My You Tube Video (Karuk Hamburgers A,B,C, & D)

Interesting to see my son start out grumpy & not interested...

but he becomes a teacher in his own right towards the end of the session

& the whole family

has a Karuk Time ;-)

Karuk Hamburgers A.mov

Karuk Hamburgers B.mov

Karuk Hamburgers C.mov

Karuk Hamburgers D.mov

You ever had a Planning meeting to discuss the creation of a Planning Committee?

"It seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized... I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization (Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.; Hardcastle, 2004)."

And time marches on... One organization falls to the reality of Indian Crabs, a new organization blooms because of hard working elders and optimistic youngers. The new organization, and its board members work around the rules in order to get things done more efficiently and in a culturally correct way. A new generation comes into the picture, and new laws are formed.

Power changes hands, white tape is more strictly followed... More new people get involved (ndn crabs), and these new people maliciously or stupidly bring down the organization they work for because they use the white tape to discover loopholes to take full control of the organization and then drive it into the ground.

Ba-doom-boom!

And then there will be a meeting of the elders who were youngers back when the ________ program used to be "run right." These new elders discuss what has to be done to create a new program that will be run in a more culturally correct way... They enlist the help of new youngers, and time marches on...

Standing for Justice... A Precipice.

‘“Who is a father here this evening?”…all raised their hands…[i] picked one of them and asked him,

“How many children do you have?”

“Three.”

“Would you be willing to sacrifice two of them, and make them suffer so that the other one could go to school and have a good life, in Recife?...”

“No!”

“Well, if you,… a person of flesh and bones, could not commit an injustice like that---how could God commit it?”

A scilence… Then:

“No, God isn’t the cause of all this. It’s the boss!”’

--Freire (1994), p. 48.; Hardcastle, 2004.

I wonder… does the world need a social revolution?

Over the river and through the bridge...

"...The garden of the brain never ceases being pruned and newly planted... Thus, the old adage 'use it or loose it' is brought soundly home."

--http://www.memoryzine.com/neuroplasticity.htm

While contemplating the plasticity of the brain, I began to think of the plasticity of culture.

There are several schools of thought that believe Indigenous America was an example of a morally superior culture colonized by a technologically superior one.

Agree, disagree, to each their own conceptualization of history

(after all, everyone has the right to be wrong).

In the wake of colonization

as I bear witness to a time of duress for even mainstream America

I wonder if confronted with the kind of devastation that Indigenous cultures have had to endure… could the mainstream/dominant culture survive?

Somehow, I doubt it.

Cultures are kind of like the mind; people are like synopses constantly firing and dying. New ideas are like signals trying to get from one place to another, one period of time to the next. Ideas use the various channels open to them, but should those channels disappear, ideas reroute or simple stop.

In this model the structure of the mind symbolizes culture itself.

The package that contains all the various interacting parts:

Parts that bloom because they are needed, remain because of electrical current and die by lack of use.

Cultures have the ability to constantly adjust, and amend accordingly…

But, use it or loose it.

So the idea of culture can be likened to a mind.

But the indigenous reality of culture includes the concept of the soul-

Built into Indigenous cultures are our dreams and our dreamers.

Even when our languages are stamped out for generations, even when our religions are not accessible to the all tribal members-

We have our dreamers and our dreams.

People who regain desire for knowledge, and who understand knowledge can be transferred from one species to another, one physical thing to an animate one, one spirit to a spirit in a body…

Indigenous worldview is like a physical brain, sans dead ends.

No signal can be lost.

Culture beares of the future can be born blank slates, and live within cultures that don’t belong to them- for years… but when the culture calls them into action, they will act. And when they understand, they will explain. And when they are honest, others will listen and will follow them back to balance.

Sometimes I wonder if some of our dreamers aren’t getting medicated in order to avoid the responsibility that comes with dreaming back. Watching my children grow however, I know not all dreamers run from their responsibilities. Indigenous world view: sans dead end.

“Social workers must be visionaries and risk takers, able to formulate fresh approaches and challenge the status quo (Hardcastle, 2004, pg 211) .”

