Indigenous Youth: between rural-ethnic markers and new urban affiliations in the university

This paper presents the results of research about and with young indigenous people enrolled in the program Licenciatura en Educacion Indigena (LEI) at the Universidad Pedagogica Nacional (UPN), Ajusco, Mexico City. The program problematizes the ingrained images of how indigenous young people are conceptualized. Among these aspects, the paper deals with internal indigenous migration and the contemporary experiences of these young people who are still regarded by the education system and many sectors of society within the concept of indigenous framework and its rural bases, which naturalizes identities markers such as speaking indigenous languages or wearing traditional clothes, among others. The paper shows that the biased rural-urban relationship still remains as a border that seeks to establish differences that have been used to racialize, and at the same time describes the varied and complex sociocultural processes experienced by indigenous young people at university.