February 20, 2024 • 54 mins
We are joined by Yaayuk Bernadette Alvanna-Stimpfle, a high fluency first language speaker of Iñupaq, the director of the Kawerak, Inc. Heritage Program, and a doctoral candidate at Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. She shares her wisdom as an Indigenous language teacher, developer of teacher preparation methodologies, and as a member of the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council. Her methodologies focus on safe learning environments and incorporating Indigenous language child rearing methods and love into language learning and use environments.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Do they try to colonizzs, try to genocide.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yet we're still here with the tongue on broke, and
I'm gonna cheese to cut you on. Welcome to the
Tongue Unbroken. It's exciting today to have a wonderful guest.
We work together on the Alaska Native Language Preservation and
Advisory Council, and then she does incredible things up in
(00:42):
northern Alaska. So we are joined today by Yayuk who's
also known as Bernadette. Although I think your pronunciation of
your second name would be much better than mine, But
just so we can get to know you a little bit,
can you just introduce yourself and just talk about maybe
what you do when it comes to languages. The show
is about language revitalization and decolonization, and I'd love for
(01:05):
the folks to get to know you a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
On a yayukuna inu Uruna Aglan ileyatout Hi. My name
is yayuk in Pertun, and I do have an English
name that has a very beautiful French pronunciation, Bernadette, and
I was known as Bernadette Albana Stimpel in English. I
do live in Nome, but my family is from King Island,
(01:31):
ninety miles west of Nome, thirty miles off the mainland, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
And yeah, so Nome is up in north west Alaska.
And can you tell us a bit about the language
that you work in.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well, where I live, we have varied languages and dialects,
including the Russian side. We are close to the Russian side.
We have relatives on the other side. I do speak
in Upier, the King Island or UVMU dialect. I was
a first language speaker growing up here and know them
at the East End because Bia had shut the school down.
(02:07):
How I was three and my exposure to English was
at age five, so I know what it was like
to be a second language learner in English. When I
got into English as a second language in college, I
wanted to learn all the principles and everything that goes
with it because I knew what the children are going
through that came from a foreign country, or our students
(02:29):
from our villages, small villages coming to know and that's
what I wanted to get into. As a child and
not knowing English was very frustrating and not knowing how
to talk to the teachers. So of course I had
cousins though that helped me trying to memorize English words.
At Recess, I also taught in a regular classroom. I
(02:51):
started with a Bilingual by Culture program teaching language and culture.
And before that, though, fortunately, I learned how to write
my language as a third grader eight years old, I
remember wanting to write what my grandmother said, but it
was using English letters. Now, I remember I didn't speak English,
but I when I figured out those letters have a sound,
(03:13):
I try to might write my grandmother's language, but I
got stuck in our own sounds that don't exist in English.
So in college that's when I learned to write INPA.
But I learned helping me dialect with Edna McClain, and
I came home with that dialect. So then that's how
I began teaching with language class with non public schools,
(03:35):
elementary school. I never thought i'd be a teacher. I
can speak the language, but I had to do Western
form of learning how to teach, which didn't work when
it came to language of realization and in speaking with
other people. I know when a person actually starts to
learn a language, maybe they forgot it, maybe they were
(03:57):
spoken to but wasn't brave enough to make mistakes because
they would be put down or laughed at or you know,
and it's a very deterrent to learn further. But what
it also does for older learners young people is that
as they learn their language, they start to speak more
and start understanding more than that colonization fades away with
(04:22):
each new information, So it's kind of like an automatic
way of working with that and started making clear understanding
of our cultural ways, because we have a lot of
people that have a lot of cultural knowledge but not
so much language. When they start to learn the language,
then they start to make sense even how we speak
English to each other natives, the native person, it comes
(04:45):
from the language. So a lot of times the young
people say, oh, that's why we say this. Yeah, so
that's to make more sense.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah. It makes me think of wonderful moments in language
teaching when people begin to be able to commune, like
as you start to see they can formulate thoughts and
then put it into the language. And then as they
start to do that more and more, they're actually translating
a little bit less and less, and they're starting to
move towards this realm where they are truly speaking the
(05:15):
language and I know a lot of your approach has
to do with a mother language, like basically saying like
the way that a parent would raise a child is
going to be similar to the ways that we're going
to teach people the language, which is maybe a different
approach because some of them are adults, some of them
could be older adults, and they're coming to the language
(05:36):
and they're going to be very vulnerable. They're going to
have moments perhaps of doubt, and they're going to have
moments where they might start to think that they can't
do that. And so being in these loving and nurturing
environments I think are really important. From what I know
of you and your work, that seems to be part
of your approach as well.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Right, Yes, before I really started exploring how Inupiat speak
and teach their children in inupiad, you know, because I
went to college, went to Yuliyah and learn how to
become a teacher in western form and also taught the
language at the community college using that approach. And so
(06:14):
I started exploring how did indepid people teach, how did
they talk to them? Because the grandma breakdown doesn't work
for our students whatsoever. But in the last four years
I have been mentoring and guiding my daughter who happens
to be an emergent teacher at nor Elementary School for kindergarten,
(06:35):
and I watched those students. I observe how they learn.
I was just in that classroom yesterday. I usually go
there to help teach writing and usually it's one sound
in Indipia, and for yesterday it was sha as our
sha and you know, having all the works that go
with it. But I have watched our native students. They
(06:55):
have a great capacity for memory. These are five and
six year olds. They don't quite remember how the sound goes,
but I'll just say the very beginning and they remembered,
and it could be a four inch long word, but
they'll get the whole thing. They just need that beginning sound.
Yesterday I just called it. That's of learning. It's all
memory because when you teach children, we expect them to
(07:19):
memorize it, have it memorized because the way we talk
to our kids. They also learned the expectations at the
same time. Now that ability wouldn't be recognized or a
regular classroom teacher in English wouldn't know. So there are
these things that I observe in our children and realize, Okay,
(07:41):
so this is how our kids learn, and that's how
everyone can learn to do that. Because I have experienced
where older students that took my class a long time
ago and want to connect to their maybe they're a pastor,
I want to connect to their native people that went
to their church and had a tough tough time teaching
(08:03):
the way the law teaching. Hey, Western people taught their classes.
It just didn't work. So once I changed how I
teach my students and how I know they'll learn best,
it really works great. Mainly it's listening, listening to their
language in full sentences, because like whenever our elders said,
we don't talk like this, pencil, paper, tissue, water, we
(08:29):
don't talk like that. So it has to be in
its full language.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, and as you talked about this, So these immersion programs,
so there's teaching adults and there's teaching children. And I
don't know if it's similar for a nupiach, but among
cling It we have some of the first children who
are being raised in the language, so they're becoming speakers.
They're bilingual speakers. They speak English and they speak cling It.
And I know we both studied II as well, and
(08:56):
so thinking of conversations that I've had with Larry Kimore,
one of the things he talked about, as he said,
don't focus on the money, don't focus on the curriculum,
don't focus on all these different things that you think
are the answers that you need. We focus on as
creating a home where your language happens to be the
main language.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And then just.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Create that home environment and then everyone will feel safe
and everyone will eventually start talking. And he also likes
to say, let the children be the yeast, because adults
who might be frustrated, or adults who might not even
be thinking about coming back to the language yet might
see a child stand up and talk and that could
really inspire them. It could be a medicine for them.
(09:36):
So as you talk about this immersion program, are these
the first children to be raised speaking in Upiak in
a long time?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yes, very long time. The elders we have now had
never heard our children speak in UK and speak in
a language. And a little story when my oldest daughter
was working with some other young people from Greenland and
Cana and they were in Kotabu for a language summit.
She brought them here and brought them to tell her
(10:04):
go meet you know, family and folks and my brother
who lives there. I was introducing this four year old
little girl from Greenland, and I knew she didn't speak English,
just her language, and I know she could pick up
some of my words. And I said to her on
amna angurah. She understood the word gummik. We were around
(10:27):
her in a circle and she looked at all of
our shoes. My brother realized, oh my goodness, that little
girl understood, and that was the first time he had
ever seen a boy year old understand. But you know
she's from Greenland. So these children are they are becoming
like the first set of speakers. We're always amazed when
(10:49):
do we see those children from that first year teaching.
They still remember what they've learned. They still want to
communicate at the store, a post office, or in a restaurant.
They still remain so wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And we had some children when our language nests started
here and sing it on the and our lands where
some of the children, like you were talking earlier about
grammar and what do you do with grammar. It's such
a difficult thing when it comes to indigenous languages because
they're complicated, there's a lot to them. They think very
differently than European languages, they construct very differently than a
(11:25):
lot of European languages, and so sometimes it's a bit
of a seesaw. It's like, how much do especially when
you're talking to people who already can speak English and
maybe have already thought about how the language works, is
you start sort of saying, Okay, you get to change
these words around. This one goes here, this one goes there,
You've got to say this type of thing that way.
But sometimes with children, if you're just trying to create
(11:47):
these immersive environments, you might not have to do that.
But we had a young person who started just changing
the language on his own the way he's supposed to.
You could say help me, and then you could say
let me help you cut dash, and he was combining
them and saying it cut dash, which is sort of
(12:08):
like let me help myself, which is not what he
was trying to communicate. But as we stayed in the language,
it was interesting because we didn't want to correct that child.
