A Vital Matters Voice: Tutupika Carrillo de la Cruz
Tutupika
Carrillo de la Cruz
Linguist and Language Activist
BIOGRAPHY
Tutupika Carrillo de la Cruz is Wixárika and is a native of Buruato, in the Municipality of Santa María del Oro, Nayarit. He holds an undergraduate degree in Information and Statistics, and a masters in Applied Linguistics from the Autonomous University of Nayarit, institution where he currently works as a part time professor in the undergraduate program for Applied Linguistics in the Academic Unit of Education and Humanities. He is coordinator for the Center for the Study of Indigenous Languages and Cultures of Nayarit (CELINAY), within the Autonomous University of Nayarit. Further, he is the coordinator of the commission of the Network for the Strengthening of Indigenous Languages of Nayarit (FOLINAY). Since 2008 he is a member of the Union of Indigenous Professionals of Nayarit, and since 2015 he is the coordinator of an audiovisual project, Voices of the Great Nayar (Voces del Gran Nayar). In 2019 he established, alongside Minerva Carrillo and Edisa Altamirano, the gastronomic and cultural project, Yuri’ikú, “Wixarika Flavor and Tradition.” His lines of academic work include the documentation and revitalization of languages, teaching indigenous languages as a second language, and the design and implementation of linguistic policy.
