Tourism as language displacement in Indigenous early childhood education in the Yucatan Peninsula

While scholars in the fields of language planning and comparative education have explored transnational migration in bilingual education, less attention has been given to how internal migration reshapes Indigenous families’ educational and linguistic decisions. The Yucatan Peninsula is not exempt from this process of migration, as Indigenous families move to the Riviera Maya for employment in the tourism industry, impacting the conditions under which Maya is learned. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic work, this article describes how parents navigate their economic survival, creating linguistic dynamics that affect the revitalization of Maya and the broader Indigenous education system-including early childhood settings. As migration disrupts intergenerational relationships, language use shifts – not through direct prohibition, but through structural constraints. Rather than a linear process of language shift, this study highlights how tourism-driven migration reconfigures Maya in a context where economic forces reduce the spaces where Maya is spoken and learned.