Finale with La quen náay Liz Medicine Crow and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
They tried. They tried to callingses, try to genocide Sila.
I'm gonna cheek to cut you on Toka hu chi
ya yata. It is so wonderful that you folks are

(00:40):
here on the conclusion of the Tongue unbroken. Season one
is a season two coming. Nobody knows anything yet, but
whatever we're here, we're indigenous. We make the most of
the chances we got. Captain Ayattuk. We'll shoot our arrows

(01:01):
carefully because we don't know if people will invite us
back into these spaces. But I am excited today to
have two of my favorite human beings on earth to
talk about how to create change, how to sustain change,
how to create how to do an inside job when
you have to. Uh. So we are going to be
joined by lag and I, Liz Medicine Crow and Out

(01:25):
to Gone Jonathan Christ Tompkins to talk about House build
to sixteen, which made Alaska the second state in the
United States to officially recognize its indigenous languages. So we
want to kind of talk through this whole process. But
first of all, Um started with Lag and I tell

(01:45):
the people who you are, and Cheese how to cheege to,
how for inviting UM, inviting us to share some of
our memories and our thoughts about each be to sixteen.
I am so excited that we are at this point

(02:07):
nine years later, and it's unbelievable to me. So I'm
just to introduce myself. UM. My name is Lagunai. I
am Haida and sing. I come from Chiquon. My people
are cheech Kidney UM from Massive and then UH through

(02:28):
Hick to Hanlai Heidelberg and UM. I was raised in
um in Ki down in southeast Alaska, and UM I
think that being able to share who we are is
so important. And the people who shaped us um My

(02:49):
Nanni Mona was a fluent kill speaker UM in our
massive dialect, and my grandfather got to hate Tommy Jackson Sr.
Was UH fluent speaker of our singing language UM. And
so they've really been inspiration for staying committed, even if

(03:09):
it's hard, UM, to continue to perpetuate and do what
we can for our languages. I am also sing it
like I said earlier, and on my slinking side, I
am catch Buddy Freshwater mark stock guy, and UM I
come from the kutas Hit house. So really honored to
be here cheeze and out to gone. Thanks for having me.

(03:33):
I'm calling in from Chica. Sitka, UM, let's see. I well,
becauess I'm mostly Norwegian and my heritage with some other
Northern European um and UM, I guess the in terms
of thinking about change, I'm just wrapping up my last

(03:56):
year and the legislature representing a lot of the communities
in southeast Alaska. Clinkett he did in Simpshian territory. Well,
I guess not Simpcian territory after the mid cycle redistrict
team in but met le Catla for the first two years.
And UM have long had an interest in Alaska Nado

(04:18):
languages and indigenous languages generally from when I was in
college first and became very interested in Central Yupick and
UM was from the lower forty eight calling a lot
of elders influent speakers and trying to learn as much
as I possibly could, and then that sort of carried

(04:38):
forward UM into post college life and legislative and political skullduggery.
So I'm very excited to be here and we're trying
to shape the rest off nine year old memories, which
some of the rest has already been removed, but excited
to get rid of the rest. But it's geez. Yeah,

(05:00):
we had to brainstorm for a long time and say
what happened and when and who was there and what.
So we'll we'll sort of go back. This is maybe
two thousand. I think it's gonna be two thousand thirteen,
probably in I want to say April. The Central Council
of clinket Heda is the largest tribe in Alaska, and

(05:20):
during their tribal assembly had invited me to to talk
to give a presentation, and so I talked about our languages.
I talked about what's going on in our region, and
then sort of concluded with these ideas. And the ideas
was two have immersion schools and programs, to have Alaska

(05:41):
Native language, like at least one semester of study be
a requirement for graduating high school and college in Alaska.
And then to make Alaska native languages co official languages
of the state. Because I've done some research and I
found out that there's a list of English only states
because technically, like there's no official language of the United States,

(06:03):
and a lot of states also don't have an official language.
But in the nineties, Alaska decided to have an official language,
and that language was English. And it wasn't an innocent
process at all. If you go do some research, you'll
see people who were behind this initiative saying things like, well,
if people want to live in the past and go

(06:25):
backwards and speak their languages, then they that's fine, but
everything needs to be conducted in English. So very racist
ideologies that were driving these things. And so there were
two legislators, one of them is completely forgettable, who came
up to me afterwards and said, well, you did a
good job presenting your information. I don't agree with any

(06:45):
of it, but good job delivering it. And then the
second was Jonathan Christ Tompkins, and this is how I
met you. And you said, hey, let's get together. I
think we could make one of these things happen at
least for now, and we could do the others later.
And so I want to turn it over to you.
Back to you, j KT. How what was the process

(07:07):
for making it a bill, for sort of coming up
with this idea, finding what was there, and figuring out
what we needed to change. Well, I distinctly remember your address.
It UM had tribal assembly, and I thought it was
absolutely incredible. And I'm actually trying to go back through
my email archives and see if I can find some

(07:30):
of our correspondence from like fourteen, but that can wait
at least for a few minutes or for another day.
But um, I mean I that was so that Waseen.
I was in my freshman term. In my first year
of the two year term, I was very focused on
just listening and learning and sponging up everything about the

(07:53):
legislature and made a point not to introduce a single bill,
which I didn't. I didn't introduce a single bill. But
in the second year, UM, I was like, okay, like
time to like let loose all the pent up energy.
And one of the areas IS really interested in was
native languages dating back from sort of college, and I
was a Wikipedia editor and did a lot of like

(08:15):
language related articles on Wikipedia indigenous languages, like demography, linguistic stuff.
So I just like when when you gave that address
a travel assimily was I just like connected the huge
number of dots. It got really very very excited and
after a conversation, I think in pretty rapid order. UM

(08:38):
we did a lot of research and UM I had
the great privilege of working with a lot of great
people in my legislative office. And so we did some
like crack research, drafted the bill, and I think pretty
quickly dropped the bill and um uh work to basically
move it through the legislative process as quickly as it
could because of course in the second year go to

(09:00):
year session, everything dies at the end if it doesn't pass,
and so the clock was takeing. Wow, well, if you
come to Juno, you should always check out palminis if
you go there, like that's just a thing to do
in Juno. And that's where we met and sort of
started talking about these ideas. And then when the bill
went forward. I just remember so basically the statute said