We want to instead sort of like know what he
was communicating and then watch him as he not only
tried the language out, but started to work things out
in his own mind, which we felt would naturalize because
(12:30):
we've had to recreate these language use environments because they
were gone, they were taken from us, and so as
we did that, we had to be sometimes teachers, but
sometimes just a speaker in a place, and so it
was really fun. So one of the things I was
thinking about earlier is you mentioned when you were young
(12:50):
moving from King Island to Gnome, And I think one
of the things we might not talk about enough in
Alaska is how much displacement can affect people. So if
this is your ancestral home and there's the school closes,
sometimes people had to just leave. They had to just
leave an entire community. And what we're talking about is
an island, especially if you go back, and quite a bit.
(13:13):
Like it's not like you just jump on an airplane
and zoom on over to Nome, you know, And so
like getting from King Island to Nome requires is quite
a journey. I remember I saw a presentation by a
I think it was the child of a school teacher
who taught on King Island, and they said the people
would they would watch the weather like especially the elders
who would really watch the weather and then they would say, okay,
(13:35):
we go now, and they would all get in the
boats and go to Nome because it was you got
across the ocean in boats. And so as people kind
of reconnect with the language, do you think they're reconnecting
with the place as well.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, you know, I was born and raised on the
east end of Nome. My father had moved his family
before I was born, and he knew he wouldn't see
me be born, so he moved his family. And the
way our family structure goes, we have partner cousins and
teasing cousins. Well, his teasing cousin moved too. He moved
his family to help my mother when he wasn't around anymore,
(14:11):
because you know, they still really lived in that are
males being the hunters and the providers for the family.
And I've also noticed in the last few years my generation,
we were the first generation to be raised away from
King Island, but they did it like we still lived
on King Island, our language and everything. But it wasn't
(14:34):
until two thousand and five when I went there with
a group of other people, elders, especially my older brothers
and sisters. The language finally came home, that's where it
came from. They also said words that are only said there,
and so my generation we had to listen and then
we ask what does that mean? Because there are words
(14:56):
that only pertained to a place where it's there's al
not flat land. So we were I was quite surprised
by that and made sure I recorded all that. I
wrote them down, and so you know, even though they
just spoke to us in being raised here and know
there were some words that weren't couldn't be said here
(15:18):
on flat land.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Wow, that's amazing. And one of the things I think
about as well is you're an elder, you're a respected elder,
you're a respected teacher. You've made incredible contributions throughout the
entire state of Alaska in language reclamation movements, and you're
always continuing to try and improve yourself and improve situations
(15:40):
for all languages in Alaska. And I think if we
go back maybe one generation from you, probably everybody spoke right.
And then we look at your generation and it gets less,
and we look at the generation after and it goes
way down. So were there things that you had to
do to hold on to your languge which while you
(16:00):
were growing up and while you were yourself going to school.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yes, I was very fortunate my grandmother, my mother's mother,
who raised me because my mom, you know, went away
from medical care, had to be away from home. She
was very strict. English was not allowed in her home.
And my older brothers, when they start learning English in school,
they came home to try to speak to me in English,
but she would scold them and say, no, she'll learn
(16:26):
when she goes to school. And that's exactly what happened.
She was very, very insistent that English was not spoken
in her home, so, you know, and she raised me
in her seventies, and it was always the language of
the home, the language of our community on the east
end of Nome. In fact, there was like maybe almost
twenty fifteen years where on the east end of Nome
(16:49):
where Kingandan people settled, that was all in the Piank
and then by when you walk to town and maybe
half a mile away, it turns to English. And we
always knew growing up or we can hear Innipiak and
where we can learn English. Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And I think a lot of people are probably trying
to bring the language back into the home and so like,
as folks say, because I think I read there's a
scholar and a linguist and an activist named Barbara Meek,
and she wrote a book called We Are Our Language
And there was a section in that book where she
basically said, twenty years ago, the language was in the
home and never in the school. This is she was
(17:25):
talking about Kaska, the Kaska language. Then she said, now
the language is in the school and not in the home.
So what do you think we need to do to
bridge that to sort of bring our languages back into
our homes again.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Well, I think as we're working with the young ones kindergarten,
first second grade or even a language nest, trying to
work towards for early head start and head start here
with Quirk, we do need to have the parents and
the guardians if they need to offer them some classes
and or offer how you can understand this person the
(18:00):
way my daughter does it. You know that whole generation
is media ready. They're ready with technology. Especially at the
beginning of the year, she will contact the parents of
her students for their names, their traditional names and make
sure somebody from Saint Larnce Island or somebody from Philippines
or from tell her and want to say the name right,
(18:22):
So she'll record the parent saying the name, and we
have to practice how to say it correctly in her classroom.
So we make great efforts to do that. And what
happens then is the child goes home with the language
they've learned and they teach their family how to do that.
(18:43):
So they become our seeds of spreading the language that way. Yeah,
so they become the teachers.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yep, yep, they become the teacher. They become the seed,
they become the yeast. And so as you folks are
doing this work, I really hope that you're seeing those
seeds growing into plants, growing into more and more and
just like being parts of these changes that are going
to result in healthy languages. Again, we're going to take
a short break and we'll be right back. I'm so
(19:10):
excited to be here with Yayoka talking about language reclamation
movements and what's going on up on the northwestern parts
of Alaska. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
One or two or three times.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
You try any.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Rounds you run around without joy. Struggle yesterday, you struggle
still today now, but you'll find a broader away my
brother and sisters. Don't you know what about the way
(20:04):
to wait back.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
For those who came.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Believe in yourself, now believe in us. Somehow, Donna declasy.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And we're back with Yay who teaches in Gnome and
who is a teacher of the teachers, which is a
really wonderful role. As you go along in your work,
you're going to see people that you probably taught who
are becoming teachers themselves, and then they'll teach others as
these languages move towards intergenerational communication, which is really exciting
(20:52):
to see generations of learners becoming generations of speakers becoming
generations of teachers. So one of the things that I
think about a lot as well is how people sometimes
need healing to reconnect with their languages. And one of
the most powerful things I've ever seen was there was
you and a group of folks I think Waukie Charles
(21:14):
and Annette Evan Smith and April Councilor and Dolores Churchill
doing work with the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council.
And I believe it was that the Alaska Federation of Natives,
which is the largest gathering of Alaska natives. It happens
every year in October, and you folks took an opportunity
(21:35):
to apologize to folks for not being able to access
their language, to not being able to learn it. And
it felt like a real invitation to heal, not like
you were taking responsibility for all the attempted genocide and
all the other things that might have kept them away
from their own languages, but just to open that door
for healing. So I was hoping you could share that experience,
(21:57):
how it came about, and what it felt like to
be up there orchestrating this wonderful movement.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Well, you know, in state of Alaska, I had that
Bilingual multicultural conference every year while I was a bilingual
by cultural teacher and EESL teacher, Mike Travis. He would
put that conference together with a committee of course, and
every time that very first morning, everybody comes in, we
all get quiet, seven hundred, eight hundred people at the ballroom,
(22:26):
and the first thing he would do is ask people,
if you're from Anchorage, stand up. Everybody would stand up.
If you had to drive to get here, stand up,
So he did that. Then he finally gets to the
part of if you had to fly here, please stand up,
and we all felt honored every time he did that,
and I thought about, well, what about if we put
(22:49):
this in a different context where people felt honored, where
people felt acknowledged and recognized. So that was my first
thought with that activity. So this was a way of
honoring our elders because there's that portion where wait a minute,
they're the ones that suffered, you know, my generation. I
(23:10):
never said anything. I was too scared, but I know
other people that have spoken the language in school and
got scolded for it, and I didn't want that to
happen to me. But I know there were elders and
older speakers that were discouraged from speaking the language in
the school and punished heavily for that, and then not
wanting to have their own children experience that hurt. And
(23:34):
so this was a way to honor them. This was
a way to acknowledge their experience and to recognize their
past experience of hurt. So I framed it so it
would happen with Oh I remember now. I first did
it with the King Island Native Community with their corporation meeting.
(23:54):
I was really you know, because corporation meetings they tend
to get kind of at each other throat sometimes, so
I wanted to put it in a setting where people
start working together. So with that, that's where I put
if you're a young person and you have cultural knowledge,
step up, and they did. And then the next step was,
(24:15):
if you can understand the language, stand up, and they did.
And by the time I got to if you can
say some of the words and understand, stand up. By
the time I got to the last one, and you
speak fluently and you can understand fluently and you respond back,
stand up. So that's when our elders went up. Lots
of tears, of course, but then they felt really honored.
(24:38):
They felt like, oh, yes, I'm an important person, because
we never get that feeling anyplace else, right, not even
from our own people. At times, we want people to
feel good. We want people to feel like they're included,
they're part of a group. So that's where that started.
And then when I did that with AFN, then it
(24:58):
was all the you know, native languages in our state,
and I wanted the people to feel that they are honored,
they are acknowledged and recognize because even for us, as
in people raise of the eyebrow when you're passing in
the halloway or a no. We don't have to say
anything that's acknowledgment. That's like saying hi and hello. We
(25:19):
don't have to be verbal. So that was a way
to honor all of our people.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, and it was wonderful and I think people there
were tears. There were It's an emotional journey. I think
to sometimes even just step foot in a classroom where
they're teaching a language that you're ancestrally connected to, you
might not know anything about it, and it's very intimidating.
It's scary. There's a fear of failure. I think a
(25:47):
lot of languages in Alaska are extremely endangered. So I
do worry that sometimes people feel like, well if I fail,
then the whole language fails. And so to just be
in this environment where we start by recognizing people who
can do it, which I feel like we haven't done
in our region enough, because when I went to work
(26:08):
with the speakers who spoke the language, there were usually
people who lived in kind of they didn't live in
big houses, they lived in very small places. They lived
in they had very humble lives. And I would always
think about that. I would think, did we not value
what they did for us to keep our language alive.
