Immigrants Who Speak Indigenous Languages Encounter Isolation

A very sad story about Mexican immigrants in New York City who don't speak Spanish or English. Most are illiterate, and never attended school as children.  - - Donna Poisl

Kirk Semple, New York Times, July 11, 2014

Laura is a Mexican immigrant who lives in East Harlem, a neighborhood with one of the largest Latino populations in New York City. Yet she understands so little of what others are saying around her that she might just as well be living in Siberia.

Laura, 27, speaks Mixtec, a language indigenous to Mexico. But she knows little Spanish and no English. She is so scared of getting lost on the subway and not being able to find her way home that she tends to spend her days within walking distance of her apartment.

“I feel bad because I can’t communicate with people,” she said, partly in Spanish, partly in Mixtec. “I can’t do anything.”
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