(09:22):
the official language of Alaska is English, and so we said, oh,
we just say languages, and then we put all the
Alaska native languages and front we'll put twenty I think
we got to add three more at some point because
there are twenty three known existing Alaska Native languages. And
then uh lago night. So you came on board like

(09:45):
you were already doing stuff in the legislature. You've been involved,
like this is your background is creating change and facilitating change,
and also training folks on how to understand how legal
processes work. But could you I know, one thing that
we talk it's about was like seeing young people responding
to this. So there was also there was a class
going called Indigenous Language Revitalization, and we had students there

(10:09):
and we started saying, Okay, let's not just learn about
this stuff, let's go do stuff. Let's go make change.
So could you talk about like how you got involved
in what you saw and some of the young folks, yuh,
how you know. I was trying to think about exactly
when I learned about the bill, and it might have

(10:31):
been you j KT that called me and said hey,
because it was it was pretty early on UM in
the bill's existence or the drafting thereof UM. But I
can't recall. I mean, it's been my mind is lived here.
But I remember being very excited and happy that we

(10:54):
had a chance to actually put something forward that we
could really champion instead of just playing UM defense and
being able to, uh, you know, use it as a
way to have a conversation that had not been had
in the legislature in a really open way, because there's

(11:16):
been a lot of quieter ways of ensuring that Alaska
Native issues and tribal issues were not brought up in
the legislature, so I can't quite remember the very first
moment of being involved UM, but I do remember spending
some time talking with legislators, educating them about our native languages,

(11:38):
the diversity of our community, why it was important. There
was a number of legislators who were just off the
top supportive UM and didn't feel like it was a problem.
And then there was also quite a lot of legislators
who didn't get it. And so there was lots of
just standing in halls and chatting and sit in their

(12:00):
offices and chatting, and running into a Maddie events and
chatting UM, and just it being a kind of constant
all hands on deck as Native people, being able to
talk about why this is important across our community with
any legislator who you had a chance to come in
contact with. And and then of course, uh in the

(12:21):
shepherd ng process of getting it through the House, UM,
getting it through the Senate, getting insight into some of
the kind of opposition, challenge or lack of action that
was happening, and being able to have some good conversations
there with folks meeting with folks. Um. Having j KT

(12:45):
in the legislature as the sponsor and really being able
to identify here are some people that need to have
conversations was really helpful. A lot of times there were
people who just they just needed to hear so um reasoning, right,
they just needed to hear some reasoning. And then they
were like, oh, I get it, Okay, they got out

(13:07):
of their kind of they're kind of blinders kind of
were in the legislative session in a space we don't
talk about Alaska Natives in a really proactive, in a
really supportive way. So how do we make this actisis
is going to have a snowball's chance in hell essentially? Right?
I remember a lot of those conversations um, in between
the different kinds of testimony that was offered and submission

(13:32):
of letters of support and all those things that were
happening that really kind of galvanize people behind a bill. Uh.
And I do remember to talking about it with a
few of our Alaska Native leaders who weren't really too
involved in in the in the bill itself, weren't really
too involved in champion of the bill, but just really

(13:52):
talking about like I guess there I wouldn't call it
cautious optimism. I would call it the opposite, cautious cautious negativity.
Maybe because um, they had learned over decades, um, in
a few short decades that the state has been around,

(14:12):
they had learned that things like this just don't pass.
And they had also learned that if you try to
put anything forward about Alaska Natives, the repercussion will be
that there's just this heavy handed, oppressive force that comes
against Alaska Natives. And it feels even if you don't
lose ground, it feels like you lose ground because the

(14:34):
conversation is so negative in the legislature. And so there
was some Alaska Native leaders who, you know, they're champions
of our language. They want to see good things happen
for our languages, but they also didn't trust the legislature rightly,
you know. And so I recall having a couple of
conversations and being surprised at first that they weren't like

(14:56):
out of the gate, like yes, let's get this done,
but rather are we going to spend a lot of
time on this and not have anything move? You know. Um,
I remember that in part of the earlier parts of
the conversations around it. But the part that really inspired
me the most was our young people and the love,
the passion, and the commitment that they showed up with

(15:19):
they they had they I guess I wouldn't call it
trust with the legislature as much as I feel like
they had a expectation of accountability that if these people
were going to represent us, then they better represent us,
and they better take action on this and they better
quit sitting on it. You know. It's kind of the

(15:39):
vibe I got from these young folks, and you know,
they were still learning the process of UMU advocacy within
those spaces, but they were on it and they weren't
passive UM. And that's one of the things that just
really inspired me. And in fact, when it actually came

(16:01):
down to the line for the bill being stalled out
in the Senate, it was the young people who rallied
the sit in that brought everyone who could, all eyes
on Juno and all bodies that could be in the
legislature on Easter Sunday, no less Um it was there.

(16:25):
It was their call, it was their call to the
community to say come down here. UM. That was so
inspiring And I'm just that was the That was the
that was the challenge of our young people, who were
essentially saying, get down here, you know, like if you
care about this, you will show up, and um, they
held our feet to the fire. And I loved it. Yeah. Wow,

(16:50):
So like we're gonna get so as far as how
we're gonna talk about this, we're gonna talk about like
I feel like getting through the House side was kind
of the easy money, right, and in some ways it wasn't.
But then it end up passing unanimously and then we'll
we'll take a little break and then we'll come back
and we'll talk about the Senate side, which was where
the real stickiness, uh happened. Like if if they say,

(17:12):
like here's how the sausage gets made, like that was
that was some rank sausage. Over on that side. There
was some pretty pretty gnarly ingredients. But okay, so like
I had been to the state capital before, I had
talked to the legislature on the Alaska Native Language Preservation
and Advisory Council bill. But just so it's like one

(17:33):
of the folks in the galley kind of ever, when
the folks in the meeting, and so this was the
first time I've ever been had invited testimony. So when
the bill went to its first committee, uh, I was
invited to be the first one to testify. So it
was nine am, and so I was thinking about it
a lot because I'm not a very timely person all
the time. My students just said to me the other day, oh,

