Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T01:19:24.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Indigenous Language Movements in a Settler State

from Part II - The United States Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

By
Teresa L. McCarty
Edited by
Thomas Ricento
Thomas Ricento
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Get access

Summary

Forty years ago there were approximately fifty child speakers of Hawaiian in the state of Hawai‘i. Today there are thousands of speakers of all ages and a constellation of pre-K–PhD programs to promote the Hawaiian language and culture. In the early 1990s, there were no living speakers of myaamia (Miami) or Wôpanâak (Wampanoag), both North American Algonquian languages. Today, these languages, once decreed “extinct,” live in vibrant community-based education programs and family homes. Drawing on an international scholarly literature and the author’s long-term collaborative research with Indigenous educators, this chapter reflects backward and forward on the field of Indigenous language reclamation, tracing its development against the violence of settler colonialism and exploring current movements, their challenges, and the language planning and policymaking possibilities they suggest. In an age of growing raciolinguistic inequality, these movements provide both a cautionary tale and a vision of the interventions necessary to support Indigenous self-determination and sustain linguistic diversity for all.

Keywords

HawaiianAlgonquian languagesIndigenous American languagessettler colonialismraciolinguistic inequalityIndigenous self-determinationNative American language policylanguage reclamation
Type
Chapter
Information
Language Politics and Policies
Perspectives from Canada and the United States
 , pp. 173 - 191
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