Social workers are at our optimum potential when we can dream.

Cowboys & NDN's

White domination is so complete that even American Indian children want to be cowboys. It's as if Jewish children wanted to play Nazis.

--Ward Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race

When I first read through this essay, I was startled (and a little relieved), that someone else has been thinking about Cowboys and Indian game play in a similar way. Similar to what you might ask, similar to childhood Jim. I used to hate playing Cowboys and Indians because, as the only color in town of my age, and almost always the only Indian- if I wanted to play, it usually required playing dead. The fact that the other kids would gang up on me under the guise of following the rules of the game made me want to win through the destruction of my friends. This desire to drive the Cowboys into nothingness, or at least submission, or far away from here made me a problem. I was a malfunction in the game as it was meant to be played. I was supposed to play dead.

Perhaps my friends would have liked it if i could have played dead so good they could have mutilated my remains & then after my grief stricken family had buried me, maybe my buddies would have enjoyed digging me up twenty years later to marvel at the contour of my bones...

But who plays ameture archeologist anymore?

At any rate, it was interesting for me to read about another Indians ponderance of the "Rules of the Game."

The whole thing was a blast from the past that quickly became a blast from the present. While discussing the simple complexities of growing up the only Indian playing a game I was apparently meant to loose with my two older cousins, we all began cutting up about childhood memories. All of a sudden one of their buddies, also gathered around the kitchen table where we were butchering an elk, burst out in objection. "You guys go ahead and laugh, but I was always the only white kid playing with you guys and you always made me play the god-damned Indian. Traumatized the heck out of me!"

This outburst was followed by roars of laughter.

I'm glad when my son grew up with his pigment impared buddies,

that he was proud of being Karuk

and he never allowed himself to be pigeon holed as the player deader

instead he brought his friends to our house

and they were often so amazed by getting smoked salmon with their flap jacks and beans

and getting to roam wild through the "forest" of our property

that each and every one of them fought over the bows n arrows

and they all played Indians, aiming at the neighbors cars as they passed the fence line

guardians of the gates.

Community: Ism's & Aint'ems

In mainstream American culture we incorrectly apply the term community to any clustering of individuals “a town, a church, a synagogue, a fraternal organization, an apartment complex, a professional association—regardless of how poorly those individuals communicate with each other. It is a false use of the word (The Different Drum, Schulz, 2006).” American Indian definitions of community are much more group oriented, steeped in family ideas/ideals and cultural ties and norms that originally provided the people with “rules to live by.” Within American Indian communities there were networks of support systems that enabled each generation to help, catch, and even uplift members of the next or previous generation (when the need for support emerged by any individual or cluster of individuals within the group).

“If we are going to use the word [community] meaningfully we must restrict it to a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper then their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to ‘rejoice together, mourn together,’ and to ‘delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own.’ (The Different Drum, Schulz, 2006).” This is close to an Indigenous concept of community.

“Once we allow that all clients are ‘nested’ in community, we can entertain the idea that all (or at least most) client problems (be they physical, psychological, economic, or social) are ‘nested’ in communities as well. This realm of community problems (the environmental component) is what Schwartz (1969) called the ‘public issue’ side of a ‘personal trouble.’ (Group Work: Strategies for Strengthening Resiliency, Mondros, 2001).” At this point and time American Indian populations are suffering from inter-generational posttraumatic stress disorder. After centuries of systematic attempted genocide, followed by the constant onslaught of culturally bias laws thrust upon Native families with the intent to destroy the Indian concept of family itself, tribal members today are finding themselves surrounded by a legacy of self destruction instead of a system of love and familial support.

Scales of ...

Question:  How many social workers does it take to tip the scales of justice ???

A: I don't know, we'll see when things actually change.