And then publicly sometimes they would come in and people,
(26:30):
you know, I would just think to myself, do folks
know how much knowledge this person has and what they
can give to us? So I think recognizing that is
pushing our languages up in value, which you know, we
have to do because they've been deliberately devalued through colonization
and through racism. But then also in addition to that,
(26:54):
to say, and if you don't, we want to connect you.
We want to guide you and show you how to
get there, because I want to focus on the individual
for a second. I think a lot of folks who
start to get really close to becoming speakers begin to
think more and more that it's impossible because they're getting close.
(27:14):
But then I think they start to think of it,
it's so complicated, I can't do this and all this
other stuff. And so what kind of strategies do you
use to keep people encouraged and motivated and believing in
themselves as they go on the journey.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Well, I guess it would depend on the age, for
one thing, because older learners do get embarrassed. And I
could tell I was taught how to assess people. My
grandmother taught me how to protect myself and also to
watch for people that aren't going to be safe. Well,
I won't be safe around them. So I can tell
(27:52):
when some learners really just need that extra that extra help.
And when I was in elementary school, if you know,
in a regular the students that are slow and don't
have anything to say, we're the ones worth put downs
right and then compared to another smarter, faster student. So
what I would do is I would go to that
(28:12):
learner who is kind of struggling and just sit there
and just teach from there and not ask any questions
to that person. So I did the same with the adults,
and it works, and teach from there and then they'll
soon get it really quick, and then they'll become you know,
when they have partners, they'll become the teacher. So you know,
(28:35):
and that's from my grandmother, that's from having unip as
a first language.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, And my experience as well as a teacher is
sometimes the tears are going to come sometimes that there's
going to be these emotional parts of it, and my
general approach is not to be afraid of those moments,
but to just recognize that as like, this is a
healing and this is a reconnection, and sometimes you have
to go through this painful part of it, which I
(29:01):
think can be very scary for a lot of people
to say, I tried to talk and I just cried
my way through it. And then sometimes I'll talk to
them I say, yeah, but I understood you, and you
communicated this thing that maybe you've been waiting your whole
life just to be able to do, and and it
might not be you know, there's a meme that goes
around every year and says it showls like a really
(29:22):
big scary person. It says colonization telling us our languages
are dying, and it shows someone just kind of dancing
in their face and saying, me and my friends learning
how to say I like potatoes, right. And so even
if you're just learning a little small phrase, like, you're
putting yourself on the path and you're keeping yourself on
the path. And so for me, I try to look
at those emotional moments, I try to talk about healing
(29:45):
and reconnection and just say like you might be suffering
right now, but the generations after you won't be suffering
as much. Like even though it was sort of like
increase and suffering, and now it goes decrease and suffering.
But I think it has to happen through that reconnection.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Right. So my niece who's been helping with teaching math
at Maddi's classroom give me a classroom. When we first
got started, she actually had to in her mind say
it's okay, it's okay to teach math. Sorry, So she
had to give herself permission in the language. And for me,
(30:25):
I was focused on making sure my daughter was saying
things correctly. I just we did it so that the
kids didn't get it. If she said something wrong, I
just repeat it though it's supposed to be said. But
those really smart kids, well say to her by the
end of the week, right, your mom was teaching how
to say the words correctly, so they figure it out.
(30:47):
But my niece, who was just a couple of years
younger than me, had to give herself permission, and that
was her healing. She had to give herself permission. It's okay,
and that's all it takes. It's okay.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Like I remember being at Navahi in Hawaii and watching
the kids do this chant every morning, and as I
learned what that chant was. They were asking permission to
learn the language from their ancestors and to see, Like,
we have generations that were treated so horribly, and we
(31:19):
have story after story about people who were physically abused,
emotionally abused, that were put into real harm. These are
adults who are sometimes beating on children, stuffing things in
their mouths, doing the most inhumane things simply because they're
speaking their own language. And so with all of that suffering, like,
(31:41):
it doesn't just evaporate, it stays. It's intergenerational. But then
as we make those reconnections, some of that intergenerational trauma
gets released because we look at it and we can
see the ways our ancestors love us and hums through
the language. As just like you said earlier, it's a
(32:04):
pure form of decolonization, it's a pure form of medicine.
It's an absolute reconnection with land, place, each other and
ancestors and future generation.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Right. So even like for my brother who was a
Vietnam VET in the Navy, I would send my daughter
if it was men men words up for hunting and such,
because they have their own you know, whatever they do
out there in the hunting boat or even on the land.
I don't know those words, so I would send her
to him. I went to college, I went to I
(32:35):
went and got educated how to write in blah blah blah,
but I couldn't do their words. So he would be like, Eh,
that's right, he doesn't know. So he was really proud
of that, and that made him really proud that she
can teach my daughter those words when I couldn't. So
we do need to recognize, you know, people like that
(32:56):
that don't realize, Yeah they can teach. They think they can't,
but they can.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah. We had a moment when we were trying to
push a bill through because you and I we also
do advocacy work at the Capitol with legislators and trying
to get them to do more for Alaska Native languages
because governments and education and religions in North America did
a lot to try and destroy Native American language. So
(33:21):
my approach is usually like, okay, it's your guys's turned
to bring it the other way now. And so we
were working to make Alaska Native languages co official languages
of Alaska. And we had someone who approached us, and
he was a Vietnam veteran and an educator as and
was Paul Berg. He was non Indigenous, and he would
be very straightforward. He'd say, well, tell me what you
(33:41):
want me to say, because I'm a white male, and
they'll listen to me in ways that they won't listen
to you and to others. And so he was a
really good organizer and he's really good at strategy. And
as we're trying to make this final push for you know,
we were meeting all kinds of political opposition, and he said, well,
what should I do? I said, I don't know, Paul, like,
I'm kind of taking this. I'm talking at their heartstrings
(34:04):
and I'm talking about keeping languages alive and these historical traumas,
and I'm trying to sort of take that approach about
what's just the right thing to do.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Now.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
We had an elder who was there who was talking
about growing up in a boarding school and being restricted
from speaking her language and being punished, and she was
giving the emotional trauma of that, and I said, so,
what do you think you should do? He's like, well,
let me think about it. And he came back he says,
I think I know what to do, and he gave
this stirring testimony about being a Vietnam veteran himself and
(34:35):
coming back and not being recognized because people protested the war,
and he was saying, well, we didn't we didn't want
to go, and we were drafted. And then how there
was a small ceremony to recognize them, and how valuable
it was to be seen and to be heard, and
it it just it struck a chord with a lot
(34:56):
of people. And so I really like what you're saying about.
So many people need to work together and to push
this thing, because what I think happens when you have
language reclamation is you start to become more whole again,
because colonization likes to divide everything into parts so it
can kind of control them. But if you come back
to the sense of wholeness, you can get words from
(35:18):
people that you know would be so happy to contribute,
and you could learn all this stuff and you could
not say, I don't know how to say that, but
that person over there does. And it becomes less competitive
and more collaborative, which is always fun.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Right. Yeah. And I know students, young students, they listen
differently to somebody a little bit older than them, maybe
a high school kid or you know a brand new teacher,
very young, they will respond differently to that person than
they would to be. So I will ask the younger generations,
(35:51):
can you go talk to this blah blah, because they'll
listen to you, And just saying that part to that
person they'll listen to you is usually the key for
them be like, oh, at first, nervous, wonderful.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
We're gonna take another break, folks, We're going to come
back and we're going to talk about the future of
indigenous languages in Alaska in particular. But I think the
conversation can apply to a lot of different places where
indigenous languages are reconnecting with the people and coming back
to a place of strength. So cheesh, we'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Yah yah, God.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
God kinda.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Years away, we are back.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
So one of the things that I was thinking about
was Alaska is home to twenty three known indigenous languages.
I would say one or two of them are in
a safe place. All the others are not in a
safe place. The majority of them probably have fewer than
one hundred speakers. Is quite a few that have probably
fewer than ten speakers left, and so we're at a
(38:04):
real crisis point in Alaska that maybe I personally get
frustrated that it's not more of a central issue for
a lot of people, politicians, some of our own leaders,
some of our own educators. But as we sort of think, like,
if we're successful in our work advocating, teaching, making change,
(38:25):
what kinds of things need to continue to change in
order for all of these languages to thrive.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
That's a huge question. I think the first thing, though,
is to still focus on the small children, because they're
the ones growing up in the language, and the language
is organic, it's what they've learned. And because I noticed
(38:53):
in helping to translate them, for example, the math curriculum
for first grade, some of the words we've had to
talk to other people to be in agreement with what
we're going to call this shape such and such, you know,
because we don't have words for rombus and those kind
of things. We had to create some words. And as
my daughter was teaching the class and in those concepts
(39:14):
that we had translated, I could tell the students own
those words. There's word ownership, It belonged to them. That's
how they've learned it. So they are the key, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, absolutely, one time I think I was teaching a
group of preschoolers, and I hadn't had a whole lot
of experience teaching really young kids. At this point. We've
been doing family age link it and learning with adults.
And I said, Okay, we're going to say this word.
This word is pretty hard to say ash and they
all just said it and I said, or it isn't.
(39:48):
I guess it isn't right. And so there's also these
sort of points where their mind is ready for language learning.
And also there's a little bit less of the hesitation
that sometimes you get with it adults, because they don't
realize I don't think everything is kind of on the
line whether or not they talk or not. And so
for them, I think they can come at it without
(40:09):
as much trauma. And that's not to say that it's
too late for the adults or they can't do it.
