Activities 2006
Yax Te' staff members regularly participate in programs and projects that disseminate its books and related materials, including the presentation of workshops on the educational use of our materials and other Mayan cultural products. This page contains information about our activities for this year. Use the links below to read about earlier activities.
In
December 2006, Nadine Grimm and visiting Maya colleague
Florencio Calí participated in programs with Spanish students at
Cleveland's Cristo Rey Model St. Martin de Porres School as well as at
schools in the North Royalton district. Mr. Calí presented on Christmas
Eve traditions in Guatemalan communities, as part of the Cleveland Council
on World Affairs Global Classroom program. Ms. Grimm is Director
of Education at the Council. »more
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In
late fall 2006, Nadine Grimm's article "Narrative
and Identity in Selections from the Poetry and Novels of Gaspar pedro
González, Maya Q'anjob'al Author," appeared in Latin American
Indian Literatures Journal (Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 99 - 115). This study
of the role of narrative in creating and maintaining personal, community,
and cultural identity uses Yax Te' publications as research resources.
October
found Laura Martin in Chiapas, Mexico, as an invited participant in the
Mayan Languages Working Conference sponsored by the Instituto Nacional
de Idiomas Indígenas (INALI), a Mexican federal agency dedicated
to the documentation and preservation of Mexico’s several hundred
native languages. She went as part of the team for Mocho’, an endangered
language with only some fifty remaining speakers. Happily, projects for
its revitalization and documentation are underway, including an NEH-NSF
grant on which Dr. Martin is co-PI. »more
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Also
in October, Yax Te' Books was represented at the 7th
annual International Festival in at the Cleveland Heights-University Heights
Main Library. The Festival, sponsored by the Multicultural Task Force
of the Heights Community Congress (http://www.heightscongress.org/)
gave Nadine Grimm and Laura Martin an opportunity to talk about Yax Te'
publications and activities with a variety of teachers, parents, kids,
and the representatives of other cultural organizations. »more
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On
22 September 2006, Yax Te' Books participated in the
City of Cleveland Hispanic Heritage Celebration. »more
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On
8 August 2006, the town of Sumpango, Sacatepéquez,
Guatemala held a community-wide book reception for the new Yax Te' title
The Clothing of Indigenous Women of Sumpango Guatemala. Laura
Martin spoke at the reception, and copies of the book were given to representatives
of the national congress and local government officials, to city and regional
schools and libraries, and to Sumpango weavers and embroiderers whose
work is featured in the book. »more
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In August 2006, Dr. Martin served as contributing instructor for the Ohio State University Summer Seminars Abroad for Spanish Teachers, a long-running program under the direction of Dr. Terrell Morgan that goes to a different Spanish-speaking country every two years. Dr. Martin presented several lectures to the group of 25 teachers from across the United States and helped arrange a field trip that took them to the Lake Atitlán area. Several students studied Kaqchikel. Audio records of several Interviews with Mayan speakers are available on Dr. Morgan's Electronic Catalog of Spanish sounds website: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/morgan3/catalog.html.
In
July 2006, Laura Martin lectured to participants in the
Harvard Medical School Study Abroad Program in Guatemala on traditional
Mayan medicine and the humoral system of food and disease classification.
In addition, she arranged for the Harvard students to attend a celebration
of Mayan Ceremonial New Year at the home of Maya spiritual guide (Ajq'ij)
Delfina Solloy Jutzuy. »more
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In Summer 2006, Nadine Grimm presented at the Mi Pueblo Latin American Culture Camp sponsored by Concern for Children, a non-profit organization supporting adoptive parents and their international adoptive kids. The presentation included hands-on activities related to corn and Mayan domestic life. Several Yax Te' titles, including the bilingual coloring book Artes y Artesanías de Guatemala, were distributed.
Also in Summer 2006, Yax Te' made donations of mini-libraries of Yax Te' titles to over thirty international organizations, institutions, and community libraries. We also contributed a Yax Te' library to Tulane University to replace materials lost in Hurricane Katrina.
In
March, Laura Martin conducted two workshops on Creativity
for Teachers to graduating students at two normal schools in Antigua Guatemala.
These workshops were sponsored by the Sacatepéquez Departmental
Office of the Guatemalan Ministry of Education. They combined exercises
in movement, drawing, and close observation with the analysis of several
poems by Yax Te' authors as a way of showing beginning teachers how to
make didactic use of ordinary materials in creative new ways. »more
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In February 2006, we collaborated with the Los Angeles Public Library on a program featuring Gaspar Pedro González, author of several Yax Te' titles including the best-selling A Mayan Life.
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Yax Te' Books • Department of Spanish and Portuguese • Anderson Hall • Temple University • 1114 West Berks Street • Philadelphia, PA 19122
www.yaxtebooks.com • info@yaxtebooks.com