Metapolitics

Saturn Devouring His Son

Artist	Francisco Goya
Year	circa 1819–1823
Type	Oil mural transferred to canvas
Dimensions	143 cm × 81 cm (56¼ in × 31⅞ in)
Location	Museo del Prado, Madrid

"Saturn Devouring His Son is the name given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It depicts the Greek myth ofCronus (in the title Romanised to Saturn), who, fearing that his children would overthrow him, ate each one upon their birth. It is one of the series of Black Paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823."

This picture always reminds me of the good people who start out in tribal politics/organizations- wanting to do god things- often accomplishing good things...  only to fall victim to their own lust for power.  Power can be utilized to enact positive change, for certain, but it can also poison people negating their own good intentions.  No good comes from going after people also trying to do good, even if they disagree with you.

Politically correct is meaningless without being tempered by empathy.

Being Enlightened doesn't mean you are not a part of the problem, 

and being problematic doesn't mean you are not a part of the solution.

So why is it ???

"The Cultural Defense of Hooty Croy On the night of July 17, 1978 dozens of police officers engaged in a gun battle with five Northern California Indians who had a single .22 rifle. More than a hundred shots were fired. Three Indians were wounded. A policeman was killed. 
After spending eight years on Death Row for first degree murder Patrick “Hooty” Croy, an Indian of Shasta-Karok descent was granted a retrial. His new defense team, headed by J. Tony Serra, argued Croy acted in self-defense and gave supporting evidence of the genocide against California Indians that has continued since the 1850’s. This strategy, known as a cultural defense, was used to explain why Croy feared for his life when he returned fire."

---http://www.shenandoahfilms.com/reasontofear-theculturaldefenseofhootycroy.aspx

So why is it no one seems to know the history of brutality in their own backyards?

The public schools teach Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, while genocide in Northwestern California remains taboo.

People watch Lakota Woman & Pow-wow Highway for entertainment without doing anything to try and reverse the systematic oppression of native peoples everywhere- be it government enforced, or capitalism imposed; the creation of a go-road, or the subjegation of a race of people via boarding schools.

Liberals read native american spiritual biographies, while simultaneously not loving the marginalized drunken indians in their own backyards (and they don't even notice the irony).

Com'mon people!  We must educate ourselves.

The Basket...

the basket used to be a metaphor 

for local indian families it was the shelter from the storm

when the visitors came 

slowly but surely

we lost our everyday weavers 

one woman at a time

today some no longer value our baskets

people pawn their grandmother's regalia 

without the blink of an eye

younger generations don't gather or weave as often as those that came before,

some don't understand the value of baskets or the value of tradition itself.

when i was in high school my mother was learning to weave

i would drive her from gathering site to gathering site 

her basket teacher used to say i was lucky to be growing up around all the women

mom used to make me crawl around on the river bar and get her roots

"Boy's have to be good for something," she'd say.

(laughter)

now, my mother's basket teacher has become my daughter's basket teacher

i'm still surrounded by women

still driving from gathering site to gathering site

still good for something-

and continuity can exist...

so when i look around the world

when i see the pots and pans that have replaced our baskets

i look to the local indian families

and hardly wonder how our community has come to be in the state its in.

we are still here, because of people like my mother...

and yet we are barely here because of the lack of value placed on things that bring us

instant gratification

store bought pots and pans do not endure

they are replaceable

they are abusable 

they hold campbell's soups, and commodity pastas

but act as a colander when we try to place our families inside

some of us have become confused

we think our family members are replaceable

are abusable

for those of us who have forgotten the importance of our baskets

its time to remember.

 

Chance

this weekend i was at the beginning 

of what could be a new beginning.

i found myself bearing witness to a woman 

with a chance in front of her.

there was a room full of people who care.

a young mother sat in the center of all her children.

surrounded by cultural items, indian wealth all carefully laid across tables...

hands, heads, backs-

the regalia danced in healing circles around a room full of song

learning

laughter

and the big cousins taught the babies how to dance themselves into existence 

as indian people

and the children had pride, showed strength

wore resilience

it took the form of abalone,

feathers...

i hope the mother gets her children back.

i hope Del Norte works with the family to facilitate a culturally appropriate plan of care.

i hope the family gets to keep teaching it's children how to dance...

