Translating Ch’akatajik: A Week of Translation and Poetry with Ignacio Carvajal

On Wednesday, April 19, CLAIS continued its Spring Colloquium Series with a presentation by Jose Ignacio Carvajal Regidor, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at UC San Diego. The talk was titled “Translating Ch’akatajik: Multilingual Exchanges and Incorporations in 16th Century Iximulew (Guatemala)” and offered an overview of Carvajal’s current translation research project. 

Professor Carvajal began their presentation by offering a land acknowledgement for Connecticut and their home in San Diego as well as an explanation of how their positionality informs their research. They then situated their project geographically, pointing out Atitlán (their region of focus) on a map of Guatemala while also encouraging attendees to think critically about how we conceptualize territory and geography. This framing is important, Carvajal explained, because territory and translation are closely linked throughout colonial history and specifically in the Relaciones geográficas, one of the texts on which his project focuses. 

The title of Carvajal’s project is Xtz’ib’ax ri ch’akatajik/Written Conquest: Reducción and Territory in the Highlands of Guatemala. Besides the Relaciones geográficas, which was a 16th century mapping effort by the Spanish crown in Guatemala, Carvajal also focuses on the Indigenous K’iche creation story Popul Wuj. The latter text existed in K’iche oral tradition long before the arrival of Spanish colonizers and represents an alternative source of knowledge to the imperial text of the Relaciones. In his translations of each of these texts, Carvajal employs “reducción,” or a lens through which he understands colonial impositions and Indigenous responses. Overall, Professor Carvajal emphasizes that Indigenous language can be a form of resistance and that translation between K’iche and Spanish is a crucial aspect of imperial history. 

In addition to his colloquium presentation, Carvajal also met with undergraduate and graduate students on Thursday, April 20, to discuss both his translation project and his work as an academic and writer more broadly. Students asked questions about the difficulty of balancing productivity and creativity as well as the process of applying to graduate school and becoming a professor. After this discussion, Professor Carvajal read excerpts from their poetry book allow (La Resistencia Press 2021) and passed out copies of the volume to each of the attendees.

If you are interested in attending future colloquia and other CLAIS events, please check out CLAIS’ website, and Twitter, Instagram,  and Facebook pages!

By Charlie Mayock-Bradley, Student Program Assistant