(17:55):
are you uh just regular late or you like extra late?
We just weren't sure, and so I said, hey, hey,
you know, I get here, I do the things and so,
but I was really trying to say, like, okay, I
gotta be on time for this, and you know is
winter time. I'm driving, you know, across town in Juno
and I'm looking at the clock. I'm like, cam, I'm done. Alright,

(18:16):
I'm gonna be there on time. How cool. And I
get a call from an elder casse Selena Everson. So
I answered the phone and she says, hey, are you
going to that thing? I was like, yeah, I'm supposed
to testify. She says, I want to go to that thing.
I said, oh wonderful. She said, can you give me
a ride? I said, of course, of course I can.
But then I'm like lightly panicking because I'm thinking, okay, now,

(18:38):
they got a divert and so I had to go
over to Douglas and then pick her up. And then,
you know, I was absolutely happy to of course I
would do that. And so then I drive up and
then I think, well, I don't want her to walk
up these icy steps, so I'll drive all the way
up the hill. Like if you haven't been to Juno,
the cambll is on the top of a super steep hill, right,
and so I drive all the way up so that

(18:59):
she and walk straight into the building, drive past it
turned to go down this very steep hill, and my
truck begins to slide down the icy hill and I
somehow was able to glide to the curb and have
the curb stopped me. And then I had to watch
this car that was illegally parked and figure out if
I could get around that car without hitting it. Then

(19:21):
there's like a little daycare, so these people are walking
their babies across the street. I'm like, well, okay, this
is getting more nervous by the more nerve wracking by
the moment. And then so there's no kids to potentially
run over, which was great, and that car was still there,
and I was like, well, I gotta go for it
because it is nine am and I need to be
in there testifying. So I just went for it and

(19:43):
didn't hit the car, didn't hit anybody, rolled down, found
a place to park, walked into the Capitol with my
mouth just absent of any moisture, and walked in, sat
down and gave my testimony, and like it was so
well received. In that first committee, someone spoke to me
in Greek, said, Greek is my language. I love this

(20:03):
so much. It was just a love fest, and I thought, oh,
this is it's easy. And then there was the second committee,
and I remember walking into that one. I had some
things prepared to say. Casse Selena Eberson or beloved wonderful
Elder was going to also talk, and I remember that
I walked in there talking about license plates for a
long time and like custom license plates, and I was like,

(20:27):
when you guys gonna be done with this thing, We're
gonna get to the other thing. And then I saw
the stalling techniques. So someone started it by saying, well,
my ancestors were Russian when they moved to America. We
stopped speaking Russian because that's what you do. And another
one said, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, my ancestors are Norwegian.

(20:47):
So when we came here, we stopped speaking Norwegian because
that's what you do. And they filled up the whole
time just talking, talking, talking about the exact same thing,
and we ran out of time, and I was dropping
f bombs and I hope my she was sitting in
front of me. I hope she didn't hear it. But
I was getting so frustrated, and so I came back

(21:07):
and she was able to testify about what it was
like going to a boarding school and have your language restricted,
and then I was able to tell them. I said, okay,
well you can go. You can go to Russia, or
you could just learn Russian. You could go to Norway,
or you could learn Norwegian. But if these languages don't survive,
there's there's nowhere for them to go. There's no other
place for them to exist. And so it was it

(21:33):
was really neat. So this guy, he was a representative
from north Pole and afterwards so he was kind of
speaking against it, and then he said, oh, wow, you
you told me some things I didn't even think about.
So I'd be happy to be a co sponsor. He
turned around and was a co sponsor of the bill
and so turn it back over to you, U j KT, Like,

(21:53):
what was it like to see it past the house side?
Because I remember that was shortly after we lost Cyril
George who went to boarding school WHI Selina Everson was
very emotional because he was one of my favorite speakers.
I was doing a lot of work with him at
the time and we kind of dedicated that day to him.
Said his name on the floor. Uh but what was

(22:15):
it like like watching it past the house? Yeah, well,
this is reminding me of that committee process. I was
just looking at the records and I think it's like
these names from yesteryear. Doug Isaacson I think was the
representative from north Pole that you just reference who didn't
fact co sponsor it. Well, the so on the House side,

(22:37):
and of course i'm i am or was while still
them in the House. And it's interesting because, I mean,
it was easier in the House, and after all the
death settled, I came to learn that there was sort
of an understanding between House leadership and Senate leadership. We'll
let it out of the House for it to sort

(22:58):
of meet it's peaceable tomise the Senate. Um, I mean
so there was a while. So the way I mean,
the way it works in the Alaska legislature I think
a lot of legislatures is there's a position called the
rules Chair, and the rules chair effectively is the one

(23:18):
person sort of stage gate to what does or does
not go to the floor of the House or the Senate.
And the rules chair was the legislator Craig Johnson, Republican
from Anchorage. He's actually running to get back in the
legislature this year. And um, I was a minority Democrat

(23:39):
at the time, still in the Democrat wasn't the minority then,
and um also in my first year, so like more
insignificant than a fly more I was no seeum was
a political nuseum. And I would just go to Craig's
office sort of like every third day, and I think
just through like sheer annoyance. He he sort of like

(24:04):
let the bill on the floor, not because he thought
it was going to pass, because there was an understanding
with the Senate leadership that Okay, the House let it
out and you can just sort of take care of
business over there. But at the time I didn't know that,
and um, you know, it was just like every step
whatever the next step is like, let's take it. And so, um,

(24:26):
it was really terrific for it to pass on the
house floor. And I think when that happens, whenever a
bill passes one of the two chambers, there's kind of
like a paradigm shift that happens where it's like, oh,
there's this abstract idea you've been working on, working on
to like, oh, this is now sort of like you
can sort of see the light of the end of

(24:47):
the tunnel, and there's sort of a like a tinge
of of like realism that this thing could happen, could
become law. So that was like a great and very
sort of motivation engendering kind of milestone. Gonna cheese, so Corte, Yeah,

(25:13):
has We're gonna take a little break, folks, and we'll
be back to talk about our languages and what was
needed to defeat them. And so it's not to fall
into the stereotype too much, but this is a three
acts sort of production. And here's act one, we put
the thing in motion. Act two a central villain might emerge.