It's just saying we have to take a different approach
with the kids as with the adults. But if we
get these kids speaking, now the adults have someone to
talk to. Now the adults say, oh, look I should
learn this, so I could learn right along with them.
And I think when we look at what happened in HAVII,
(40:30):
I think the children help to lead people back, and
it's such a wonderful idea to say, Okay, we know
that there's trauma, we know that there's pain. We'll look
at these children and they could bring us back to
this place where there's not as much of that, and
then you can talk and it's a lot more fun
because if you make a mistake, it's not a big
deal at all. It's just part of learning. And so, yeah,
(40:51):
it's wonderful to have the children leading the way.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Right, yes, and so on. That other coin on piece
of that thought is teacher training how to teach a language,
because when bilingual by Education first started in our state,
pretty much bluent speakers are plucked off the street and
asked to teach no trainee, no you know on how
(41:14):
to teach language, because there's you can yeah, you can speak,
but it's a completely different thing to know how to
teach the language. And so I think that's another critical
piece for our future, our young people that are learning
the language at the same time and learning how to teach.
That's why mentorship is so important for these young teachers,
(41:36):
for the learners especially to make it a successful program.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, absolutely, And so one of the things on the
practical side that groups of us are trying to do
is say, let's make a master's degree in teaching indigenous languages,
so you could become you get a master's degree in education,
So let's make one indigenous language education, and then let's
encourage people to try that and then to learn from
each other. Because you and I speak and teach different languages,
(42:03):
but that doesn't mean we can't learn so much from
each other. I learned from all kinds of language teachers
all the time because I listen to what they say
and to their approach, and we run into very similar things.
And part of that is putting adults into a situation
where they're going to have to just try something and
probably get it really wrong, like probably be way off.
(42:24):
And we all need to understand these adults are not
going to sound like high fluency people who grew up
in the language. But if we give them the time
and space and safety to encourage them to use it
and to focus on what they're trying to say instead
of what's right or wrong, then I think we open
the door for their own language learning as well. So, yeah,
(42:45):
so children leading the way teacher education, and I think
also probably trying to push Alaska Native languages to be
more towards the center of education. So I remember I said,
you know, everybody who graduates high school should take one
semester of an Alaska Native language. And somebody said, well,
you can't make people learn stuff. I said, well, I
(43:06):
didn't know that math was an option I was going
to school, and I didn't know that history was an option.
So I think there'll be a it'll be jarring for
a little bit, but it'll naturalize over time.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Right right. So that goes to the third peg of this,
which is developing language resources for the teachers for the
kids to use, because we're doing all three all at
the same time, all of the time. You know. Unfortunately,
we do have someone that helps us to translate the
math cric alem and also writing cartoon scripts. And also
(43:40):
I had him translating our stories here at EhP for
them to be printed in the language. They're already in
English from the nineties. So I think that's another really
important piece on how to make this work, to have
their resources available readily available.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Absolutely, as schools in Alaska operate differently because they're in
different places, but they are often quite colonial in their
structure and their approach and their curriculum and their delivery.
And so one of the things that we've also been
proposing through the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council
and then I've been saying it individually, is trying to
(44:20):
advocate for a statewide Alaska Native Language Schools Board basically
or consortium, so that these language schools and programs are
linked by the fact that they're doing something other than English,
and by the fact that they're trying to teach through
indigenous languages. So to use indigenous languages as a medium
(44:40):
of education. We just had to create a poster to
talk about the water cycle and evaporation and all this
other stuff which we can talk about, but sometimes we've
got to figure out how to get there, and we
have to construct some things. Us talking with the legislator
and I said, we weren't allowed to be part of conversations.
Our language was actively prohibited. It was a egal mm hmm,
(45:01):
and so we weren't allowed to be in these conversations
about science and technology and other things that the world
got to talk about. And so we might need to
do some work, and I think we could really benefit
by working together more and having annual conferences so that
someone could say, did you guys translate geometry yet, how'd
you handle this thing? How'd you handle that thing? And
(45:22):
we can gain ideas from each other so that we
don't have to reinvent it every time, but we do
this in a collaborative way, right.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Yeah, Our whole lifestyle is all about process. Science is
about process and knowing that our numbering system is math
in itself. Amazing what our people have had to invent,
you know, and what they've had to create, our people
in a language that comes with it.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, and how much of it is observation of the
natural world and a scientific process. It's an indigenous scientific process,
so using terms like an indigenous sciences and using terms
like indigenous literatures and not allowing academics to give us
a different label where they can have art and we
have artifacts. Like I remember I saw a presentation of
(46:12):
seal hunting on the ice and how much has been
learned from watching polar bears and just like how intimate
that relationship is. But humans would do things differently because
you know, we're now polar bears. We don't have some
of their abilities, but we also can watch them and
learn and adapt, and there's so much that gets brought
(46:33):
into people. And then education in Alaska becomes much more
place based, as Ernestine Hayes says. She says placed based
education by place based educators, right. And so as we
sort of look at using our languages more, we lean
on localized knowledge that has allowed people to survive in
places for thousands of years. And I think we have
(46:56):
a healthier Alaska exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
You know, even making zeal oil, that's that's science. All
of the academia areas that are taught at a formal school,
a formal education, we have it all. It's already there.
Our lifestyle is already there. It's in seasons, it's cycnical.
After working so much with NIPA and making these resources
(47:23):
for our kids, I can't think in English anymore. Yeah.
So our whole lifestyle, our way of life, is all
part of math. It's part of social studies, it's part
of reading and writing. It's all there.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
So as we start to wind down our conversation here,
one of the things I would maybe think about and
ask you is if there's someone out there who is
thinking about learning their indigenous language. If there's someone out
there who's thinking about becoming a teacher, If there's someone
out there who's wondering if maybe they could do it,
do you have any advice or words of motivation for
(48:05):
people who are maybe just right there on the fence
of making that big decision.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Well, they can do several things. One is connecting themselves
to a speaker, to a person could be over tea,
over helping you know, in the house. And the other
thing they could do is get on the Alaska Native
Language Center website and see what they have there, but
of course it won't be the same as having a
(48:31):
rich interaction with a speaker. Maybe having both. And the
other thing is helping those teachers, helping those instructors in
the school system, or helping with after school activities and
have a speaker with them and not this big plan
of what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, I agree, because it's not like you have to
figure everything out at once, Like really, what you have
to do is get yourself in the room or the language.
And if the language, like if your language is very small,
if there's very few speakers or maybe even no speakers
left right now, then sometimes you have to be the
one that creates that speaking environment, and by continuing to
(49:14):
sort of invite people in, Like when we would have
gatherings here and I was organizing some of the gatherings,
I would say, Okay, let's have a language immersion room.
Let's put it over here in one of the nicer rooms,
and let's get really the best coffee, the best tee,
the best snacks and put them in that room. Let's
make that room the best place to be. And then
(49:36):
let's never close the door so that you know, because
sometimes some of our own people feel like they're being
excluded because someone starts speaking their own language because they
don't know it. And so what I tried to do
in those moments is say like, oh, this is yours
and you could come. You come, and it's going to
(49:57):
take a long time, it's going to take a lot
of energy, it's going to take a lot lot of
sacrifice and risk taking. But if you do that, then
everybody sort of comes into this collective. And so I
remember one time I was in Hawaii and I kind
of had this realization. I said, I feel like with
our language, it's like the moment in the movie Titanic
(50:18):
where the boat sinks and people are on the cold
water and really scared, and it's like in that moment,
there's a boat that's going around yelling at people. Why
didn't y'all learn.
Speaker 5 (50:30):
How to swim?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
And so sometimes we're so harsh with ourselves that I said,
I want to be in the boat that's just pulling
people out of the water and giving them a warm
blanket and telling them that they belong. And so those
are the things as well as to try and overcome
some of your own individual traumas some of the collective traumas,
and to make sure that your environments are not toxic
(50:52):
and that they're safe, like you kept saying, really trying
to take this approach of creating a family, creating a home,
creating a place people feel okay.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
Yeah. So we have a cultural center here. In the
cultural center and the person directing it has been doing
some amazing activities, etching daileen, pulling in people to learn
how to make seal skin slippers or yo yos or
any of that. And that's really easy to get a
person who speaks their language to teach in the language,
(51:25):
so you know, all those cultural activities, it's so easy
to put in a language because that's what they offer
a lot of the times.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, well, so wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, take
the steps that are necessary to help get yourself there.
If you see someone else who maybe just says to you, way,
I wish I could learn my language, like, help them out,
because maybe they're just putting a hand out there to
see if someone is going to take it. And you
could be that person who takes that hand, and you
(51:53):
could be the person who helps someone along. Because the
thing that we were taught is if you just continually
help people, and maybe if your life is going out
of control, maybe they'll help you. So as you go
forward in your own journey and your own work, I
encourage you to take a look at the action Plan
of the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council, where
(52:15):
we outlined the changes that we think need to be
made in the state of Alaska that do include some
pretty substantial shifts in education and governance, in thinking about
how things are structured, and think about the way that
you could be a positive change maker in your community,
in your family, in your region, and just say, don't
(52:37):
be separated by a dialect, be united by indigenous reclamation
and those are the things that I hope that you'll
take away from this conversation. It's been so wonderful to
spend some time with you.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yay.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
I appreciate your time and everything that you do for
our peoples.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Are you not grunee for inviting me to be on
your show? You know, we all have these different experiences.
I'm at a level where I'm going to position to
mentor to guide I can help you know, I'm finding
there because for our infl learning ways, first there's a
learner and from a mentor or somebody who can demonstrate
(53:15):
or somebody who shows you sits next to you, how
to make something, how to create something, and then getting
you to become the next mentor. You're going to be
the expert by the time you're done. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Well, the wonderful thing, the cycles just keep going. Thank
you for all of your work, your time, your energy.
