Meet Amazonas de Yakunah, an indigenous Mayan softball team that broke gender rules

The laughter came from a modest house on one of the empty streets of Yacuña, a small town of about 800 people in the state of Yucatán, 25 kilometers southeast of one of Mexico’s most important archaeological sites, Chichén Itzá.

A group of women recently received a surprise visit from popular actress Yalitsa Aparicio.

The Oaxacan actress broke into the entertainment world in 2018 with the film Roma, a prominent role that earned her admiration among the indigenous population and beyond.

“She’s as tall as us,” one of the women exclaimed, making Aparicio laugh.

For local athletes, Aparicio, who made history with an Oscar nomination for her role as Cleo, was a role model, but the actress said she benefited greatly from supporting softball players who broke their barriers.

Yaxunah’s Amazon Ace is a unique softball team made up of Mayan women who fight against machismo and the strict rules of their society to do what they love.

Barefoot and wearing their traditional clothing – local skirts and blouses – Las Amazonas de Yacuñach have had the opportunity to play outside the dirt fields of their city and in large stadiums such as Phoenix Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“Everyone is amazing. The journey they have had and what they have faced to achieve their dreams is incredible,” said Aparicio in an exclusive interview with LA Times en Español during his visit to Yahuna.

Aparicio’s visit to the players was coordinated by ESPN, which will air Jacsunach’s documentary Las Amazonas on Sunday during the Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival (LALIFF) and on all its platforms during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Aparicio did not hesitate to offer the players the opportunity to participate in the story by serving as the documentary’s narrator.

“They had the initiative, even in an indigenous community where there are more retrograde ideologies, to say ‘I like it, I want to do this,’” Aparicio said of the athletes’ determination to break with tradition and play softball. “….They told me they also use it to help eradicate obesity.”

María Enedina Canul Put was the inspiration for Las Amazonas, a team made up of players between 14 and 63 years old. She was contacted by the governor of a municipality located in the Yucatán Peninsula, who proposed various activities to combat obesity. The government offered Zumba classes, which involve aerobic exercise set to modern music, but Kanul Put had other plans.

She talked to some women in her town and suggested they play softball. However, Kanul Put did not expect this to cause so much unrest among the men of the indigenous community.

“We never thought we would encounter this problem of machismo,” said Kanul Put. “I never thought that someone in my house would tell me not to do this type of sport. “Every time I go out, he’s like, ‘No, make me an omelette to eat,’ and he’s always looking for different ways to keep me from exercising.”

The players had to go against the expectation that indigenous women were only there to serve their husbands and families and should not expose themselves in public.

The 54-year-old bowler had to deal with her husband’s refusal to join the team that Kanul Poot helped create. Several players have also gone through difficult times, with some conflicts leading to domestic violence and fears for their lives.

“My daughter, her husband kicked her out of the house. But slowly, [men] We realized that what we were doing was not seeking relationships with people outside of marriage, but rather it was a way to entertain people,” said Kanul Poot, whose husband accepted her wish to play before his death in January 2023. .

“In 2022, [my husband] We began to understand that we were going to play so that people would enjoy it, he said, remembering that he heard people cheer when he heard the broadcast of the team’s game in Campeche.

That night, for the first time, Kanul Put enjoyed the dinner that her husband had prepared for her. In the future, every time she went somewhere to play, when he returned, he would prepare dinner for her, a change she never imagined would happen.

Her resistance and that of the members of Las Amazonas struck a chord in conversations about women’s empowerment.

As their resilience and success raised the profile of The Amazons, the players welcomed visitors to meet them and hear their stories. One team member noted that not all visitors were sincere and some were simply seeking “attention for themselves.” There were even some YouTubers who didn’t even take photos with the locals.”

Aparicio, whom the players considered a celebrity, was different.

“I thought she was like all artists, well supported and above all, but when you meet her now you realize that she is a humble person with a heart,” said Albi Yajaira Díaz Cano. “From the moment she arrived she connected with us and she spoke to us as if we were lifelong friends.”

During her visit, Aparicio heard several stories about the obstacles that women must overcome to achieve acceptance that is not yet complete.

“They had to face criticism not only from their families, but also from abroad, where others did not believe how far they could go,” said Aparicio, who had to deal with racism against indigenous people in Mexico during his education. He fame with the role of Cleo in “Roma”.

“The enormous strength they have to advance against the current has never been easy. It is not easy to compare them with other stories of women who are also trying to do something different and what they have done is respected. “

Aparicio emphasized that the change is not complete yet, but feels that the attitude and skill of the softball players are helping to make a difference.

“I hope that future generations do not have to go through what we go through, from my point of view as a woman and as an indigenous person, discrimination, because of your origin, because of the color of your skin. Because many times they insult you and make you believe: “Oh, it’s native.” He doesn’t know how everything works, so we can take advantage of that,’” Aparicio, 30, said. “They forget that we have trained over time so that these situations do not happen again, so that everything. It will be OK. that people are not judged by what they see, but by the results of their work.”

Aparicio said that during his childhood he also enjoyed sports, especially soccer. After visiting Canul Put’s house, Aparicio accompanied Las Amazonas de Yaxunach to a friendly match against another team on a jungle field set up for them to practice.

Aparicio threw the symbolic first pitch before the game in front of the fans, although he had to do it several times for the ball to reach the receiver’s hands.

“When they told me, ‘Let’s see, throw the ball,’ I thought, ‘Shouldn’t we kick it?’” Aparicio said with a smile.

The Amazonas of Yakunach, when the photographer Juan Arguel Sánchez Cano met them while working on a project about the identity of Yucatán, made of “baseball and beer”, found his followers in his town.

“I saw a video of girls hitting with little visual information and found a way to contact them,” Sánchez Cano said. “When I found them we met in the field and when I arrived they were already training. I visited them a couple of times. “During the first visit I didn’t even bring a camera, I just came to meet them and I didn’t want them to be scared.”

Sánchez Cano watched part of the training and at the end told the players that he wanted to take some photos and eventually post them on social networks. They agree. However, after that photo session, Sánchez Cano waited almost 10 months to publish his work.

“I knew they weren’t just any photos, but I knew I had to wait for the right moment, even though I didn’t know what the right moment was. … I knew it would create all kinds of arguments between hippies and women and all that,” Sánchez Cano said.

Posting the photos on Facebook, as expected, the photos went viral and went viral.

“They started looking for them and I was very happy, not for me as a photographer, but for them, because the work is theirs, for what they have achieved for their community,” said Sánchez Cano.

The path continues towards Las Amazonas de Yacuña and, as more and more of the story that began six years ago is revealed, the world becomes smaller and smaller, as does its town.

“We Amazonas are going to go far, it’s in our heads, it’s in our hearts,” said Jessica Yazmín Díaz Canú, one of the team’s players. “It sounds everywhere. I tell women to fight for what they want, the shackles and obstacles that we have in front of us, let’s throw them to achieve the goals that you have set for yourself.

this was the article published for the first time in Spanish via LA Times en Español.