(25:36):
So we'll be back after these ads. And I'm gonna
change for listening, gonna choose for being you and cheese
to make a change. We'll be right back. What's happening, baby,
This colonization ship got you down. You gotta get on
this decolonization. This time language by Asian all across North America,

(26:02):
the land of the language coming back into the hands
of future generations where it all belongs. Risa could have
their voices. We heard defeat all the colonial forces that
try to hold you, gonna cheese to gonna cut you

(26:30):
to Thanks for listening, folks. We want good things in
your ears. But we got to talk about like how
things almost went completely wrong with his effort. So what
I remember, it's springtime, probably April, probably getting close to Easter,

(26:51):
because I remember it was Easter Sunday. My little kids
came in, said Hi, they're cute little Eastern clothes. But
as far as like what I remember, as I felt
really good. It's like, look at the same past you
naztally through the house. This is gonna happen. We're gonna
somehow do this. Alaska, which I would say in many

(27:12):
ways is an anti indigenous state, especially when you get
to the legislature and historically governors and so at that time,
it was it felt pretty amazing. I remember hearing from
alkou Kesh who said, well Alska Native that what those

(27:33):
were the words like if that was in any sort
of bill, it would die. People would just kill it.
So I remember getting a call from j KT saying, Okay,
you didn't hear this from me, but someone's going to
try and kill this bill in the Senate, and we
need to figure out a strategy. So coming back to

(27:57):
like one person sets the agenda, and one of the
ways that they can kill a bill, it's just say
never put it on the agenda. These sort of inside
deals that happen with groups of people and Alaska. One
thing about Alaska, there's Alaska has a very high percentage
of indigenous peoples compared to a lot of states. Uh,

(28:19):
it's there's us in New Mexico and and so like
right now, about one out of every four Alaskans are
indigenous Alaska Native peoples. However, there are some communities where
you can be anti indigenous and still hold your seat.
It doesn't affect you. It's really interesting because they think

(28:40):
some of the strategies that go on behind closed doors
is folks from those communities say Okay, I'll be the
one I'll go forward and oppose this thing because my
whoever votes in my district must not care, right, And
so I don't know, I don't know how all that
stuff works, but I just remember we got this call.
So the three of us are on this call. It's nighttime.

(29:04):
I think it's the day before, like we had to
pass the next day, like I had to do or die, right,
So it's like it's I think it back. It was
like it feels like a movie and we're sitting outside
and we said, Okay, we gotta figure out something because
what we gotta do is we gotta put the heat
on one person and if we can get that person

(29:26):
to break, then we got a chance. But then we're
gonna have to give it all. So what I remember
as we decided to plan a protest, so we hit
social media. We leaked it, quote unquote to the media.
We said bring, bring cameras, bring stuff, bring elders, bring people,
bring kids, bring your drums. And we we filled the hall.

(29:52):
I remember there were quite a few people there, and
so the the idea was Easter Sunday, nine m show up,
stay until it passes. And so I guess this is
kind of this is where it places us. Uh, there's
a number of different things I could think of, but
I want to see you don't get any thoughts on

(30:15):
like the final day and how it started and how
it sort of let up, because we'll get to when
it passed, which is way past nine if I, if
I may, I was just looking at the legislative record
for the legislation during the ad break, and holy moly,
I didn't actually appreciate what like this is kind of

(30:40):
kind of an extraordinary sequence. So the bill passed the
House on April six, and it passed into law in April,
so that's crazy. Um. So it got to the Senate
on the seventeenth of April, and it was referred only

(31:01):
to one committee, which that was kind of a very
lucky break because there's no way we would have gotten
into law it had gone to two um and is
to Senate State Affairs and um, if I remember correctly,
the chair of Sense State Affairs. This is very conservative

(31:22):
but also very sort of like Grandfather Lee kind of
hard to like nail down figure Fred Dyson from the
Eagle River area, and and he had this I had
he had some kind of like personal connection the native
Like would I forget what it was, and I remember
having a conversation with him. He's like, yeah, like let's

(31:43):
do this. And so you're like, as committee chair, you
can kind of you're like king of your own little
fife to them, and so he's like, we'll have like
a committee hearing as soon as possible. So he I
think held a hearing on the It looks like the
nine for me was the eighteenth and the nineteenth but um.

(32:06):
And so the bill was out of his committee, which
means it was on the doorstep of the of the Senate,
and if I'm remembering correctly, the twenty the day that
bill passed was also the last day of the legislature,
so it was like curtains. So so I think part
of the reason it was able to pass out of
the House is like, oh, there's no way this bill

(32:29):
can become law in four days. Um. But that's when
I think we all spoke because it looked like there
was a path out of committee, and so it just
had to like bust down the wall of the last step,
which is the Senate itself and all twenty members. And

(32:49):
I think that's when things got real. Yes, So then
I remember, so we're sitting there and I remember elders
Starts showing up at the lund was there and Selena
Evers and they came together, uh Lak and I you're
dong Ao. Your mother was there, and so I remember
seeing you sitting with your mother and with Sharon Shorty,

(33:13):
who came down from Canada to the hang out with
us and to to be there with this protest. And
then I got another one of these calls from Jonathan says, Okay,
you didn't hear this from me, but I think I
know what's going to happen. So we're we're sitting outside
of the office of a senator who's in charge of
the agenda, right, and so she didn't want to I

(33:37):
don't think she wanted to be seen because there was
a lot of people there. There were television cameras, Uh
they were. The media was very responsive to this in
terms of what we're trying to do, and we've explained
what we're trying to do. Young people were there, uh
you know, and so families were there. And I remember
someone came out from her office and said, this editor

(34:01):
thinks this is a wonderful idea that there's no reason
to protest, there's no reason to be upset, there's actually
no reason to even be here. She's gonna put it
on the agenda and it's gonna go forward and vote
and thank you for being here. And I remember I
looked over and there's a computer screen that showed the agenda.
I said, well, I could see the agenda. So once
it pops up there will we will leave and we'll

(34:22):
go upstairs to the Senate chambers and we'll wait until
it passes. Then we'll go home. So don't you don't
have to tell us when to go home. We know
we're here for and so and and she had come
out and gave sort of a similar statement, but it's
still never hit. And so then you said, well, I
think I know who they have selected or whatever is