You're an inspiration to a lot of people in this state.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Jeeh
Do they try to colonizzs, try to genocide.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yet we're still here with the tongue on broke, and
I'm gonna cheese to cut you on. Welcome to the
Tongue Unbroken. It's exciting today to have a wonderful guest.
We work together on the Alaska Native Language Preservation and
Advisory Council, and then she does incredible things up in
(00:42):
northern Alaska. So we are joined today by Yayuk who's
also known as Bernadette. Although I think your pronunciation of
your second name would be much better than mine, But
just so we can get to know you a little bit,
can you just introduce yourself and just talk about maybe
what you do when it comes to languages. The show
is about language revitalization and decolonization, and I'd love for
(01:05):
the folks to get to know you a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
On a yayukuna inu Uruna Aglan ileyatout Hi. My name
is yayuk in Pertun, and I do have an English
name that has a very beautiful French pronunciation, Bernadette, and
I was known as Bernadette Albana Stimpel in English. I
do live in Nome, but my family is from King Island,
(01:31):
ninety miles west of Nome, thirty miles off the mainland, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
And yeah, so Nome is up in north west Alaska.
And can you tell us a bit about the language
that you work in.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well, where I live, we have varied languages and dialects,
including the Russian side. We are close to the Russian side.
We have relatives on the other side. I do speak
in Upier, the King Island or UVMU dialect. I was
a first language speaker growing up here and know them
at the East End because Bia had shut the school down.
(02:07):
How I was three and my exposure to English was
at age five, so I know what it was like
to be a second language learner in English. When I
got into English as a second language in college, I
wanted to learn all the principles and everything that goes
with it because I knew what the children are going
through that came from a foreign country, or our students
(02:29):
from our villages, small villages coming to know and that's
what I wanted to get into. As a child and
not knowing English was very frustrating and not knowing how
to talk to the teachers. So of course I had
cousins though that helped me trying to memorize English words.
At Recess, I also taught in a regular classroom. I
(02:51):
started with a Bilingual by Culture program teaching language and culture.
And before that, though, fortunately, I learned how to write
my language as a third grader eight years old, I
remember wanting to write what my grandmother said, but it
was using English letters. Now, I remember I didn't speak English,
but I when I figured out those letters have a sound,
(03:13):
I try to might write my grandmother's language, but I
got stuck in our own sounds that don't exist in English.
So in college that's when I learned to write INPA.
But I learned helping me dialect with Edna McClain, and
I came home with that dialect. So then that's how
I began teaching with language class with non public schools,
(03:35):
elementary school. I never thought i'd be a teacher. I
can speak the language, but I had to do Western
form of learning how to teach, which didn't work when
it came to language of realization and in speaking with
other people. I know when a person actually starts to
learn a language, maybe they forgot it, maybe they were
(03:57):
spoken to but wasn't brave enough to make mistakes because
they would be put down or laughed at or you know,
and it's a very deterrent to learn further. But what
it also does for older learners young people is that
as they learn their language, they start to speak more
and start understanding more than that colonization fades away with
(04:22):
each new information, So it's kind of like an automatic
way of working with that and started making clear understanding
of our cultural ways, because we have a lot of
people that have a lot of cultural knowledge but not
so much language. When they start to learn the language,
then they start to make sense even how we speak
English to each other natives, the native person, it comes
(04:45):
from the language. So a lot of times the young
people say, oh, that's why we say this. Yeah, so
that's to make more sense.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah. It makes me think of wonderful moments in language
teaching when people begin to be able to commune, like
as you start to see they can formulate thoughts and
then put it into the language. And then as they
start to do that more and more, they're actually translating
a little bit less and less, and they're starting to
move towards this realm where they are truly speaking the
(05:15):
language and I know a lot of your approach has
to do with a mother language, like basically saying like
the way that a parent would raise a child is
going to be similar to the ways that we're going
to teach people the language, which is maybe a different
approach because some of them are adults, some of them
could be older adults, and they're coming to the language
(05:36):
and they're going to be very vulnerable. They're going to
have moments perhaps of doubt, and they're going to have
moments where they might start to think that they can't
do that. And so being in these loving and nurturing
environments I think are really important. From what I know
of you and your work, that seems to be part
of your approach as well.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Right, Yes, before I really started exploring how Inupiat speak
and teach their children in inupiad, you know, because I
went to college, went to Yuliyah and learn how to
become a teacher in western form and also taught the
language at the community college using that approach. And so
(06:14):
I started exploring how did indepid people teach, how did
they talk to them? Because the grandma breakdown doesn't work
for our students whatsoever. But in the last four years
I have been mentoring and guiding my daughter who happens
to be an emergent teacher at nor Elementary School for kindergarten,
(06:35):
and I watched those students. I observe how they learn.
I was just in that classroom yesterday. I usually go
there to help teach writing and usually it's one sound
in Indipia, and for yesterday it was sha as our
sha and you know, having all the works that go
with it. But I have watched our native students. They
(06:55):
have a great capacity for memory. These are five and
six year olds. They don't quite remember how the sound goes,
but I'll just say the very beginning and they remembered,
and it could be a four inch long word, but
they'll get the whole thing. They just need that beginning sound.
Yesterday I just called it. That's of learning. It's all
memory because when you teach children, we expect them to
(07:19):
memorize it, have it memorized because the way we talk
to our kids. They also learned the expectations at the
same time. Now that ability wouldn't be recognized or a
regular classroom teacher in English wouldn't know. So there are
these things that I observe in our children and realize, Okay,
(07:41):
so this is how our kids learn, and that's how
everyone can learn to do that. Because I have experienced
where older students that took my class a long time
ago and want to connect to their maybe they're a pastor,
I want to connect to their native people that went
to their church and had a tough tough time teaching
(08:03):
the way the law teaching. Hey, Western people taught their classes.
It just didn't work. So once I changed how I
teach my students and how I know they'll learn best,
it really works great. Mainly it's listening, listening to their
language in full sentences, because like whenever our elders said,
we don't talk like this, pencil, paper, tissue, water, we
(08:29):
don't talk like that. So it has to be in
its full language.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, and as you talked about this, So these immersion programs,
so there's teaching adults and there's teaching children. And I
don't know if it's similar for a nupiach, but among
cling It we have some of the first children who
are being raised in the language, so they're becoming speakers.
They're bilingual speakers. They speak English and they speak cling It.
And I know we both studied II as well, and
(08:56):
so thinking of conversations that I've had with Larry Kimore,
one of the things he talked about, as he said,
don't focus on the money, don't focus on the curriculum,
don't focus on all these different things that you think
are the answers that you need. We focus on as
creating a home where your language happens to be the
main language.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And then just.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Create that home environment and then everyone will feel safe
and everyone will eventually start talking. And he also likes
to say, let the children be the yeast, because adults
who might be frustrated, or adults who might not even
be thinking about coming back to the language yet might
see a child stand up and talk and that could
really inspire them. It could be a medicine for them.
(09:36):
So as you talk about this immersion program, are these
the first children to be raised speaking in Upiak in
a long time?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yes, very long time. The elders we have now had
never heard our children speak in UK and speak in
a language. And a little story when my oldest daughter
was working with some other young people from Greenland and
Cana and they were in Kotabu for a language summit.
She brought them here and brought them to tell her
(10:04):
go meet you know, family and folks and my brother
who lives there. I was introducing this four year old
little girl from Greenland, and I knew she didn't speak English,
just her language, and I know she could pick up
some of my words. And I said to her on
amna angurah. She understood the word gummik. We were around
(10:27):
her in a circle and she looked at all of
our shoes. My brother realized, oh my goodness, that little
girl understood, and that was the first time he had
ever seen a boy year old understand. But you know
she's from Greenland. So these children are they are becoming
like the first set of speakers. We're always amazed when
(10:49):
do we see those children from that first year teaching.
They still remember what they've learned. They still want to
communicate at the store, a post office, or in a restaurant.
They still remain so wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And we had some children when our language nests started
here and sing it on the and our lands where
some of the children, like you were talking earlier about
grammar and what do you do with grammar. It's such
a difficult thing when it comes to indigenous languages because
they're complicated, there's a lot to them. They think very
differently than European languages, they construct very differently than a
(11:25):
lot of European languages, and so sometimes it's a bit
of a seesaw. It's like, how much do especially when
you're talking to people who already can speak English and
maybe have already thought about how the language works, is
you start sort of saying, Okay, you get to change
these words around. This one goes here, this one goes there,
You've got to say this type of thing that way.
But sometimes with children, if you're just trying to create
(11:47):
these immersive environments, you might not have to do that.
But we had a young person who started just changing
the language on his own the way he's supposed to.
You could say help me, and then you could say
let me help you cut dash, and he was combining
them and saying it cut dash, which is sort of
(12:08):
like let me help myself, which is not what he
was trying to communicate. But as we stayed in the language,
it was interesting because we didn't want to correct that child.
We want to instead sort of like know what he
was communicating and then watch him as he not only
tried the language out, but started to work things out
in his own mind, which we felt would naturalize because
(12:30):
we've had to recreate these language use environments because they
were gone, they were taken from us, and so as
we did that, we had to be sometimes teachers, but
sometimes just a speaker in a place, and so it
was really fun. So one of the things I was
thinking about earlier is you mentioned when you were young
(12:50):
moving from King Island to Gnome, And I think one
of the things we might not talk about enough in
Alaska is how much displacement can affect people. So if
this is your ancestral home and there's the school closes,
sometimes people had to just leave. They had to just
leave an entire community. And what we're talking about is
an island, especially if you go back, and quite a bit.
