Intersectional Issues of Disability in Indigenous Radio in Guatemala

Guatemala is the country with the second largest indigenous population in Latin America and the Caribbean, with over six million people, roughly 60 percent of the country's population (IWGIA, 2016). More than 43 percent of the population speaks at least one of its twenty-four native languages, although it is uncertain if relocation following the internal conflict enables the coexistence of a variety of languages in a multilingual environment or if Spanish plays the role of lingua franca (UNICEF and Andes, 2009). According to Tesoro (2010), the ethnolinguistic indigenous community of Guatemala is made up of Mayas (about 50 percent of the population) and Xinka and Garífuna (both less than 1 percent of the population). Aside from the twenty-one Maya languages, Xinka and Garifuna, this Central American country also has an official Guatemalan Sign Language and Spanish as a common language (UNICEF and Andes, 2009). About these communities, Grech (2016) found that "they tend to be closed and highly oral: news are spread quickly, people talk among themselves and rely on oral communication in contexts of strong isolation. In some cases, this communication is the only access to information”