(34:44):
going to happen, who's going to try and kill it.
And it was a senator from Fairbanks. And this is
the first time I think I remember hearing about this person.
So I went I was like, oh, let me find
the office. So I went to the office. There's a
young person working there. I said, well, is is this
guy here? I want to say his name because he
doesn't deserve any fame or notoriety because of what he said,

(35:07):
And what he has done. And so I went to
his office and the aid that was there, I said,
as the senator around and I said, no, he's not
available right now. Can I help you? I said, yeah,
I heard he's against this language built like to make
languages the coficial languages of Alaska. I just want to
see what's going on. And this person said, well, the

(35:28):
Senator believes that encoding it into statute as an official
language is the wrong thing to do. And there's another
part of the statute that has like the state dog
in the state flower, and we think it should be
kind of in that section. I said, oh, like a
trinket you put on the shelf. I was like, we're
living languages, we're human beings. Why doesn't he come talk

(35:48):
to us? And I was like just saying, as you know, thinking,
come and meet us on these out in these streets
in the hallways. Actually, and he did. At some point
he finally emerged. And what I remember, and I gotta
turn this over to you long and I to sort
of give your recamp of this moment is you are

(36:09):
a brilliant, wonderful, and accomplished individual who makes changes regularly
throughout the entire state of Alaska, and uh, he was
kneeling in front of you for some strange reason. And
then he was Remember when he said, and someone someone
filmed this. I was so happy someone filmed it because

(36:31):
I was taking still photos with the camera and listening
to him, and he said something. What I remember him
saying is, well, the thing that people don't understand about
how a law works is there's long term implications of
a law. And I don't know why people think I'm
the bad guy just because I asked tough questions, because
a lot of people don't think about what happens when

(36:52):
you pass a law and what happens down the road,
and they're not thinking about things like that because they
don't really know how a law works. And so I'm
just trying to look out for the long term of Alaska.
And so he kind of stops, and then you said,
that's why I went to law school, and I just
was taking I had to be quiet, but I just
want to go, you know, just yell at him and

(37:14):
just like you know, DoD like they do on talk
shows when people just get roasted. And then I think
you said it again, That's why I went to law school.
And then you talk to him about being Devil's advocate,
which maybe you want to talk about. Yeah, I'm kind
of cheeze. Uh yeah, such an interesting road. You know,

(37:35):
I really appreciate the the time frame. You know that
obviously the what's that how's that cliche? Go when there's
already a fixed outcome and you know it. And so
the fixes in the fixes in on this bill, and
you know, the House, even though they were so supportive,
waited until the very end of the legislative session to

(37:58):
pass it, like like Jonathan just said on April sixte
and giving it no life whatsoever, no pathway for it
to actually pass because it still had to work through
the Senate side. And you know, obviously somebody was like, ah,
then this is we can pass it now, it's not

(38:18):
going to make it and um, you know, and so
it gets to the Senate side, it goes through this
whole process that you just described, Cane, and I remember
being camped outside of that senator's office with everyone, and um,
you know, more and more people trickled in over time,
and then the senator showed up when the cameras were there.

(38:39):
I don't know, a miracle, I guess, and made a
statement about you know, you know there's this you know,
complicated process um on scheduling and blah blah blah, and
we're going to see what we could do, but you know,
we are going to get it scheduled kind of a thing.
And then everyone's kind of there. It's a sit in.

(39:01):
It's an organized sit in, so no one is leaving.
Everyone is there, and people are getting hungry. It's like
late afternoon by this time, maybe we're getting towards like
after lunch, right before dinner. People are getting hungry, and
so we decide to tell folks like, we're gonna stay here.

(39:21):
You guys go get go eat, you know, we'll stay here.
So people kind of took a shift approach to getting
a meal. We were sitting outside, um, the senator's office
that you're referring to from Fairbanks, just participating in the
sit in, um my mom, uh stop Coustellaccini and Sharon

(39:44):
Shorty and just having a good catchup and visit while
we're waiting. Now. The backstory is is that I had
actually spent time in that senator's office prior to prior
to the sit in, and had talked with his staff
and I recall if his chief staff was also an attorney.

(40:04):
Trying to remember his name anyway, UM, they had some
questions about the placement of the bill and the code, right.
And they thought that because as as the proponents of
the bill had said, you know that this is a
quote unquote symbolic bill, because it's not really going to

(40:26):
have some sort of dollar amount that would require specific
action other than the acknowledgement of them being co official languages.
It was not going to make the state have to
print all this stuff and and all of our languages
and everything and that. So really it was just a

(40:46):
symbolic bill. And and so they felt like the bill
would be better placed in the section where the state
kind of pace tribute and homage to UM the things
that really define and its characters, such as the State flower,
the State bird, right. And so we had had conversations

(41:07):
about this prior, and UM I had shared my thinking
on their questions about why that was the wrong way
to think about it, UM, and what the right way
to think about it would be was to keep it
in the official language section. And why I was traveling
through Juno at the time when I had last met

(41:29):
with their office in person, on this issue. I want
to say I was traveling into maybe Sitka for work
I can't recall, and then I was going to come
back to Juno for Easter with my mother and uh,
and then the word came to me that there was
going to be a sit in, that things weren't happening,

(41:49):
It wasn't moving, it wasn't going to happen. And the
only way that we're going to do it is if
we could be there in person and just be warm
bodies and you know, all eyes on Juno. And so
I told my mom and she was like, let's go.
Like she don't she don't play, She's she's like, bring it, um.