(13:13):
Like it's not like you just jump on an airplane
and zoom on over to Nome, you know, And so
like getting from King Island to Nome requires is quite
a journey. I remember I saw a presentation by a
I think it was the child of a school teacher
who taught on King Island, and they said the people
would they would watch the weather like especially the elders
who would really watch the weather and then they would say, okay,
(13:35):
we go now, and they would all get in the
boats and go to Nome because it was you got
across the ocean in boats. And so as people kind
of reconnect with the language, do you think they're reconnecting
with the place as well.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, you know, I was born and raised on the
east end of Nome. My father had moved his family
before I was born, and he knew he wouldn't see
me be born, so he moved his family. And the
way our family structure goes, we have partner cousins and
teasing cousins. Well, his teasing cousin moved too. He moved
his family to help my mother when he wasn't around anymore,
(14:11):
because you know, they still really lived in that are
males being the hunters and the providers for the family.
And I've also noticed in the last few years my generation,
we were the first generation to be raised away from
King Island, but they did it like we still lived
on King Island, our language and everything. But it wasn't
(14:34):
until two thousand and five when I went there with
a group of other people, elders, especially my older brothers
and sisters. The language finally came home, that's where it
came from. They also said words that are only said there,
and so my generation we had to listen and then
we ask what does that mean? Because there are words
(14:56):
that only pertained to a place where it's there's al
not flat land. So we were I was quite surprised
by that and made sure I recorded all that. I
wrote them down, and so you know, even though they
just spoke to us in being raised here and know
there were some words that weren't couldn't be said here
(15:18):
on flat land.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Wow, that's amazing. And one of the things I think
about as well is you're an elder, you're a respected elder,
you're a respected teacher. You've made incredible contributions throughout the
entire state of Alaska in language reclamation movements, and you're
always continuing to try and improve yourself and improve situations
(15:40):
for all languages in Alaska. And I think if we
go back maybe one generation from you, probably everybody spoke right.
And then we look at your generation and it gets less,
and we look at the generation after and it goes
way down. So were there things that you had to
do to hold on to your languge which while you
(16:00):
were growing up and while you were yourself going to school.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yes, I was very fortunate my grandmother, my mother's mother,
who raised me because my mom, you know, went away
from medical care, had to be away from home. She
was very strict. English was not allowed in her home.
And my older brothers, when they start learning English in school,
they came home to try to speak to me in English,
but she would scold them and say, no, she'll learn
(16:26):
when she goes to school. And that's exactly what happened.
She was very, very insistent that English was not spoken
in her home, so, you know, and she raised me
in her seventies, and it was always the language of
the home, the language of our community on the east
end of Nome. In fact, there was like maybe almost
twenty fifteen years where on the east end of Nome
(16:49):
where Kingandan people settled, that was all in the Piank
and then by when you walk to town and maybe
half a mile away, it turns to English. And we
always knew growing up or we can hear Innipiak and
where we can learn English. Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And I think a lot of people are probably trying
to bring the language back into the home and so like,
as folks say, because I think I read there's a
scholar and a linguist and an activist named Barbara Meek,
and she wrote a book called We Are Our Language
And there was a section in that book where she
basically said, twenty years ago, the language was in the
home and never in the school. This is she was
(17:25):
talking about Kaska, the Kaska language. Then she said, now
the language is in the school and not in the home.
So what do you think we need to do to
bridge that to sort of bring our languages back into
our homes again.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Well, I think as we're working with the young ones kindergarten,
first second grade or even a language nest, trying to
work towards for early head start and head start here
with Quirk, we do need to have the parents and
the guardians if they need to offer them some classes
and or offer how you can understand this person the
(18:00):
way my daughter does it. You know that whole generation
is media ready. They're ready with technology. Especially at the
beginning of the year, she will contact the parents of
her students for their names, their traditional names and make
sure somebody from Saint Larnce Island or somebody from Philippines
or from tell her and want to say the name right,
(18:22):
So she'll record the parent saying the name, and we
have to practice how to say it correctly in her classroom.
So we make great efforts to do that. And what
happens then is the child goes home with the language
they've learned and they teach their family how to do that.
(18:43):
So they become our seeds of spreading the language that way. Yeah,
so they become the teachers.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yep, yep, they become the teacher. They become the seed,
they become the yeast. And so as you folks are
doing this work, I really hope that you're seeing those
seeds growing into plants, growing into more and more and
just like being parts of these changes that are going
to result in healthy languages. Again, we're going to take
a short break and we'll be right back. I'm so
(19:10):
excited to be here with Yayoka talking about language reclamation
movements and what's going on up on the northwestern parts
of Alaska. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
One or two or three times.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
You try any.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Rounds you run around without joy. Struggle yesterday, you struggle
still today now, but you'll find a broader away my
brother and sisters. Don't you know what about the way
(20:04):
to wait back.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
For those who came.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Believe in yourself, now believe in us. Somehow, Donna declasy.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And we're back with Yay who teaches in Gnome and
who is a teacher of the teachers, which is a
really wonderful role. As you go along in your work,
you're going to see people that you probably taught who
are becoming teachers themselves, and then they'll teach others as
these languages move towards intergenerational communication, which is really exciting
(20:52):
to see generations of learners becoming generations of speakers becoming
generations of teachers. So one of the things that I
think about a lot as well is how people sometimes
need healing to reconnect with their languages. And one of
the most powerful things I've ever seen was there was
you and a group of folks I think Waukie Charles
(21:14):
and Annette Evan Smith and April Councilor and Dolores Churchill
doing work with the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council.
And I believe it was that the Alaska Federation of Natives,
which is the largest gathering of Alaska natives. It happens
every year in October, and you folks took an opportunity
(21:35):
to apologize to folks for not being able to access
their language, to not being able to learn it. And
it felt like a real invitation to heal, not like
you were taking responsibility for all the attempted genocide and
all the other things that might have kept them away
from their own languages, but just to open that door
for healing. So I was hoping you could share that experience,
(21:57):
how it came about, and what it felt like to
be up there orchestrating this wonderful movement.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Well, you know, in state of Alaska, I had that
Bilingual multicultural conference every year while I was a bilingual
by cultural teacher and EESL teacher, Mike Travis. He would
put that conference together with a committee of course, and
every time that very first morning, everybody comes in, we
all get quiet, seven hundred, eight hundred people at the ballroom,
(22:26):
and the first thing he would do is ask people,
if you're from Anchorage, stand up. Everybody would stand up.
If you had to drive to get here, stand up,
So he did that. Then he finally gets to the
part of if you had to fly here, please stand up,
and we all felt honored every time he did that,
and I thought about, well, what about if we put
(22:49):
this in a different context where people felt honored, where
people felt acknowledged and recognized. So that was my first
thought with that activity. So this was a way of
honoring our elders because there's that portion where wait a minute,
they're the ones that suffered, you know, my generation. I
(23:10):
never said anything. I was too scared, but I know
other people that have spoken the language in school and
got scolded for it, and I didn't want that to
happen to me. But I know there were elders and
older speakers that were discouraged from speaking the language in
the school and punished heavily for that, and then not
wanting to have their own children experience that hurt. And
(23:34):
so this was a way to honor them. This was
a way to acknowledge their experience and to recognize their
past experience of hurt. So I framed it so it
would happen with Oh I remember now. I first did
it with the King Island Native Community with their corporation meeting.
(23:54):
I was really you know, because corporation meetings they tend
to get kind of at each other throat sometimes, so
I wanted to put it in a setting where people
start working together. So with that, that's where I put
if you're a young person and you have cultural knowledge,
step up, and they did. And then the next step was,
(24:15):
if you can understand the language, stand up, and they did.
And by the time I got to if you can
say some of the words and understand, stand up. By
the time I got to the last one, and you
speak fluently and you can understand fluently and you respond back,
stand up. So that's when our elders went up. Lots
of tears, of course, but then they felt really honored.
(24:38):
They felt like, oh, yes, I'm an important person, because
we never get that feeling anyplace else, right, not even
from our own people. At times, we want people to
feel good. We want people to feel like they're included,
they're part of a group. So that's where that started.
And then when I did that with AFN, then it
(24:58):
was all the you know, native languages in our state,
and I wanted the people to feel that they are honored,
they are acknowledged and recognize because even for us, as
in people raise of the eyebrow when you're passing in
the halloway or a no. We don't have to say
anything that's acknowledgment. That's like saying hi and hello. We
(25:19):
don't have to be verbal. So that was a way
to honor all of our people.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, and it was wonderful and I think people there
were tears. There were It's an emotional journey. I think
to sometimes even just step foot in a classroom where
they're teaching a language that you're ancestrally connected to, you
might not know anything about it, and it's very intimidating.
It's scary. There's a fear of failure. I think a
(25:47):
lot of languages in Alaska are extremely endangered. So I
do worry that sometimes people feel like, well if I fail,
then the whole language fails. And so to just be
in this environment where we start by recognizing people who
can do it, which I feel like we haven't done
in our region enough, because when I went to work
(26:08):
with the speakers who spoke the language, there were usually
people who lived in kind of they didn't live in
big houses, they lived in very small places. They lived
in they had very humble lives. And I would always
think about that. I would think, did we not value
what they did for us to keep our language alive.
And then publicly sometimes they would come in and people,
(26:30):
you know, I would just think to myself, do folks
know how much knowledge this person has and what they
can give to us? So I think recognizing that is
pushing our languages up in value, which you know, we
have to do because they've been deliberately devalued through colonization
and through racism. But then also in addition to that,
(26:54):
to say, and if you don't, we want to connect you.