Pow Wow... the best of times, the past times.

A hara-hara time ago, there waz pow-wowing in Humboldt & DelNorte counties...

It was a simpler time.  

People who never knew their local cultures came together from intertribal walks of life to 

PowWow up,

and dance

Dance

DAnCe ! ! !

there was fry bread and salmon, local vendors and people from a thousand miles away

there were elders and youngers gossiping, 

gentleman's choice, ladies choice, couples dancing, potato dancing, competition dancing

and money prizes.

i heard tell of one of our local girls

who participated in California Pow Wow Competitive dancing 

and she ran seven miles a day as a part of her stamina training

and won $4,000.00 a summer to put herself through school...

but what has happened now?

at the recent elders dinner in Eureka, as i sat listening to a young fellow educate me about Leonard Peltier and i wondered why he wasn't talking about Hooty Croy?

later, as people that didn't look ndn to me danced to guitar music waving thier taffetta scarves...

i kind of missed the PowWows,

at least then lots of our people participated

and new unions were formed 

new alliances between traditionalists and other kinds of traditionalists

between fancy dancers and jinglers

and our local religions remained private

intimate

closed to the pub...

i know, to a certain extent some of our culture has to be shared to prevent pangeaNDNism...

and some of our friends have to be from outside of our culture in order to encourage dialouge and cross-cultural education-

all i'm saying is times have changed...

and perhaps i'm missing the potato dance.

Veni, vidi... vora (Devourer of WoRLdS !!! )

"I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend--to grasp what was happening around and within me....Theory is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. It fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so and direct our theorizing towards this end."

-B. Hooks (1991, pp.1-2)

This excerpt preceded the chapter on "Theory-Based, Model-Based Community Practice (Hardcastle, Powers, 2004, pg.33)" It came right before the HOW TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER: 101 instructions to social work in practice. The opening of the chapter talked about group risistance as a difficult concept, how as social workers if we can identify a "opinion leader" we should isolate them from the group and convince them to join us/follow our lead-

so that later, the rest of the group will be more "receptive to change"...

Well, talk about fighting fire with fire-

Am I to understand that, in order to fight generations of shady happenings, broken treaties, and historical trauma in NDN country

creating secret alliances at "special meetings"

is going to help gain the trust and cooperation of the clients that I work with/for???

If the "opinion leader" pulls a Anna Mae Aquash and refuses to cooperate, then what, brute force?

Would Dickie Wilson qualify as an "opinion leader"???

How do such techniques of mental gymnastic prowess usually work, besides allowing us as social workers to consider our client bases as- not as smart as us, since we can apparently get them to "behave" however we see fit using undergraduate level phycology...

Furthermore, Indigenous people have been fighting with scientist for generations, all but screaming from the rooftops: We have a right to practice our religion, our medicines, our wholeistic ways of life and reacting to it!

Our religions were outlawed, our medicines were sprayed with pesticides, our ways were stolen as we were robbed of our children, and they were robbed of themselves...

In the aftermath of all these bad feelings,

in a book intended to educate me on Community Practice

I am reading about X and Y if E-I-E-I-OOOOO!

The reality we are facing here people is this:

1 nation divided by another nation= dead indians!!!

Same old recepie here folks.

If an NDN said:

"I came to Ceremony, desperate. I wanted to comprehend--to grasp what was happening around and within me.... Indian medicine is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. Ceremony fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so, and direct our people to this end." B. Pihnêefich (1995, Spiritual Biography, p.17)

Such an NDN would be hailed as a bullshit-o-logist, a plastic medicine man, a new ager! He would be seen as someone too fake to be a real NDN, and too published to be ignored. In short, he would be eaten alive by apples, book ndns, traditionalists, & white people alike. He would also recive fan mail, have several blondes trying to date him, he would receive invitations to speak at universities & hippy elementary schools during November (and his short, mediocre book would probably receive several pristeigous awards simply because his family survived long enough for him to become a published indian).

