You have studied ketxu, guarani, maori… What has led you to investigate these different languages?

My work is based on an ethnographic, anthropological view. Whatever it is, suppose I really want to study it in depth. To do so, I look at a local context. If the research is carried out correctly, if the local people identify with the research you have done, then people from other contexts are also inclined to read the experience and, if you have worked in quite detail, you could also try to look for similarities. There is, of course, another form of research. Some of them are looking for globalization. We don't generalize, we don't work for it, we don't teach lessons, the reader draws conclusions, if any. Ethnographic view, therefore. On the other hand, the analysis of the different contexts presupposes understanding what is happening in each context.

And compare them?

Then making comparisons is not surprising. That's what we're always in our lives, making comparisons, trying to understand the world. Anyway, don't think about it: before I started studying the Guarani, the Maori, etc., I did twenty-five years in the Andes doing various jobs. While I was there, I received an invitation to tell me about experiences from other places. They called me. In all the places where there are activists or movement for an indigenous language, I have seen people eager to learn about experiences from other places, fascinated to see that they are not only fighting in that struggle, but that they are working to strengthen and disseminate their dominated language.

What do they do in a linguistic community is transferable to another reality?

It is not possible to copy, but to take advantage of the strategy, experience, ideas… equal or similar. For example, one of the great hooks of bilingual education. People who are not in this field, and a lot of what they are doing!, ha, ha, ha…, are looking for the best model, they are looking for it here and there: “What works? We want to take him to us!” My answer is always one: each case has to be understood and developed at the local level, there is no other. In the bilingual teaching processes that I have analyzed, I have seen that all of them offer a series of guidelines that can be used by the teachers, researchers and politicians who work in the local context to develop their local bilingualism. I believe that there may be generalizable principles, but it is impossible to import a particular model.

What are the politicians who devise a strategy for language?

The relationship between those working for the revitalization of languages in communities and politicians… How to say it? I find this a real challenge, I am becoming more and more aware of it and, on the other hand, I do not know how it can be resolved. For example, there is a politician who is concerned about the situation of the Guarani – I am referring to the Guarani. The politician in question will be in charge of the Government for about eight years and, after those years, a profoundly opposed politician will often come, who will respond to the situation of the Guarani differently from the previous one. But education lasts much longer than a politician's office, it has a long way to go. To see the results of any education reform, you need at least an entire generation. You have to see boys and girls building the education system, if you have results…

Have you ever known these situations?

In Bolivia, in Peru, in Ecuador, where I have worked for longer, I have seen what happens: a real intense and energetic movement in favour of the bilingual education system – a wave that has lasted up to ten years, if you will – and then a new politician takes over, you lose everything you have done so far. Well, you never lose everything, but you lose a lot. On the other hand, I don't talk to those who design politics in my work. The truth is, I don't think they give a direct answer to bilingual education. I've been working in this field for decades, and on the one hand, what design policy calls bilingual education, often -- with indicators and quantities in hand -- is not bilingual. On the contrary, where the politician says that education is not bilingual, it has happened to us that education is really bilingual. It's a real dilemma, and I'm sorry, but I don't have a sure answer.

They had just arrived in New Zealand, when they entered the school where the Maori was taught, and immediately they asked him: “What do you think about bilingual education?”

I am and still am blind by a bilingual education, after four decades of work. I've written an article, "Ten certainties about bilingual education." Bilingual education opens a door that does not open any other educational system, opens up citizens, especially oppressed people, to people who are excluded from their society by language. Obviously, along with language, on many occasions, there are ethicity, racism, poverty, social classes and many other issues. However, I have acceded to this world through language, and not in vain, because language is not only a vocal expression, but an expression of identity, and a means to embody our studies.

The pupils of the New Zealand school were concerned that bilingual education was nothing but justifiable, the argument that the status and level of minority language had never been given. First, this school had strictly prohibited the use of English.

I think bilingual education is not enough on its own. Anyway, bilingual education is not the key to revitalizing language, it's not the answer. In the rest of society there is also a need for recognition so that this minority language has a real presence in its use. On the other hand, we have to distinguish between language and voice, let it be the voice in that language. The voice is the speaker's ability to be heard. If the speaker in question manages to hear him, he will have some power. When someone listens to you, they answer you, they speak for you or against you… it means that what you are saying is important.