‘Aha Pūnana Leo. (n.d.). History. Retrieved from www.ahapunanaleo.org/index.php?/about/history/ [Last accessed March 13, 2019].Google Scholar
Alfred, T. (2014). The Akwesasne cultural restoration program: A Mohawk approach to land-based education. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society, 3(3), 134–44.Google Scholar
Appadurai, A. (2001). Grassroots globalization and the research imagination. In Appadurai, A. (ed.), Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, D. (2003). Miami language reclamation: From ground zero. Lecture presented by the Center for Writing and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Literacy and Rhetorical Studies, Speaker Series 24. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Retrieved from myaamiacenter.org/MCResources/Baldwin_biblio/Baldwin_ground_zero.pdf [Last accessed March 13, 2019].Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. (2014). Oowaaha myaamiaataweenki: Miami is spoken here. In Wiley, T. G., Peyton, J. K., Christian, D., Moore, S. C. K., & Liu, N. (eds.), Handbook of Heritage, Community, and Native American Languages in the United States: Research Policy, and Educational Practice. New York and Washington, DC: Routledge and Center for Applied Linguistics, pp. 212–18.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D., Baldwin, K., Baldwin, J. & Baldwin, J. (2013). Myaamiaataweenki oowaaha: Miami spoken here. In Hinton, L. (ed.), Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families. Berkeley, CA: Heyday, pp. 3–18.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. & Olds, J. (2007). Miami Indian language and cultural research at Miami University. In Cobb, D. M. & Fowler, L. (eds.), Beyond Red Power: American Indian Politics and Activism since 1900. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research, pp. 280–90.Google Scholar
Bell, D. (2004). Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, B. A., Pearson, K. & Plummer, A. (1967). Community development training on the Navajo reservation. In Roessel, R. A. (ed.), Indian Communities in Action. Tempe: Arizona State University, pp. 180–83.Google Scholar
Costa, D. (1994). The Miami-Illinois Language. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
De Korne, H. & Leonard, W. Y. (2017). Reclaiming languages: Contesting and decolonizing “language endangerment” from the ground up. Language Documentation and Description, 14, 5–14.Google Scholar
Emerson, L. (2017). Diné sovereign action: Rejecting colonial sovereignty and invoking Diné peacemaking. In Lee, L. L. (ed.), Navajo Sovereignty: Understandings and Visions of the Diné People. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 160–78.Google Scholar
Fixico, D. (2007). Witness to change: Fifty years of Indian activism and tribal politics. In Cobb, D. M. & Fowler, L. (eds.), Beyond Red Power: American Indian Politics and Activism since 1900. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research, pp. 2–15.Google Scholar
Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, N. (2013). The Seeds We Planted: Portraits of a Native Hawaiian Charter School. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, N. (2014). Introduction. In Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, N., Hussey, I. & Kahunawaika‘ala Wright, E. (eds.), A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1–33.Google Scholar
Grenoble, L. A., & Whaley, L. J. (2006). Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. (2005). Honoring Nations: Akwesasne Freedom School. Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Hermes, M., Bang, M. & Marin, A. (2012). Designing Indigenous language revitalization. Harvard Educational Review, 82(3), 381–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermes, M. & Kawai‘ae‘a, K. (2014). Revitalizing Indigenous languages through Indigenous immersion education. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 2(2), 303–22.Google Scholar
Hinton, L. (2001). Sleeping languages: Can they be awakened? In Hinton, L. & Hale, K. (eds.), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 413–17.Google Scholar
Hinton, L. (ed.) (2013). Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.Google Scholar
Hinton, L., Huss, L. & Roche, G. (eds.) (2018). The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holm, A. & Holm, W. (1990). Rock Point, a Navajo way to go to school: A valediction. Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Science, 508, 170–84.Google Scholar
Holm, A. & Holm, W. (1995). Navajo language education: Retrospect and prospects. Bilingual Research Journal, 19(1), 141–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornberger, N. H. (ed.) (1996). Indigenous Literacies in the Americas: Language Planning from the Bottom Up. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hornberger, N. H. (2006). Nichols to NCLB: Local and global perspectives on US language education policy. In García, O., Skutnabb-Kangas, T. & Torres-Guzmán, M. E. (eds.), Imagining Multilingual Schools: Languages in Education and Glocalization. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 223–37.Google Scholar
Hornberger, N. H. & McCarty, T. L. (eds.) (2012). Globalization from the bottom up: Indigenous language planning and policy across time, space, and place. Special Issue, International Multilingual Research Journal, 6(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iokepa-Guerrero, N. (2008). Raising a child in the Pūnana Leo: Everyone (men and women) play an important role. Exchange: The Early Childhood Leaders’ Magazine, May–June, 30–32.Google Scholar
Iokepa-Guerrero, N. (2016). Revitalization programs and impacts in the USA and Canada. In Coronel-Molina, S. M. & McCarty, T. L. (eds.), Indigenous Language Revitalization in the Americas. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 227–46.Google Scholar
Kaomea, J. (2003). Dilemmas of an Indigenous academic: A Native Hawaiian story. In Mutua, K. & Swadener, B. B. (eds.), Decolonizing Research in Cross-Cultural Contexts: Critical Personal Narratives. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 27–43.Google Scholar
Kaomea, J. (2005). Indigenous studies in the elementary curriculum: A cautionary Hawaiian example. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(1), 24–42.Google Scholar
Lee, L. L. (ed.) (2017). Navajo Sovereignty: Understandings and Visions of the Diné People. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Lee, T. S. & McCarty, T. L. (2017). Upholding Indigenous education sovereignty through critical culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy. In Paris, D. & Alim, H. S. (eds.), Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, pp. 61–82.Google Scholar
Leonard, W. Y. (2008). When is an “extinct” language not extinct? Miami, a formerly sleeping language. In King, K. A., Schilling-Estes, N., Fogle, L., Lou, J. J. & Soukup, B. (eds.), Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages and Language Varieties. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 23–33.Google Scholar
Leonard, W. Y. (2011). Challenging “extinction” through modern Miami language practices. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35(2), 135–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, W. Y. (2012). Framing language reclamation programmes for everybody’s empowerment. Gender and Language, 6(2), 339–67.Google Scholar