(42:12):
And so we get there, UM, I get to j
you know, we get everything that we need we're going
to need for that um that sit in, and then
you know, the day unfolds as we've already described. But
there was already multiple conversations that have been happening, and
I'm sure you had them. I'm sure j QT had them.
I'm sure other people had them. In terms of trying

(42:33):
to educate and just help people understand, like take their
blinders off and understand what is happening here to make
this this paradigm shift in the Alaska legislature about Alaska
Native people and our languages. So people were hungry as
as we get. And we were sitting out on the

(42:53):
benches outside in the little corner there, just visiting and laughing,
as Native women tend to do when we're together. And
the certain senator had been avoiding his office because he
had to go through all the people who were waiting
for him to make a move, and I didn't want

(43:17):
to deal with it. I had gone into his office
when I had first gotten there to say hello, Okay,
important move for those who are thinking about how do
they do work in the legislature, how do they build
relationship even if they don't agree with you on your
policy issues. Go and say hello and you know, shake

(43:39):
a hand and connect um and so uh. And that's
what my mentors taught me. And so I went to
his office and I checked in with his staff and
we had a conversation. He wasn't available to talk and
I said, well, I'd like to talk to him when
he has a moment. Well, you can imagine how busy
the senator is. It's the end of sessions, so I

(44:00):
don't know you're going to get that chance. Oh well,
no problem, I'm here all day. We're gonna be here
all day. We're going to actually be right outside and
and so that's what we did. And it was after
pretty much everybody had gone to get their food when
we were sitting there, and there was just me and
my mom and Sharon and maybe a couple other people

(44:22):
because others were had gone to get food or we're eating.
And it was at this moment that the Senator decided
to go to his office and saw us sitting there
and decided that this was the moment that he wanted
to talk. Instead of inviting me to his office to

(44:43):
have a private conversation, he decided to roll up his
sleeves and bend down in front of me in a
very earnest manner and proceed to tell me why the
legislature and it's processes were very complicated, and and why

(45:06):
the process was, you know, moving so slow, and why
it was important to really honor the process. And Um,
this is not the first time I've had this kind
of lecture delivered to me as a native woman. Um.
In fact, I've received this lecture many times on all

(45:28):
kinds of different topics about how complicated something is, and
if I really truly understood it, that I wouldn't really
be asking these questions, is the implication. So um, him
and I were engaged in a direct debate with one another,
and he had points that he was making and that

(45:53):
I was hearing, and I had responses to his points.
I also had my own points which he was listening
to and responding to. And eventually in our conversation we
got to the point where you talked about n which
was he was again reminding me how complicated this all is.

(46:14):
And and you know, I really don't tell anyone about
my my you know, journey in law school or the
fact that I have a lot degree or a certificate
in Indian law, Like that's not something that I share
with people like just on the casual conversation. It's really

(46:35):
quite frankly not relevant to so much, you know what
I mean. But in this instance, he had made a
decision that I didn't understand the process and was treating
me that way, which was condescending and in and in
his attempt to belittle me, I was trying to make

(46:57):
it seem as if I did not know enough to
really truly grasp what was happening, and this is a
technique that is used by a lot of people to
try to silence Native people. And like I said, this
is a technique that's used in multiple other settings, but
he was using it here and so as he, um,

(47:21):
you know it, was again telling me that it was
so complicated, I just said, yeah, that's why I went
to law school and moved on, you know what I mean, like, Okay,
you can stop the lecture. Now, let's get to the
point here. And as we talked, he also used another
mechanism that people use in their persuasive arguments. He called

(47:47):
on this notion of being the devil's advocate, And, um,
we do a lot of host work of bringing people
together to have really complicated, very complicated, um just kidding,
very challenging, uncomfortable conversations about race and racism and about

(48:12):
injustice and about solutions equity, racial equity, and how we
can work together to be better Alaskans, together to try
to find a way forward. And so I've been in
these situations where people kind of put forward this I
guess I would call it like an attempt to have

(48:33):
plausible deniability that it's really their feeling the way that
they think or that you know, that they want to
be champions of. And so what we've what we have
decided to do in our in our dialogues that we
host is when people say, I want you know, I'm
playing the devil's advocate here, we tell them the devil

(48:55):
doesn't need any more advocates, like, just say what you
want to say, don't blame it on the devil and um.
And so when he said that to me, I shared
that story with him, and I think that's what you witnessed.
So in this process of having this conversation with him,

(49:16):
it was just a couple of us when it started,
but it lasted for a while and by the end
and by the time we finally were coming to the
end of the conversation is the time I realized like
everybody was back, and everybody was around us, and everybody
was like just dead quiet listening to us like I had.
I was like having a conversation with him intensely, and

(49:40):
so I hadn't seen that everyone had come back. But
by if I recall correctly, by the end of the
conversation he said that he would not he would not
try to make an amendment to move it to the
state dog and state bird and state flower section of
the statutory Code. That's what I recall. That was the

(50:04):
ancestors saying, enough now, Cheese. We had a little technical
glitch which was very interesting week. We couldn't mute and
mute and turn cameras flickering. So the ancestors said, take
a great grandchild, come back and talk about the weirdest
stuff you so so it gets stranger. We'll be right back.

(50:26):
We're so so happy you're here. I'm so happy for
Ma Cheney and that she always responds when when we
say we needs some help, We need of elder presence
to come and just help straighten out some of these
folks are again sideways. So we'll be back to talk
about how the bill passed, the bill signage and what

(50:47):
its lasting impact has been, and then closing messages from
our brilliant and kind and wonderful guests and cheese, we'll
be right back. I ain't a heat of heat of

(51:15):
coward needs goose, Are dude to give coup de cut?
Why so weird? C U y'all n not today? Colonizer

(51:38):
not today? Colonizer not today? Corn? Answer play for you
part conflict said pie ye arty court no m M.

(52:15):
So as the night got longer, so we start at
nine am, and then we go past breakfast, past lunch,
past dinner, and they finally put this thing on the agenda.
So we moved up to the Senate chambers. We're there
nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, and then things started

(52:37):
to get really weird. So here's some of the weird
things that I remember. Someone walks past us, and I
guess pretends to fall down, and it kind of freaked
us all out. And then people said, oh, this is
like a as ritual. He does this at the end
of every session. He walks past and pretends to fall down.