We want to guide you and show you how to
get there, because I want to focus on the individual
for a second. I think a lot of folks who
start to get really close to becoming speakers begin to
think more and more that it's impossible because they're getting close.
(27:14):
But then I think they start to think of it,
it's so complicated, I can't do this and all this
other stuff. And so what kind of strategies do you
use to keep people encouraged and motivated and believing in
themselves as they go on the journey.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Well, I guess it would depend on the age, for
one thing, because older learners do get embarrassed. And I
could tell I was taught how to assess people. My
grandmother taught me how to protect myself and also to
watch for people that aren't going to be safe. Well,
I won't be safe around them. So I can tell
(27:52):
when some learners really just need that extra that extra help.
And when I was in elementary school, if you know,
in a regular the students that are slow and don't
have anything to say, we're the ones worth put downs
right and then compared to another smarter, faster student. So
what I would do is I would go to that
(28:12):
learner who is kind of struggling and just sit there
and just teach from there and not ask any questions
to that person. So I did the same with the adults,
and it works, and teach from there and then they'll
soon get it really quick, and then they'll become you know,
when they have partners, they'll become the teacher. So you know,
(28:35):
and that's from my grandmother, that's from having unip as
a first language.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, And my experience as well as a teacher is
sometimes the tears are going to come sometimes that there's
going to be these emotional parts of it, and my
general approach is not to be afraid of those moments,
but to just recognize that as like, this is a
healing and this is a reconnection, and sometimes you have
to go through this painful part of it, which I
(29:01):
think can be very scary for a lot of people
to say, I tried to talk and I just cried
my way through it. And then sometimes I'll talk to
them I say, yeah, but I understood you, and you
communicated this thing that maybe you've been waiting your whole
life just to be able to do, and and it
might not be you know, there's a meme that goes
around every year and says it showls like a really
(29:22):
big scary person. It says colonization telling us our languages
are dying, and it shows someone just kind of dancing
in their face and saying, me and my friends learning
how to say I like potatoes, right. And so even
if you're just learning a little small phrase, like, you're
putting yourself on the path and you're keeping yourself on
the path. And so for me, I try to look
at those emotional moments, I try to talk about healing
(29:45):
and reconnection and just say like you might be suffering
right now, but the generations after you won't be suffering
as much. Like even though it was sort of like
increase and suffering, and now it goes decrease and suffering.
But I think it has to happen through that reconnection.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Right. So my niece who's been helping with teaching math
at Maddi's classroom give me a classroom. When we first
got started, she actually had to in her mind say
it's okay, it's okay to teach math. Sorry, So she
had to give herself permission in the language. And for me,
(30:25):
I was focused on making sure my daughter was saying
things correctly. I just we did it so that the
kids didn't get it. If she said something wrong, I
just repeat it though it's supposed to be said. But
those really smart kids, well say to her by the
end of the week, right, your mom was teaching how
to say the words correctly, so they figure it out.
(30:47):
But my niece, who was just a couple of years
younger than me, had to give herself permission, and that
was her healing. She had to give herself permission. It's okay,
and that's all it takes. It's okay.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Like I remember being at Navahi in Hawaii and watching
the kids do this chant every morning, and as I
learned what that chant was. They were asking permission to
learn the language from their ancestors and to see, Like,
we have generations that were treated so horribly, and we
(31:19):
have story after story about people who were physically abused,
emotionally abused, that were put into real harm. These are
adults who are sometimes beating on children, stuffing things in
their mouths, doing the most inhumane things simply because they're
speaking their own language. And so with all of that suffering, like,
(31:41):
it doesn't just evaporate, it stays. It's intergenerational. But then
as we make those reconnections, some of that intergenerational trauma
gets released because we look at it and we can
see the ways our ancestors love us and hums through
the language. As just like you said earlier, it's a
(32:04):
pure form of decolonization, it's a pure form of medicine.
It's an absolute reconnection with land, place, each other and
ancestors and future generation.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Right. So even like for my brother who was a
Vietnam VET in the Navy, I would send my daughter
if it was men men words up for hunting and such,
because they have their own you know, whatever they do
out there in the hunting boat or even on the land.
I don't know those words, so I would send her
to him. I went to college, I went to I
(32:35):
went and got educated how to write in blah blah blah,
but I couldn't do their words. So he would be like, Eh,
that's right, he doesn't know. So he was really proud
of that, and that made him really proud that she
can teach my daughter those words when I couldn't. So
we do need to recognize, you know, people like that
(32:56):
that don't realize, Yeah they can teach. They think they can't,
but they can.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah. We had a moment when we were trying to
push a bill through because you and I we also
do advocacy work at the Capitol with legislators and trying
to get them to do more for Alaska Native languages
because governments and education and religions in North America did
a lot to try and destroy Native American language. So
(33:21):
my approach is usually like, okay, it's your guys's turned
to bring it the other way now. And so we
were working to make Alaska Native languages co official languages
of Alaska. And we had someone who approached us, and
he was a Vietnam veteran and an educator as and
was Paul Berg. He was non Indigenous, and he would
be very straightforward. He'd say, well, tell me what you
(33:41):
want me to say, because I'm a white male, and
they'll listen to me in ways that they won't listen
to you and to others. And so he was a
really good organizer and he's really good at strategy. And
as we're trying to make this final push for you know,
we were meeting all kinds of political opposition, and he said, well,
what should I do? I said, I don't know, Paul, like,
I'm kind of taking this. I'm talking at their heartstrings
(34:04):
and I'm talking about keeping languages alive and these historical traumas,
and I'm trying to sort of take that approach about
what's just the right thing to do.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Now.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
We had an elder who was there who was talking
about growing up in a boarding school and being restricted
from speaking her language and being punished, and she was
giving the emotional trauma of that, and I said, so,
what do you think you should do? He's like, well,
let me think about it. And he came back he says,
I think I know what to do, and he gave
this stirring testimony about being a Vietnam veteran himself and
(34:35):
coming back and not being recognized because people protested the war,
and he was saying, well, we didn't we didn't want
to go, and we were drafted. And then how there
was a small ceremony to recognize them, and how valuable
it was to be seen and to be heard, and
it it just it struck a chord with a lot
(34:56):
of people. And so I really like what you're saying about.
So many people need to work together and to push
this thing, because what I think happens when you have
language reclamation is you start to become more whole again,
because colonization likes to divide everything into parts so it
can kind of control them. But if you come back
to the sense of wholeness, you can get words from
(35:18):
people that you know would be so happy to contribute,
and you could learn all this stuff and you could
not say, I don't know how to say that, but
that person over there does. And it becomes less competitive
and more collaborative, which is always fun.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Right. Yeah. And I know students, young students, they listen
differently to somebody a little bit older than them, maybe
a high school kid or you know a brand new teacher,
very young, they will respond differently to that person than
they would to be. So I will ask the younger generations,
(35:51):
can you go talk to this blah blah, because they'll
listen to you, And just saying that part to that
person they'll listen to you is usually the key for
them be like, oh, at first, nervous, wonderful.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
We're gonna take another break, folks, We're going to come
back and we're going to talk about the future of
indigenous languages in Alaska in particular. But I think the
conversation can apply to a lot of different places where
indigenous languages are reconnecting with the people and coming back
to a place of strength. So cheesh, we'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Yah yah, God.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
God kinda.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Years away, we are back.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
So one of the things that I was thinking about
was Alaska is home to twenty three known indigenous languages.
I would say one or two of them are in
a safe place. All the others are not in a
safe place. The majority of them probably have fewer than
one hundred speakers. Is quite a few that have probably
fewer than ten speakers left, and so we're at a
(38:04):
real crisis point in Alaska that maybe I personally get
frustrated that it's not more of a central issue for
a lot of people, politicians, some of our own leaders,
some of our own educators. But as we sort of think, like,
if we're successful in our work advocating, teaching, making change,
(38:25):
what kinds of things need to continue to change in
order for all of these languages to thrive.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
That's a huge question. I think the first thing, though,
is to still focus on the small children, because they're
the ones growing up in the language, and the language
is organic, it's what they've learned. And because I noticed
(38:53):
in helping to translate them, for example, the math curriculum
for first grade, some of the words we've had to
talk to other people to be in agreement with what
we're going to call this shape such and such, you know,
because we don't have words for rombus and those kind
of things. We had to create some words. And as
my daughter was teaching the class and in those concepts
(39:14):
that we had translated, I could tell the students own
those words. There's word ownership, It belonged to them. That's
how they've learned it. So they are the key, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, absolutely, one time I think I was teaching a
group of preschoolers, and I hadn't had a whole lot
of experience teaching really young kids. At this point. We've
been doing family age link it and learning with adults.
And I said, Okay, we're going to say this word.
This word is pretty hard to say ash and they
all just said it and I said, or it isn't.
(39:48):
I guess it isn't right. And so there's also these
sort of points where their mind is ready for language learning.
And also there's a little bit less of the hesitation
that sometimes you get with it adults, because they don't
realize I don't think everything is kind of on the
line whether or not they talk or not. And so
for them, I think they can come at it without
(40:09):
as much trauma. And that's not to say that it's
too late for the adults or they can't do it.
It's just saying we have to take a different approach
with the kids as with the adults. But if we
get these kids speaking, now the adults have someone to
talk to. Now the adults say, oh, look I should
learn this, so I could learn right along with them.