After receiving his awards, Mr. Pihnêefich would die penny less and alone in a tragic farm accident on his homosexual cousin's dude ranch in Arizona (alas, this would be all B. Pihnêefich was remembered for).

And yet, the same statement using "Theory" instead of ceremony is considered a heart-felt exploration of one social workers quest for the truth?

What it is, is mental masturbation

made valid

by virtue of belonging to the system

the same system that has attempted to invalidate

Indigenous Knowledge

& Indigenous Truth

for centuries.

In short, "resistance can take many forms and can be explained in many different ways (Hardcastle, Powers, 2004)." But, you know what???

Sometimes, RESISTANCE IS JUSTIFIED.

Think about it.

Let's talk about... Church !!!

"By definition, 'communities are composed of people who have relationships that are systematic, interactive, and interdependent' (Smith, 1997, p.14). Rural communities are characterized by multiple primary relationships and interdependence. Citizens are likely to have gone to school together, attended the same church and community activities, and shared the same doctors and other professional and service persons(Scales, Streeter, 2004, pg. 65)."

When it comes to rural NDN country today, we are still dealing with the aftermath of missionaries who tried to convert us to death. "Kill the Indian, save the man... (or child)."

Here in Northern California (on reservation row), from one corner to the next a person can literally count the amount of churches boasting various Anglo-faiths on two hands.

In addition to the usual suspects: baptist, jehova's witness, mormon, non-denomonational, evangelical, pentecostal, etc.; there are also several hybrid religions that emerged when Native Self-Sacrifice for the Fixing of the World hooked up with the Cross and gave birth to "all sorts of jumpin and jiving."

That is how powerful our native religion is, when the most powerful churches & country alligned themselves against our cultural selves and cultural salvation; our religions did not die.

When driven between four walls, Earth religion simply began to dance between pews!

Thus we began to stomp dance, while wearing crosses-

speak in tounges while receiving visions from god at public ceremonies that happened to be held on Sunday to the rhythm of a steel guitar-

Thus we received the gospel of snake handlers, and we handled native snakes ourselves-

Thus we bought pictures of Jesus and marveled about how much he looked like our cousin down the road, you know- the one with long hair & a beard...

Our Native religions were so strong, when it became safe to come back in their traditional forms, our dances were born again!

...and yet, the only ones who had seen the dances in their oldest & purest forms

were elders

members of a stolen generation

converts by force

by osmosis

by proximity

show me who your friends and neighbors are faithful too...

and i'll show you your religion-

well, during the time of revival it is said that the misfits of a generation embraced the indian identities that made it impossible for them to assimilate-

and so the spiritualists put down their liquid medicine and took up packing obsidian instead- and so the spiritualists took up dancing basket, again...

the young were hungry for a religion that belonged to them,

instead of religious figure heads that simple shared a similar haircut

but in a world post-christian influence

where the native religion had so strongly influenced the various forms of christianity in NDN country...

as the traditional elders taught us how to be,

their peers showed up to ceremony to socialize

and many of them were still more afraid of hell then they were of the earth not being fixed-

post boarding school, post-attempted genocide, post-traumatic-stress-DISorder...

christian values, the mean and undermining ones

the anti-love socialization practices

began to trickle into Native Religion.

And so we have reached a time of Neo-Traditionalism where Eurocentric rural thinking is tampering with Earth based ancient belief systems and the results are having troubling effects on Native community mindsets...

" 'In rural areas, more than any other geographic setting, conformity is strongly urged, if not demanded. Deviation from the 'traditional way of living' is strongly discouraged(Foster, 1997, pg.24)' This has positive & negative consequences. Well-established behavioral norms provide clear guidelines in many areas of life and reduce the incidents of deviant behaviors, such as alcohol abuse. On the other hand, those individuals who are 'different' may be stigmatized more than in diverse urban environments. Unfortunately racism, sexism, and homophobia may be tolerated in this conservative context (Smith & Mancoske, 1997). "

Add this reality to the confusion of Indigenous Wealth, and European monetary value and the result is a troubled time on the rivers. A time where how you conform is more important then how you treat others, a time where sometimes who you know is more important then how you live...

