This collective was born out of “informal” conversations between friends, family members, lovers, comrades, classmates, co-workers, etc-the revolutionary politic of every day life-that politic that our hermanas/os in the south have practiced for 500 years, and that politic which we in these united states have sacrificed to the altar of the 501c3.

This collective is an aherent to the Sixth Declaration/The Other Campaign. This collective is to be led by people of color/Xican@s/Latin@s. That is to say, white companeras/os who whish to collaborate with the collective can do so under the condition that they are accountable to the specific needs and self-determining agenda of the collective.*

The idea is that we turn a very practical thing (translating texts) into a liberatory educational experience. The translating will be done collectivly, with the following goals:

1. That those who are only recently starting to work with spanish as a text (here we refrain from saying: “still learning spanish” as we believe that it is impossible to have somehow “finished” learning a language, even one’s native language) begin to become familiar with that written language.

2. That the texts being translated are in and of themselves useful in their revolutionary/emancipatory message(s)

3. That the translators will share with each other their interpretations and translations so that the learning process is truly collective.

4. That the original authors of the texts be notified of our work in order to facilitate network-building and to “ask permission” to publish our results.

5. That everyone learn how to be a translation promoter/facilitator starting from whatever experience level they are at. Each one teach one.

6. That we socialize the “private property” of intellectual work, and begin to recognize, as our hermanas/os in the south have long recognized, the importance of theory to revolutionary practice.

So how does this work?

We have been given the permission to translate a transcript of a recent speech given by Sylvia Marcos in Chiapas. The members of this collective will all be going to the Festival de la Digna Rabia in a few short weeks, and Sylvia Marcos is one of many public intellectuals who will be at the Festival. It is for that reason that we have chosen her work and the work of others who will be at the Festival. Most of the members will be in CA for the next few weeks, and therefore not everyone is sharing physical space. I (angelo) propose that the text be broken up into pieces and each piece be translated by smaller groups who have the capacity to meet with each other. The fundemental aim of this project is popular education, therefore working together, face to face, is priority.

*It shouldn’t be necessary here to go into all of many reasons why this is so. However, it is worth mentioning here that the recuperation of a lost language by a colonized people is often times a painful and difficult process. It is important that those spaces created in order to facilitate that process be self-determining, anti-colonial spaces. Also, although this is not the space for any profound anayslis of this idea: We do recognize that claiming the spanish langauge as a “colonized” language in these united states is a problematic claim, to say the least. However, the theoritical flaws in such a claim do not outweigh the undeniable reality of a profound sense of loss amongst Xican@/Latin@ folks in these united states who do not speak and/or read spanish.