I was scrolling through my phone in early December and noticed my friend was in Mexico. It was a trip he asked me to go on a few months prior and I had decided the dates were not a good time for me to up and leave Massachusetts. However, that day I was feeling like I needed a break from my surroundings. A friend had just passed, I was sad, and needed a mental health break. That Saturday morning I purchased the first flight out to Cancun and on Sunday I arrived. I stayed at the Sandos Resort and met up with two of my childhood friends who I had not seen in almost ten years. The same day we went out into the real world that surrounded the resort and visited La Quinta Avenida (5th Ave). I noticed how many people were clearly indigenous or had noticeable indigenous ancestry. These were not the Mexicans I grew up seeing in telenovelas. I was used to seeing main characters like Guillermo del Toro — blue eyed blondes. In talking to some non-indigenous Mexicans, I realized there was a sort of animosity or sort of “other-ness” put onto the indigenous population. There is even a word, “india”, which is used to mean stupid or dumb. You will come across more privileged Mexicans saying things like, “Te vio muy india” or “Que india me saliste!” When I talk to my Mexican American friends, they speak about Aztecs like they are a thing of the past much like how US Americans talk about our own indigenous populations. And for the ones who acknowledge Aztec existence, they describe them as people from distant far away pueblos and often don’t even acknowledge the obvious Nahua features they have themselves. Somehow being indigenous or only speaking Nahuatl makes you less Mexican simply because you don’t speak the colonial tongue. I’m kind of blabbing but I’m now really interested in possibly being able to do field work in Mexico. I wish Nahuatl was taught as a second language in every Mexican school. Does anyone have any more insight into the relations in Mexico as it pertains to the Nahua people?