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14-year-old Renata Flores is helping make an ancient indigenous language cool among young people in Peru -- with a little help from pop music icons like Michael Jackson and Alicia Keys! Renata recorded a music video of her singing Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” in Quechua, a language descended from the Inca over 800 years ago -- it went viral with over 1.2 million views in less than two months. And, her video has made a big impact as Renata told the BBC, “None of my friends speak Quechua, not one. Now my friends are telling me because of what I did, they want to learn.” Quechua is one of 47 surviving indigenous languages in Peru -- and it’s also the country’s second most spoken language with 4.5 million speakers. But for over 100 years, it’s been stigmatized and most of the fluent speakers today are elders in rural areas whose children grew up rejecting the language. Renata says that young people think “Quechua equals poverty, and they don't put value into it. But that's not right.” Renata is still learning Quechua but her mother, Patricia, is a fluent speaker and supported her idea. In her hometown of Ayacucho in Andes, she's become a local celebrity; at a celebration, school children supported her with signs reading "Renata, you make us proud." She even encouraged her own teacher, Ruddier Rojas, to reconsider his own identity. He told PRI, “I'm going to be honest. When I went to the capital city I was ashamed there about my parents speaking Quechua. I would say no, I denied it. And now I'm embarrassed because I don't speak Quechua, the origin of my family and the door to my past.” Last fall, Renata held her first major concert in Ayacucho, where she wowed the crowd with multiple covers in Quechua, including a performance of Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’” in both English and Quechua that brought the house down. Renata also made a statement celebrating her heritage with her stage costume: she appeared wearing a pink and purple chullo, a style of wool hat with long earflaps that indigenous Peruvians in the Andes have worn for centuries. “Yeah, it's part of adding value to our culture from the Andes — Andinos,” said Renata with pride. “I wanted a symbol for me, that identifies me." You can read more about this Mighty Girl on PRI athttp://bit.ly/1OFpsV1 -- or check out her video, “The Way You Make Me Feel," on YouTube athttp://bit.ly/1Df4uKd