But, in the words of Bobby Dylan, "the times, they are a' chang'in."

WHO's AMeRiCA?

According to historian Frederick Jackson Turner (1893), "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development(Scales; Streeter; 2004)."

My question is, who's American development?

For the Indigenous people of this continent, our homelands and laws were already established.

We existed in the places we were born since time immemerable.

We have existed in this so called "America," since we were given life, since the birth of creation stories.

The mentality of Mr.Turner (1893), is that of a foreigner in a land where he assumes himself the center of the universe, so much so, that history did not begin until he arrived to write it.

And so the laws and creation stories of Native Peoples this continent over have been scribed and interpreted by non-native hands, looked upon as disappearing fairy stories, and they are taught today in some diluted version/perversion throught the American public school system (if they are taught at all).

The true histories of contact and its legacy pass on with the death of elders, the death of their stories, and the death of their children assigning value to our own histories- our oral histories...

In Karuk country they've begun documenting elders who speak the language.

25 years ago there were an estimated 250 Karuk Native Speakers, over the last quarter of a century it has dwindled down to 10 (a generous estimate).

The reality of the situation is that 25 years ago the speakers who were around, were elders, and the new generations were emmerging English native speakers (a trend which continues today, for the most part).

As tribal language is a kind of history of thought for tribal peoples, the importance of documentation has arisen in the conciousness of tribal councils & communities.

With the additional pressure of congress talking about requiring language proficiency as a pre-requisite to enrollability for future generations, tribes are taking their language revitalization efforts more seriously then ever.

A bi-product of such documentation efforts is that the stories of Native language speakers are being documented, but what about the stories of everybody else?

It is important for everyones story to be heard in order for tribal histories to be complete. It is important for the truth, and it is equally important for us to recognize everyone's stories as equal in importance or we become hypocrites; creating superficial hierarchies of importance in our oral histories based upon Eastern (and I mean east of the Atlantic) concepts of what Indian stories should be documented/what documentation projects should be funded. As indigenous communities we should not allow the grant cycles to dictate the fundamental nature/content of our cultural revitalization work or we become the scientists trying to capture "dying cultures" on paper, tape, cds... this work is the work of people who don't know any better. It is the work of scientists whose missions are no longer politically correct, despite proclaimed good intentions-

As native knowledge and cultural activists, it is our job to do good work according to the wants and needs of our communities- in accordance with the indigenous laws of the land (not only when its convenient, but always).

I'm excited to say, thats what seems to be happening in Karuk country as we speak!

This weekend marks the first technical training of Karuk youth for an exciting new Oral History project in which the stories of any interested elders can be documented by participating youth.

This creates a three fold documentation:

1) Hours of Interview will be collected on HDV for future archival/historical/tribal/familial use & benefit.

2) Elders and youth will be able to work together, and as the youth are filming- they will also be listening to the stories of their elders, thusly creating a traditional person-to-person transmission of oral history from elder to young person.

3) The several month project will also involve youth participants in editing final short films that will be presented to the greater tribal communities at a community film festival this spring! Thusly educating the greater tribal community to these stories/common histories, and positively rewarding elder & youth participants through the ability to share their work with their friends and families on a larger local scale.

Is Language Life? --LILC, Davis 2009--

Yootva ikxareeyav,
Hooray spirit people,
te apunva, nani supa
You understand, my days
karu vura nani harinay;
my collective years
voom vura yav karu yaamach;
they have been good as well as beautiful
voom vura ikyaakam karu vura yaamahukkich
they have been difficult as well as simple
haa, ko vura pa nanu kuup'ha.
yes, all of them have been OUR doings
Nukyaviichvuti pa nani kuup'ha xakaan.
we've worked together to determine my every course of action
Yootva.
hooray
Chimi ni'ahooheesh pa ahirak.
May I continue to walk in the light
Ux pa nanu taat te karit.
the earth is our mother, n all.

Our physicle bodies are mostly water, without water we shrivel and die- like salted slugs.