(52:59):
And I said, all right, whatever. And then I'm sitting
there with a representative who was super into this bill
in his passage, so that she came over after it
passed the house and and like was with us this
whole time. And so this senator walks by who was

(53:19):
from Sitka, and she pulls him into this room and
so I was just talking to her, and she said, hey,
come in here, and so then I walked in the
room with her, you know, and uh, this is verbatim
what I remember hearing and if your kids are listening,
put some cotton swabs in their ears or plug their ears.
And so she says, if you don't pass this bill,

(53:43):
I will fucking scalp you. And so this guy, who
is a white male, looks at her and I'm in
the room. I'm just sitting there, a fly on the wall.
And he says, who's the great white chief of the clinkets?
Who's the great white chief of the Clinkets? And I
remember thinking, well, I need we need this guy's vote,

(54:04):
so I can't tell him to go fund himself right now.
And then uh, and then she says, well, if you
if you vote yes, I'll co sponsor your sea Otter bill.
He says, you co sponsor my Seauter bill. She says, yeah, yeah,
I'll vote yes. And then they just left and I
was like, I don't know what I witnessed. And then

(54:26):
I saw, well, this was maybe even before it hit
the you know, because it hit the agenda like shortly before,
because we just moved upstairs, because everybody went upstairs, and
just things are coming back. They remember seeing this senator
who had been we'd been putting pressure on her all
day and she she walks past. I remember I got

(54:47):
a call, another call from j KT who said, well,
I just heard that this senator that we've been putting
pressure on is getting crucified by the governor because she
spoke out in favor of raising the minimum wage in
a meeting. And I was like, oh, that's weird. And

(55:09):
then I remember she came walking up the hall and
I stopped her. Again. It's like, could you put it
on the agenda. However, I stopped her and she looked
and she was crying. I felt so bad for whatever
she was going through. So I just said, have strength
and courage, and then she walked past. But it wasn't
too long after that that it went on, and so
it goes onto the agenda, and that all this in

(55:31):
the midst of all this strange stuff, it's pretty two
two in the morning, and we go back in session.
We fill the gallery. There's enough of us still there
to fill that place. And we just started talking to
each other and said, when this thing hits the floor,
everybody stands. And then I remember, like it was, it
just kept going and going, and there was some weird

(55:54):
there's some weird like gas bill, and everybody tried kept
adding like a some kind of gass refinery tax. And
it's one guy. He stood up and every time he
stood up he said to sorrow, this to sorrow, that
to s and he was it was a sender. And
you got the point where I turned to someone I
was sitting with and I said, ten seconds and tell
he says to sorrow again. Betch of ten bucks, you know?

(56:16):
And I told someone who teaches uh political science, and
they said, you know who that guy works for. I said,
A better not beat to sorrow, And he works for
to sorrow. I was like, what is he doing even
talking about this bill? So all this weird stuff is
going on, We're making jokes and thing it dirty jokes.
Were so tired. We're just like laughing and going getting
real punchy, like we're at a pot all night long.

(56:39):
Then like the bill comes and we know we got it,
we know we got it. And I remember like when
when they read it and we all stood up and
my heart's just pounding. It's just pounding, sola. It's like
a drum boom boom, boom boom. And then when it
hits you know, it hits the floor. And a senator

(57:01):
who was opposing us, who we had already defeated, stood
up that you. I mean, we all took turns with
this guy, and he stood up and he gave this
like really pathetic concession speech. He said, I really don't
think this is a good idea, but I know I
don't have the votes, so I can't put forward any amendments,

(57:23):
but I can put it on the record that if
you try to make these languages equal, you'll just have
more racial tension. It was wild. I remember like listening
to like where is this? Didn't they say the same
thing when they try to keep us out of the
same establishments as them seventy years ago when the anti
discrimination bill was being passed. If you just have the

(57:45):
races together, you just have more racial tension. Remember just
thinking seventy years and you don't. You don't have one
new argument other than just the same unfounded foolish racism.
But we we defeated him, and and I remember when
it passed. I remember, and just you know so that
this will be the only episode out of all twelve

(58:06):
that will have a photo with it, and it's gonna
be the three of us taking a selfie after crying,
laughing and just being so joyful when it passed, and
in that hallway would have been protesting for what fifteen
sixteen hours? So like, what do you folks remember when

(58:28):
it passed. I woke my mom up. We both were
nodding off in the gallery. It was so hot in there.
I remember, like, I remember just feeling that a shift.
It happens that other things we're gonna now are people

(58:51):
could see that something else could be possible. I remember
feeling that in that moment. It's chief and yeah, I'm
I kept it together a whole time. The whole time
I was like strong, fight strong, fight strong, advocating, And
when it passed, I gave you a hug. I cry.
I cried, you know, and my dad saw that that

(59:13):
was the last time I ever saw him. Is he
he get to see you get to see this thing
go forward because of what we did as a team
to push this forward and to say, you know, our
languages are important as well, Our languages are here and
belong here. We'll be here forever. And Jonathan, you made

(59:33):
this happen. You made it happen. Well, I think a
lot of people made it happen, but I just it
was also uh sort of surreal, because I mean, it
wasn't just that day of Apple twenty. It was that
the like the seventy two hours and like sleeping on

(59:53):
the couch in my office and people like at all
hours of night mobilizing and connecting and sort of figuring
out with the next step was and um, it was
just such a sort of fever fever dream is that
the right word of an experience that it was kind
of hard to believe that, Um, I mean, the odd

(01:00:15):
seems so impossible. It's kind of hard to believe that
it was actually like going to happen, that this thing,
after passing the house with what seventy two and six
hours to go before the legislature itself was coming to
an end, was going to pass. And between what you
both have described with the rules chair and with the

(01:00:37):
I think then majority leader or I forget the position
that that for bank senator held, and all the other
things that were going on, Um, it was sort of
an amazing like release, like I um, well, not not
this last year, but I UM have do a lot

(01:00:59):
of like long distance running, and sometimes when you're getting
towards the finish line of a really really long run,
like you're you're all held together, and you get across
the finish line just like instantly, your body just like
you know, you're you know, three minutes prior you were
able to hold it together, and you just sort of

(01:01:21):
like it all goes goes to heck. And that was
kind of like an emotional mental equivalent experience. This was
my recollection and and just like such and that every
it was happening with so many people made it such
a moving sort of collective experience because everybody was feeling
that in that moment, chew and and so like before

(01:01:45):
we move on to like the signage at the signing
of the bill, I want to recognize Charles Warbocker because
he was there as a deacon of the Catholic Church
and in those in those hallways, he had conversations with
me about what's the role of the churches, because we
had a role in getting us into the situation of

(01:02:06):
language endangerment. And I recognize that. And one of the
things that they try to do is try to like
use their trickery, right say, oh, this is it's just symbolic.
It's only symbolic, Like why are you gonna put all
this effort in when it's only symbolic, you know, Are
you sure that's what you want to do? And so
he stood up when he testified and he said, well,

