{"pk":43084,"title":"Practices of Resilience: Nahuatl and Nahua Online Cultural Initiatives in Mexico City and Los Angeles During COVID-19","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>This article introduces the concept of cyber-resilience as a pathway to urban Indigenous empowerment through digital media. Building on Karina Korostelina and Jocelyn Barrett’s (2023) framework of “practices of resilience,” I extend these ideas to cyberspace, examining how Indigenous content producers in urban areas used digital platforms to navigate challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2023. The focus is on Mexico City and Los Angeles, designated sister cities in 1969, whose shared Spanish colonial histories and transnational migration networks are further connected by Nahuatl as a living Indigenous language. The analysis examines social media content from two organizations in Mexico City – Conformidad Ollinkan and Resistencia Tenochtitlan – and cultural initiatives in Los Angeles by the Anahuacalmecac University Preparatory School and Nahuatl instructor Cuitlahuac Martínez. Using qualitative methods, including multimodal content analysis (images, video, text) and interviews, this study highlights how these groups leveraged digital tools to sustain Mesoamerican memory, promote Indigenous heritage, and foster community engagement. My analysis of these materials contributes to literature on digital content production and Mesoamerican identity, emphasizing how online initiatives in urban diasporic contexts strengthen Indigenous cultural knowledge and language preservation.</p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives  4.0","short_name":"CC BY-NC-ND 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.\n\nNoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"Language Revitalization"},{"word":"digital diaspora"},{"word":"cyber resilience"},{"word":"nahuatl"},{"word":"Mesoamerican knowledge"},{"word":"Conformidad Ollinkan"},{"word":"Resistencia Tenochtitlan"}],"section":"Articles","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/80d847hh","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Ezekiel","middle_name":"","last_name":"Stear","name_suffix":"","institution":"Other","department":""}],"date_submitted":"2021-12-16T20:42:55+01:00","date_accepted":"2025-08-01T21:32:46.192000+02:00","date_published":"2025-11-22T20:34:00+01:00","render_galley":{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/jtas/article/43084/galley/40859/download/"},"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/jtas/article/43084/galley/40859/download/"}]}