Recently I took a trip with my young son to the university of U.C. Davis for a conference called Language is Life, put on bi-anually by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS). The conference was one I'm not used to frequenting, but my daugter and older sister are apart of the program and so with a little nudge from them we decided to turn the conference into a family affair. I drove through Friday afternoon and got myself lost between Santa Rosa and Davis, but finally I arrived fashionably late just as the registration table was about to close Friday night. My son and I found our dorm room and settled in for the night, he was excited and I was unsure of just exactly what I was getting myself into.

The next day began with a man from somewhere in Washington, he spoke a native language and infact ran an immersion school (and he advocated arranged marriage between the best speaking children, a sober truth thinly veiled by what would have been humor [had it been a joke]).

For the first hour and a half, the man lectured us in language. He walked us through his alphabet, had us singing prayers, talking about dishes, playing games, talking about eachother, and even laughing at puns in his language...
The first think i thought of was, "Immersion has come a long way from the eighties when my eldest was taught how to say single words with the help of pan-indian flashcards... Yes, immersion teaching methods and methodologies have come a long way."

Why is this important?
Well, if water is important to the physicle health of humanity then you could think or language as important to the human in every being. Language is the health of something older and wiser then states, language is the health of cultures, civilizations, peoples, and for the majority of Native Peoples our languages are endangered.
With the fabric of our cultures "at risk" we are running into road block relaities...
our children are forging new relationships with themselves via gangs, and re-forging destructive habits they've inherited from several generations of the abused Indigenous People that make-up our history.
People talk about the statistics of Indian youth, families, suicides...
But without talking about Native Languages
we are not "seeing with the eyes in our hearts"
we are plucking the chords of foreighn instruents and still our children have no words through which they can vent thier frustration, or voice the grief that has been building like water pressing against a dam forced on the river generations ago-
Without our Native Languages our way of life is lost.
That is why the government spent so many millions taking indian children and carting them off to boarding schools to break them of thier ability to speak, to connect to thier families, to thier peers, to themselves...
And this is why AICLS, and the LANGUAGE IS LIFE Conference, and the BREATH OF LIFE CONFERENCE exsist.
Indigenous people are not going to fade quietly into the night, we are going to drag our family members to conferences, and talk in our languages at the dinner table even if its hard at first, we will continue to create bi-lingual cats and dogs and we will continue to exhist as long as we have the will to find the words that enable us to understand what it means to exhist.

At this conference, a pannel discussion happened.
One of the federally recognized tribes of Southern California was instrumental in creating a bill that was recently sighned by Governor Schwartzenegger. The bill will make it easier for tribes to get native speakers, and teachers of Native Languages certification that serves the same purpose as credentials throughout the state of California.
One small step for Indian Kind, on giant step for a single tribe...

The thing I was not anticipating to witness during this pannel presentation, was the standoff that followed during the Q & A session afterwards. You see the bill was created to benefit Federally recognized tribes only. It was a choice of words easy for the federally recognized tribe behind the bill to assert- and yet thier close relations were left in the cold (the non-federally recognized tribal members of neighboring tribes, and even the un-federally recognized neighboring factions of the same tribe).
Many people were upset, language workers written down or off as extinct voiced thier teary objections to some Indians making things better for thier own while leaving thier cussins to deal with the wolves of tearany on thier own.
It was a stark difference between the haves, and have nots in NDN California.
I often find it is that way in the north betwen those who have reservation land, and those tribes that wern't so lucky... But being in the south made me realize to be federally recognized is not something to be taken forgranted- things could be worse.
As I begin to see how much responsibility we have to eachother and our languages, I'm impressed by those tribes without recognition or funds who are still fighting for thier languages-
we are all fighting for our lives in today's language climate-
and as I watched my son and oldest daughter argue in Karuk, teasing each other and playing keepaway in language,
in the language my mother was cut off from when they took her away from her family and sent her to boarding school...
in a language I hardly ever heard growing up...
I feelt a sense of hope. Language is a seed like any other, with enough water and love, it never fails to grow.