Leonard, W. Y. (2017). Producing language reclamation by decolonizing “language.” Language Documentation and Description, 14, 15–36.Google Scholar
Leonard, W. Y. & De Korne, H. (eds.) (2017). Reclaiming languages: Contesting and decolonizing “language endangerment” from the ground up. Special Issue Language Documentation and Description, 14.Google Scholar
Linn, M. & Oberly, S. (2016). Local and global dimensions of language revitalization in the USA and Canada. In Coronel-Molina, S. M. & McCarty, T. L. (eds.), Indigenous Language Revitalization in the Americas. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 137–57.Google Scholar
little doe baird, J. (2013). Wampanoag: How did this happen to my language? In Hinton, L. (ed.), Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families. Berkeley, CA: Heyday, pp. 19–30.Google Scholar
Lomawaima, K. T. & McCarty, T. L. (2006). “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
López, L. E. (2008). Top-down and bottom-up: Counterpoised visions of bilingual intercultural education in Latin America. In Hornberger, N. H. (ed.), Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? Policy and Practice on Four Continents. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 42–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
López, L. E. (2017). Decolonization and bilingual/intercultural education. In McCarty, T. L. & May, S. (eds.), Language Policy and Political Issues in Education (3rd ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, pp. 297–313.Google Scholar
Manuelito, K. (2005). The role of education in American Indian self-determination: Lessons from the Ramah Navajo Community School. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(1), 73–87.Google Scholar
McCarty, T. L. (2002). A Place to Be Navajo – Rough Rock and the Struggle for Self-Determination in Indigenous Schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, T. L. (2013). Language Planning and Policy in Native America: History, Theory, Praxis. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
McCarty, T. L. (2018a). Concluding commentary: Reimagining education research from Indigenous elsewheres. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(3), 231–34.Google Scholar
McCarty, T. L. (2018b). Twelfth Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research. So that any child may succeed: Indigenous pathways toward justice and the promise of Brown. Educational Researcher, 47(5), 271–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, T. L., Nicholas, S. E., Chew, K. A. B., Diaz, N. G., Leonard, W. Y. & White, L. (2018). Hear our languages, hear our voices: Storywork as theory and praxis in Indigenous-language reclamation. Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 147(2), 160–72.Google Scholar
McCarty, T. L. & Roessel, C. M. (2015). Tsé Ch’ízhí Diné Bi’ólta’ – Rough Rock, the People’s School: Reflections on a half-century of Navajo community-controlled education (U.S. 1966). In Rodríguez, E. (ed.), Pedagogies and Curriculums to (Re)Imagine Public Education: Transnational Tales of Hope and Resistance. Singapore: Springer Science, pp. 49–63.Google Scholar
Meek, B. (2011). Failing American Indian languages. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35(2), 43–60.Google Scholar
Metz, A. (2008, June 26). School immerses Mohawk children in traditional language. Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved from: www.orlandosentinel.com/topic/ny-mohawk1102,0,1329752.story [Last accessed June 26, 2008].Google Scholar
Ó hIfearnáin, T. (2015). Sociolinguistic vitality of Max after extreme language shift: Authenticity without traditional native speakers. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 231, 45–62.Google Scholar
Perley, B. C. (2011). Defying Maliseet Language Death: Emergent Vitalities of Language, Culture, and Identity in Eastern Canada. Lincoln: University of Nebaska Press.Google Scholar
Read, J., Spolsky, B. & Neundorf, A. (1975). Socioeconomic implications of bilingual education on the Navajo Reservation. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, March, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Roessel, R. A. (1977). Navajo Education in Action: The Rough Rock Demonstration School. Chinle, AZ: Navajo Curriculum Center, Rough Rock Demonstration School.Google Scholar
Romero-Little, M. E., Ortiz, S. J., McCarty, T. L. & Chen, R. (eds.) (2011). Indigenous Languages across the Generations – Strengthening Families and Communities. Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Indian Education.Google Scholar
Simpson, A. (2014). Mohawk Interruptus (Political Life across the Borders of Settler States). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Stairs, A., Peters, M. & Perkins, E. (1999). Beyond language in Indigenous language immersion schooling, Practicing Anthropology, 20(2), 44–47.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (2004). Social Movements, 1768–2004. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar
Tuck, E. & Yang, K. W. (2014). R-words: Refusing research. In Paris, D. & Winn, M. T. (eds.), Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with Youth and Communities. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, pp. 223–47.Google Scholar
United Nations General Assembly. (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Paris: United Nations. Retrieved from www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf [Last accessed March 13, 2019].Google Scholar
Warner, S. L. N. (2001). The movement to revitalize Hawaiian language and culture. In Hinton, L. & Hale, K. (eds.), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 133–44.Google Scholar
White, L. (2015). Free to Be Mohawk: Indigenous Education at the Akwesasne Freedom School. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Wilkins, D. E. & Stark, K. T. (2011). Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, W. H. (2014). Hawaiian: A Native American language official for a state. In Wiley, T. G., Peyton, J. K., Christian, D., Moore, S. C. K. & Liu, N. (eds.), Handbook of Heritage, Community, and Native American Languages in the United States: Research Policy, and Educational Practice. New York and Washington, DC: Routledge and Center for Applied Linguistics, pp. 219–28.Google Scholar
Wilson, W. H. & Kamanā, K. (2001). “Mai loko mai o ka ‘i‘ini”: Proceeding from a dream: The ‘Aha Pūnana Leo connection in Hawaiian language revitalization. In Hinton, L. & Hale, K. (eds.), The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 147–76.Google Scholar
Wilson, W. H. & Kamanā, K. (2011). Insights from Indigenous language immersion in Hawai‘i. In Tedick, D. J., Christian, D., & Fortune, T. W. (eds.), Immersion Education: Practices, Policies, Possibilities. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 36–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, W. H., Kamanā, K. & Rawlins, N. (2006). Nāwahī Hawaiian Laboratory School. Journal of American Indian Education, 45(2), 42–44.Google Scholar
Wolfe, P. (1999). Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event. London and New York: Cassell.Google Scholar
Wong, K. L. (2011). Language, fruits, and vegetables. In Romero-Little, M. E., Ortiz, S. J., McCarty, T. L., & Chen, R. (eds.), Indigenous Languages across the Generations – Strengthening Families and Communities. Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Indian Education, pp. 3–16.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×