by Ursula Pike
Bolivia still has the largest percentage of Indigenous people of any country in South America. In 2006, Bolivians elected their first Indigenous president, Evo Morales. The election of an Aymara coca farmer as president made it seem as though the world was changing. I thought of the times I heard someone use Indio as an insult and hoped the election meant things were changing for Bolivia’s Indigenous population. Evo became a celebrity, and nowhere was he more celebrated than in the Native community in the United States. Every time Evo said something supporting Indigenous people or had a meeting with other Indigenous leaders, it popped up in an online Native forum or newspaper. I have shared and “hearted” hundreds of tweets and social media posts about Evo over the years.
Evo brought dramatic changes to Bolivia. Many of his accomplishments focused on recognizing the value of the country’s Indigenous population. A new constitution made the country’s thirty-seven Indigenous languages official national languages for the first time. Other changes, such as nationalizing foreign companies making money from gas and oil resources, grew the country’s economy. Because of the many programs his administration implemented, within a few years Bolivians were more educated and living longer than they had been before, and poverty had declined.
The US ambassador was asked to leave by Evo’s administration in 2008, and soon afterward the Peace Corps closed up shop and left. Volunteers had to gather their things and return to the capital city a few days later to catch a flight back to the United States. I have always had questions about the value of Peace Corps volunteers, and because of that, I wasn’t convinced that their departure was a bad thing. I understood the significance of kicking the gringos out even though I know those volunteers probably hated having to leave that way. If I had been evacuated like that, I would have been angry. Although, honestly, I would also have loved to be a volunteer in Evo’s Bolivia to witness the changes taking place at the community level and in the lives of my friends.
In 2018, I returned to Bolivia with my husband, who is also a former Peace Corps volunteer. Images of Evo’s face were everywhere, spanning the sides of buildings next to the words “With Evo We Have a Future” painted in light blue. A picture of Evo smiling in a hard hat loomed over the entrance to Mi Telferico, the newly built aerial trams that move tourists and commuters above the jammed streets of La Paz. In the countryside, I saw his picture next to covered soccer courts, called canchas, that double as community centers. A person didn’t have to read Spanish or Quechua to get the message, “This was brought to you by Evo.”
Millions of Bolivians across the country were learning how to read and write in Quechua, Aymara, and other Indigenous languages because of education reforms Evo’s government put into place. One night at a pizza restaurant on the Prado in Cochabamba, the young children at the table next to us counted to ten in Quechua when their parents asked them what they had learned at school. Indigenous languages across the world are lost every day, and hearing them spoken and seeing them taught made me hopeful for the future of Bolivia. I lament that I can speak only a few words of my own tribe’s language.
In 2019, despite constitutional term limits and a national referendum against him, Evo ran for president again. He won even though there were questions about election interference and demands for a new election. But he resigned the presidency a week later after suggestions from the military that he should leave. Massive protests for and against Evo paralyzed the country after his resignation. Several protestors were killed in street demonstrations. The Bolivians I know have described the situation as grave, and they wonder what will happen to their country.
Still, it was clear that the concept of an Indigenous identity had evolved in Bolivia in the time since I left South America. I asked as many Bolivians as I dared whether they considered themselves Indigenous. I never would have had the courage to ask this when I lived there. It’s a question an anthropologist would ask, which made me uncomfortable. I’d start by first telling them that I was Indigenous. Indígena and mestizo were the terms they used. Without hesitation, they all said they considered themselves Aymara or Quechua or, like the majority of US Natives, a mix of groups with Native and non-Native backgrounds. One thing that hadn’t changed was the power of the word Indio. Indio means Indian, but it implies poverty, lack of education, dark skin, and other qualities that few Bolivians want to claim. Despite the charts showing a growing economy, the Indigenous people of Bolivia are still the poorest. Income inequality remains a problem, and the Indigenous people are at the bottom. Average Bolivians may feel more comfortable about their Indigenous identity, but every time I used the word Indio, I was corrected and asked to use Indígena instead.
My understanding of my Indigenous identity has also evolved. Before, it was something I kept to myself as much as possible. I wasn’t hiding, only trying to avoid stereotypes. Now I’m more likely to share it with non-Native people, and I understand that I am part of the diversity of North American Indians that I witnessed as a kid.
There has also been little change in how people talk about Westerners traveling to the developing world to help. When I first understood the term white savior, I knew it was referring to those Westerners with no training trying to help the “poor” black and brown people. In Teju Cole’s essay “The White-Savior Industrial Complex,” he states, “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.” That’s exactly what my big emotional experience did. And those saviors haven’t stopped. On my return flight from Bolivia, I sat next to a woman coming back from a mission trip to Haiti, who was very pleased about the church she helped build and that she had been able to do God’s work while also getting a tan on a “safe” beach. When I overhear someone humble-bragging about joining Peace Corps, I can’t help but notice that it is usually a white person with a tone in his voice giving away how much he hopes to save people.