And I think when we look at what happened in HAVII,
(40:30):
I think the children help to lead people back, and
it's such a wonderful idea to say, Okay, we know
that there's trauma, we know that there's pain. We'll look
at these children and they could bring us back to
this place where there's not as much of that, and
then you can talk and it's a lot more fun
because if you make a mistake, it's not a big
deal at all. It's just part of learning. And so, yeah,
(40:51):
it's wonderful to have the children leading the way.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Right, yes, and so on. That other coin on piece
of that thought is teacher training how to teach a language,
because when bilingual by Education first started in our state,
pretty much bluent speakers are plucked off the street and
asked to teach no trainee, no you know on how
(41:14):
to teach language, because there's you can yeah, you can speak,
but it's a completely different thing to know how to
teach the language. And so I think that's another critical
piece for our future, our young people that are learning
the language at the same time and learning how to teach.
That's why mentorship is so important for these young teachers,
(41:36):
for the learners especially to make it a successful program.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, absolutely, And so one of the things on the
practical side that groups of us are trying to do
is say, let's make a master's degree in teaching indigenous languages,
so you could become you get a master's degree in education,
So let's make one indigenous language education, and then let's
encourage people to try that and then to learn from
each other. Because you and I speak and teach different languages,
(42:03):
but that doesn't mean we can't learn so much from
each other. I learned from all kinds of language teachers
all the time because I listen to what they say
and to their approach, and we run into very similar things.
And part of that is putting adults into a situation
where they're going to have to just try something and
probably get it really wrong, like probably be way off.
(42:24):
And we all need to understand these adults are not
going to sound like high fluency people who grew up
in the language. But if we give them the time
and space and safety to encourage them to use it
and to focus on what they're trying to say instead
of what's right or wrong, then I think we open
the door for their own language learning as well. So, yeah,
(42:45):
so children leading the way teacher education, and I think
also probably trying to push Alaska Native languages to be
more towards the center of education. So I remember I said,
you know, everybody who graduates high school should take one
semester of an Alaska Native language. And somebody said, well,
you can't make people learn stuff. I said, well, I
(43:06):
didn't know that math was an option I was going
to school, and I didn't know that history was an option.
So I think there'll be a it'll be jarring for
a little bit, but it'll naturalize over time.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Right right. So that goes to the third peg of this,
which is developing language resources for the teachers for the
kids to use, because we're doing all three all at
the same time, all of the time. You know. Unfortunately,
we do have someone that helps us to translate the
math cric alem and also writing cartoon scripts. And also
(43:40):
I had him translating our stories here at EhP for
them to be printed in the language. They're already in
English from the nineties. So I think that's another really
important piece on how to make this work, to have
their resources available readily available.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Absolutely, as schools in Alaska operate differently because they're in
different places, but they are often quite colonial in their
structure and their approach and their curriculum and their delivery.
And so one of the things that we've also been
proposing through the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council
and then I've been saying it individually, is trying to
(44:20):
advocate for a statewide Alaska Native Language Schools Board basically
or consortium, so that these language schools and programs are
linked by the fact that they're doing something other than English,
and by the fact that they're trying to teach through
indigenous languages. So to use indigenous languages as a medium
(44:40):
of education. We just had to create a poster to
talk about the water cycle and evaporation and all this
other stuff which we can talk about, but sometimes we've
got to figure out how to get there, and we
have to construct some things. Us talking with the legislator
and I said, we weren't allowed to be part of conversations.
Our language was actively prohibited. It was a egal mm hmm,
(45:01):
and so we weren't allowed to be in these conversations
about science and technology and other things that the world
got to talk about. And so we might need to
do some work, and I think we could really benefit
by working together more and having annual conferences so that
someone could say, did you guys translate geometry yet, how'd
you handle this thing? How'd you handle that thing? And
(45:22):
we can gain ideas from each other so that we
don't have to reinvent it every time, but we do
this in a collaborative way, right.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Yeah, Our whole lifestyle is all about process. Science is
about process and knowing that our numbering system is math
in itself. Amazing what our people have had to invent,
you know, and what they've had to create, our people
in a language that comes with it.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, and how much of it is observation of the
natural world and a scientific process. It's an indigenous scientific process,
so using terms like an indigenous sciences and using terms
like indigenous literatures and not allowing academics to give us
a different label where they can have art and we
have artifacts. Like I remember I saw a presentation of
(46:12):
seal hunting on the ice and how much has been
learned from watching polar bears and just like how intimate
that relationship is. But humans would do things differently because
you know, we're now polar bears. We don't have some
of their abilities, but we also can watch them and
learn and adapt, and there's so much that gets brought
(46:33):
into people. And then education in Alaska becomes much more
place based, as Ernestine Hayes says. She says placed based
education by place based educators, right. And so as we
sort of look at using our languages more, we lean
on localized knowledge that has allowed people to survive in
places for thousands of years. And I think we have
(46:56):
a healthier Alaska exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
You know, even making zeal oil, that's that's science. All
of the academia areas that are taught at a formal school,
a formal education, we have it all. It's already there.
Our lifestyle is already there. It's in seasons, it's cycnical.
After working so much with NIPA and making these resources
(47:23):
for our kids, I can't think in English anymore. Yeah.
So our whole lifestyle, our way of life, is all
part of math. It's part of social studies, it's part
of reading and writing. It's all there.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
So as we start to wind down our conversation here,
one of the things I would maybe think about and
ask you is if there's someone out there who is
thinking about learning their indigenous language. If there's someone out
there who's thinking about becoming a teacher, If there's someone
out there who's wondering if maybe they could do it,
do you have any advice or words of motivation for
(48:05):
people who are maybe just right there on the fence
of making that big decision.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Well, they can do several things. One is connecting themselves
to a speaker, to a person could be over tea,
over helping you know, in the house. And the other
thing they could do is get on the Alaska Native
Language Center website and see what they have there, but
of course it won't be the same as having a
(48:31):
rich interaction with a speaker. Maybe having both. And the
other thing is helping those teachers, helping those instructors in
the school system, or helping with after school activities and
have a speaker with them and not this big plan
of what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, I agree, because it's not like you have to
figure everything out at once, Like really, what you have
to do is get yourself in the room or the language.
And if the language, like if your language is very small,
if there's very few speakers or maybe even no speakers
left right now, then sometimes you have to be the
one that creates that speaking environment, and by continuing to
(49:14):
sort of invite people in, Like when we would have
gatherings here and I was organizing some of the gatherings,
I would say, Okay, let's have a language immersion room.
Let's put it over here in one of the nicer rooms,
and let's get really the best coffee, the best tee,
the best snacks and put them in that room. Let's
make that room the best place to be. And then
(49:36):
let's never close the door so that you know, because
sometimes some of our own people feel like they're being
excluded because someone starts speaking their own language because they
don't know it. And so what I tried to do
in those moments is say like, oh, this is yours
and you could come. You come, and it's going to
(49:57):
take a long time, it's going to take a lot
of energy, it's going to take a lot lot of
sacrifice and risk taking. But if you do that, then
everybody sort of comes into this collective. And so I
remember one time I was in Hawaii and I kind
of had this realization. I said, I feel like with
our language, it's like the moment in the movie Titanic
(50:18):
where the boat sinks and people are on the cold
water and really scared, and it's like in that moment,
there's a boat that's going around yelling at people. Why
didn't y'all learn.
Speaker 5 (50:30):
How to swim?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
And so sometimes we're so harsh with ourselves that I said,
I want to be in the boat that's just pulling
people out of the water and giving them a warm
blanket and telling them that they belong. And so those
are the things as well as to try and overcome
some of your own individual traumas some of the collective traumas,
and to make sure that your environments are not toxic
(50:52):
and that they're safe, like you kept saying, really trying
to take this approach of creating a family, creating a home,
creating a place people feel okay.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
Yeah. So we have a cultural center here. In the
cultural center and the person directing it has been doing
some amazing activities, etching daileen, pulling in people to learn
how to make seal skin slippers or yo yos or
any of that. And that's really easy to get a
person who speaks their language to teach in the language,
(51:25):
so you know, all those cultural activities, it's so easy
to put in a language because that's what they offer
a lot of the times.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, well, so wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, take
the steps that are necessary to help get yourself there.
If you see someone else who maybe just says to you, way,
I wish I could learn my language, like, help them out,
because maybe they're just putting a hand out there to
see if someone is going to take it. And you
could be that person who takes that hand, and you
(51:53):
could be the person who helps someone along. Because the
thing that we were taught is if you just continually
help people, and maybe if your life is going out
of control, maybe they'll help you. So as you go
forward in your own journey and your own work, I
encourage you to take a look at the action Plan
of the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council, where
(52:15):
we outlined the changes that we think need to be
made in the state of Alaska that do include some
pretty substantial shifts in education and governance, in thinking about
how things are structured, and think about the way that
you could be a positive change maker in your community,
in your family, in your region, and just say, don't
(52:37):
be separated by a dialect, be united by indigenous reclamation
and those are the things that I hope that you'll
take away from this conversation. It's been so wonderful to
spend some time with you.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yay.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
I appreciate your time and everything that you do for
our peoples.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Are you not grunee for inviting me to be on
your show? You know, we all have these different experiences.
I'm at a level where I'm going to position to
mentor to guide I can help you know, I'm finding
there because for our infl learning ways, first there's a
learner and from a mentor or somebody who can demonstrate
(53:15):
or somebody who shows you sits next to you, how
to make something, how to create something, and then getting
you to become the next mentor. You're going to be
the expert by the time you're done. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Well, the wonderful thing, the cycles just keep going. Thank
you for all of your work, your time, your energy.
You're an inspiration to a lot of people in this state.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Jeeh
Host
X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell
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