US and Canadian Students Flock to Yucatán for Maya Cultural Programs

Canadian students in Yucatán study Maya language and culture through an innovative three-week exchange program connecting indigenous communities across North America.

The Global Maya Language and Culture Seminar brings students from the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. It joins several other North American university programs taking place in the region this summer. The program represents a partnership between the Canadian university and Yucatán’s Secretaría de la Cultura y las Artes (Sedeculta).

Patricia Martín Briceño, Sedeculta’s director, welcomed the Canadian visitors during an opening ceremony in Mérida. She thanked them for their interest in exploring “a land marked by the living presence of Maya culture, where the language, knowledge, memory and creativity of indigenous peoples continue shaping our identity.”

The seminar aims to introduce UBC Okanagan students to Yucatecan culture through direct contact with the Maya language, its speakers, communities and daily practices. Students will take morning classes with certified Maya-speaking teachers from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., plus attend conferences with specialists on Maya peninsular identity.

Program visits include Maya communities in both Yucatán and neighboring Quintana Roo. Students will travel to San José Oriente in Hoctún, Xocén and Tixhualactún in Valladolid, plus José María Morelos and Felipe Carrillo Puerto in Quintana Roo.

The timing coincides with International Day of Indigenous Peoples celebrations from August 7-13 at Mérida’s Gran Museo del Mundo Maya. Activities include discussion panels, themed readings, artisan markets, documentary screenings, conferences and a demonstration of pok ta’ pok, the ancestral Maya ball game.

Students will also attend the Community Artisan and Artistic Day on August 16 in Tixhualactún, Valladolid. There they’ll interact with local residents and students from Universidad de Oriente and other educational institutions through teaching, art, music and cultural expressions reflecting Yucatecan identity.

Fidencio Briceño Chel, Sedeculta’s director of Museums and Heritage, highlighted the program’s broader significance. He thanked UBC authorities for promoting connections between Canada’s indigenous peoples and the peninsula’s living Maya communities.

“Indigenous peoples of Canada, whose history lives in memory, can see in the peninsular Maya a living people that resists and finds ways to remain in an increasingly intercultural world,” Briceño Chel said.

The program reflects Governor Joaquín Díaz Mena’s administration’s efforts to strengthen Maya language and culture across all spaces, including fostering international dialogue through educational partnerships.

UBC Okanagan has deep ties to indigenous education through its partnership with the Syilx Okanagan Nation. The university’s Indigenous Studies program offers courses on indigenous perspectives, governance, land claims and traditional ecological knowledge. Campus features include bilingual street signs in English and n’syilxcen, Story Poles and the Okanagan Nation flag.

The seminar seeks to build collaboration channels with educational and cultural institutions across the Americas. These partnerships allow firsthand exposure to Yucatán’s government efforts in preserving and strengthening Maya language and Yucatecan cultural identity.

Yucatec Maya is spoken by approximately 800,000 people in the Mexican states of Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche, and parts of Tabasco and Chiapas. In Yucatán, efforts to teach the Maya language in schools are gaining momentum as 35,000 students from 75 municipalities now have the option to study Yucatec Maya, beginning as early as grade school.

Language preservation efforts face ongoing challenges. Despite being the second-most spoken indigenous language in Mexico after Nahuatl, the Maya-speaking population is shrinking at an alarming rate due to factors including racism and discrimination that have led many speakers to not pass the language on to their children.

The UBC program joins a growing number of North American student groups studying in Yucatán this summer. Millsaps College students are participating in their annual Yucatán program through June, collaborating with Universidad Marista and the Yucatán Institute for Language and Culture. The Mississippi-based college operates a unique 4,500-acre biocultural reserve and maintains year-round facilities in Mérida, Oxkutzcab and at the Kiuic Reserve.

Brandeis University students are also in Mérida this summer for an intensive public health program that includes visits to local clinics and healthcare settings, plus an excursion to Havana, Cuba. The program examines healthcare systems across Latin America while students live with homestay families.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill runs its annual Yucatec Maya Summer Institute, offering intensive language instruction that begins online before students travel to Yucatán for immersive on-site learning. The hybrid program provides beginning and intermediate Maya language courses with certified instructors.

Multiple CIEE programs bring US students to Mérida throughout the summer for Spanish language immersion, internships and liberal arts courses. Students participate in four-week and longer programs with homestays and cultural excursions to archaeological sites, including Chichén Itzá and Uxmal.

The Institute for Study Abroad (IFSA) also operates semester and summer programs at Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán and Universidad Modelo, allowing students to study alongside Mexican peers while living with local families. These programs include multi-day excursions to Mexico City and San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas.

Yucatán’s appeal as a study abroad destination stems from Mérida’s reputation as one of the safest cities in North America, its 300 days of sunshine yearly, and its role as a gateway to Maya archaeological sites. The city combines colonial architecture with modern amenities while maintaining strong connections to indigenous Maya communities throughout the peninsula.

Programs like Na’atik Language & Culture Institute in Felipe Carrillo Puerto also provide international students with similar immersive Spanish and Maya language experiences.

The Global Maya Language and Culture Seminar demonstrates how indigenous language preservation efforts are gaining momentum across Mexico, connecting communities internationally while maintaining cultural authenticity at the local level.