After Peace Corps, I entered a graduate school program and served as an AmeriCorps volunteer in rural Illinois. AmeriCorps pays a few thousand dollars at the end a volunteer’s service, and I needed that money to help pay down my student loans. I noticed something about AmeriCorps that was different from Peace Corps: many more black, brown, and Asian faces. In AmeriCorps, white people are the minority. Why is that? I can’t speak for the whole organization, but my AmeriCorps service was presented as an opportunity to learn about community development rather than to save anyone. There was no weirdness about whether I was really helping anyone. The program appealed to my urge to serve while recognizing the financial reality that I had to pay for my degree. I’ve wondered whether anyone at Peace Corps recognizes these differences. To me they are obvious.
The most satisfying part of returning to Kantuta was seeing the people I knew. The Children’s Center still stands, but it is empty, having lost its international sponsors. Teresa, the Bolivian teacher whom I met at the Children’s Center, still lives on the corner near the market. Twenty-five years later, I realize that the most important relationships I had were with her and Ximenita. They helped me survive my bad choices and the isolation I felt in that little town. On my return trip, we stayed at Teresa’s house. Teresa finished college and earned her teaching degree. Her son, the little boy who ran around while she cut and colored my hair, graduated with a degree in business and works in Cochabamba. There are still tough times, and Teresa’s brothers have difficulty finding work, but many of her nieces and nephews are going to college. Tomas, the gap-toothed little boy, has a wife and two small children. He works at a bank, and both he and his brother, Umberto, still live in Kantuta.
Toward the end of my return trip, we visited the school in the countryside where Teresa now teaches. She translated everything we said to her students from Spanish into Quechua. They were also learning English, and she asked us to teach her students a song. We sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb” three times. Most of the kids sitting in that room had sheep or goats, so having one follow you to school one day
was a real-world problem they could relate to. In return, the kids sang the Bolivian national anthem. Two decades earlier, I had learned the anthem for our official entry into service. I recognized the melody even though I had forgotten many of the words. The final line of the song is the only one I remembered:
Morir antes que esclavos vivir.
We will die before living as slaves.
I had always loved the boldness of that line. Resilience is an overused word when it comes to Indigenous people, but that line about slaves reminds me of the resilience of Bolivians. The Bolivians I know are strong and funny. Every morning at every school, at the beginning of every soccer game, and for a hundred other reasons every week, they remind themselves.
Morir antes que esclavos vivir.
In Bolivia’s October 2020 election, Evo Morales’s party won and his handpicked successor became the next president. I hope this means that Bolivia will return to some version of normal and that my friends can raise their children in a country that recognizes the importance of the Quechua, Aymara, Guarani, and all the Indigenous populations.
I hope this book will open up opportunities for black, Indigenous, and other people of color to publish their Peace Corps stories. I’ve seen the blogs and social media posts of beautiful black and brown faces serving across the world, and I wanted to read books about those volunteers and their experiences.
Acknowledgments
Thank you Charlotte Gullick and the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College for giving me an opportunity to share my writing with others for the first time, as well as the librarians at every ACC campus for providing a quiet place to hide away and write.
This book would never have been written if I hadn’t attended the MFA program at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Thank you to my instructors Chip Livingston, Melissa Febos, and Elissa Washuta for gently and honestly guiding my writing. Thank you to my fellow IAIA alums for sharing your stories and encouraging me to tell my story. During my time at IAIA, the American Indian Graduate Center helped support me, and I’m grateful for that.
Thank you Heyday and the Berkeley Roundhouse for seeing the value in my story, specifically Marthine Satris for your kindness and patience, and editors Emmerich Anklam and Terria Smith. You showed me great respect and provided the crucial advice and suggestions that made this the best book it could be. Thanks to copyeditor Michele Jones for your attention to detail.
I thank the Writers’ League of Texas, and the community of writers in Texas who helped me navigate the path from MFA to publication.
Gracias y pachi a Bety, Calixta, y la gente de la comunidad tan querida en Bolivia donde yo vivía por dos años. Mil gracias a Sergio, Elmer, David, y todos los niños del Centro Infantil.
My experience in Bolivia wouldn’t have been the same without the friendships of Kasey, Jeff, Jennifer, and the other volunteers who served with me. Thank you all.
Thank you to my husband, Kenn, for always being supportive of me while I wrote this book, and to my children, Marisol and Armando, for listening to a thousand stories about Bolivia. I would never have gone to Bolivia without my mother’s encouragement. Thank you auntie Betty for sending me a stack of blank journals to fill with my story.
Yôotva to my Karuk family, my ancestors, and all the Karuk people using old and new ways to keep our language and culture alive.
About the Author
URSULA PIKE is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work won the 2019 Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest in the memoir category, and her writing has appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, World Literature Today, and Ligeia Magazine. She has an MA in economics, with a focus on community economic development, and was a Peace Corps fellow at Western Illinois University. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia from 1994 to 1996. An enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe, she was born in California and grew up in Daly City, California, and Portland, Oregon. She currently lives in Austin, Texas.
