1,000-mile-long Ucayali River in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. “You land in a little field of grass,” Shah said. “The airport was a piece of metal on
On December 10, 2012 at 7 p.m. Dr. Pilar Valenzuela, Associate Professor in the Department of Languages will present he r new book titled, “Voces Shiwilu: 400 Años de Resistencia Lingüística en Jeberos / Shiwilu Voices: 400 Years of Linguistic Resistance in Jeberos” at the Auditory of Instituto de Investigacionesd de la Amazonía Peruana, in
The faded mosquito bites dotted around Priya Shah’s ankles will disappear, making that particular reminder of her January interterm studies in the Amazonian rain forest a mere memory. “They were huge,” Shah said with a laugh, brushing at her ankles near the end of the spring semester, months since her trip to the Amazon. “But
Dr. Pilar Valenzuela (Associate Professor in the Department of Languages) recently participated in the presentation of the book Estudios sobre lenguas andinas y amazónicas. Homenaje a Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino, which she co-edited with colleagues from Leiden University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. The book, which contains 21 articles dealing with various topics on Andean