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About Quechua

Quechua is an indigenous Andean language with roughly eight million speakers worldwide. For a large number of people in this diaspora community, it is their native language. Various post-colonial factors have contributed to a centuries-long pattern of Quechua’s reduced intergenerational transmission. In Quechua’s home countries, society generally deems it incompatible with modernity, urban spaces, and “success.” Researchers deem all Native American languages endangered, including Quechua.

About the D.C.-area Quechua Community

The D.C.-area Bolivian diaspora community is concentrated in Northern Virginia. While no certain statistics exist for its size, researchers estimate that the population of its Quechua families alone is anywhere from 120,000 to 300,000. We also do not know what proportion they constitute in comparison to the broader Bolivian community, but within the community, the perception is that Quechua and Quechua-descendent families likely constitute the largest sub-group. Due to immigration patterns, our young adults are typically 1.5 and second-generation immigrants, while their parents typically immigrated to the U.S. in adulthood. Among the community’s Quechua-speaking families, parents often emigrated directly from the Bolivian countryside and frequently use Quechua in their public social spaces, while their children do not.