(01:02:28):
you see this cross around my neck. That's that's only symbolic.
But it's what I do in my life around this thing.
And I also remember we we needed some other techniques,
and Paul Berg was there and when we were stalling
in one of the committee and it might have been
the Senate committee, and we're trying to figure out what
we're gonna do. And he called me. He says, hey,

(01:02:50):
I'm a I'm a white guy, like I could say
things and they'll listen to me, but if you said
the same thing, they wouldn't listen like some people. And uh,
I said, well, Selena is gonna she's been bringing like
this elder compassion, talking about what she went through with
boarding schools, talking about what it means to her to
be able to see it in her lifetime. And I'm
kind of bringing like knowledge about success rates and education

(01:03:14):
and strong languages and health and and just accounting for
historical wrongdoings and attempted genocide. And he said, um, I
think I know what I'll do. So then he shows
it in his testimony like this is a rough committee, right,
And then he said, I'm a Vietnam veteran. And when

(01:03:35):
we came back, it was a complicated war and a
lot of people they didn't want to talk to us,
and the didn't want to think about us and what
we were doing over there, and we didn't, we didn't
choose for that to happen. But then years and years
later they had a ceremony and they saw us, and
they saw us and they talked about us, and they
thanked us for what we did. And it means a

(01:03:55):
lot to be seen and for him to take that strategy,
like we saw so many people doing so many different things,
all these young people going door to door to senators
and representatives who a number of them said, I've never
seen so many young people care about stuff like this
and talk to us. And we stayed at a professional level,

(01:04:16):
respectful level, like the last Native Brotherhood and the last
Canative Sisterhood always taught us, learned their game and beat
them at it, which which is in this case what
we did. So then this gets us six months later
and do you remember what do you remember about the events,
Because we were kind of wondering like, will the governor
sign this thing? He's a pretty he wasn't there talking

(01:04:39):
about it being a good idea. He was he had
nothing to ever say about anything when it came to
Alaska Native languages as far as I could tell, And
a lot of his administration was not really working with tribes.
Uh practicing a razure, practicing, ignoring, just a bunch of
like common sort of Alaskan type of stuff that you

(01:05:01):
see from politicians who who don't work with us very
often as far as Alaska Native people's go. And then uh, yeah,
let's where did the signing happen, ceremony happen, and why
would he pick that event? Well, I could, I could
jump in with a few thoughts. So um, uh, surprise, surprise.

(01:05:25):
I think there were politics involved. And the year was fourteen, which,
of course for us in Alaska men, it was a
gubernatorial election year, and that particular governor's election, I think,
perhaps to the surprise of the incumbent governor, Mr Purnell,

(01:05:49):
was getting increasingly close and and sort of could feel
the heat coming down the collar of his neck, and
and so I don't remember all the back and forth,
although I was just June searching through all the like
archives and my emails, and I saw a bunch of
email threats about the bill signing, which it a little

(01:06:13):
bit I'm gonna go read for entertainment purposes. But Um,
the Alaska Federa Show NATO's convention is every year just
before the election, and I think Governor Parnell, sensing that
his reelection might be threatened, UM, proposed to do the
signing ceremony at a f n and UM ifact not mistaken,

(01:06:35):
wanted to try to get it on the main stage
sort of in front of as many eyeballs and people
and publicity and visibility as possible. UM. And there were
I think things that I was not involved with, but
the signing ceremony ultimately manifested in a somewhat different way.

(01:06:55):
And and maybe I'll throw it to you both add
what you know do you think is more than what
I know? Yeah? So, uh, I had heard that. Yeah.
The strategy was to have it at the Alaska Federation Natives,
which is coming up next week, and also Elders and
Youth the First Alaskans Institute. Either go and check it

(01:07:16):
out if you're in an Anchorage area or if you
have a chance to get there. It's wonderful events, gatherings,
so many leaders and emerging leaders and resting retiring leaders
who are still like, but our elders are always like,
we go to language emersions and stuff, we're so tired.
And elders are always like, let sco bingo, let's go eat,

(01:07:38):
let's go get dessert. We're like, we're so tired at
you do it. But it's happening next week, so check
it out. I mean, wonderful, wonderful decision makers and leaders
for our state. So there's a couple of dynamics here.
One is from the governor's office. So someone from the
governor's office reached out to me. So he's the governor
at the time, and I was all, is keeping in

(01:08:00):
mind you know that governor never reached out and said
this is this is cool, this is great, I like
this idea. Wow. There was nothing, radio silence. But then
when it passes, they reached out to me and they said,
could you get someone from every Alaska native language to
come to this event and stand up and say I'm

(01:08:20):
so happy my language is now an official language of
the state of Alaska. And I said, okay, well, uh,
I'm happy to rally some folks and see who I
can get. But I just need you to know two things. One,
no one's gonna say that because we don't say stuff
like that in our language, because we don't have to
be official. That's that's silly. Two, you invite people to

(01:08:42):
talk after finally officially recognizing their languages, they are going
to talk and you're not going to be able to
stop them. And you just need to know that. And
they said, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever, whatever. So I think
we end up with maybe thirteen fourteen of the twenty
languages there, and so we start going through and the

(01:09:05):
first one to talk was casse Selena Everson. She was
right that she was testified as that she's gotta be first.
She was there, she testified every chance she got. She
shared her heart, she shared everything, and and they were beautiful,
incredible speeches. And it wasn't too long until someone comes
up to me and says, Governor has got somewhere to go.

(01:09:26):
You have to wrap this up. I said, well, I
told you they were going to talk, and he should
have made time to listen. And then someone else comes
up a little bit more agitated. You gotta get him
to stop and I said, you are picking the wrong
person for this job. I'm not going to stop people

(01:09:49):
from speaking their languages at a celebration recognizing their languages.
I said, that just doesn't work like that. And then
there was an Alaska Native guy who was on the
staff of this governor, Sean Parnell, and he had a
sealskin vest I thought he was like, just down with
the cause. And he walks up behind me and he

(01:10:12):
took his thumb and jammed it forcefully into my into
the back of my rib cage and like a threat
and says, you need to get them to stop right now.
And it was violent. It hurt, and I turned and
I said, uh, yeah, sure, And I had no intention
of doing anything else whatever. I was talking about this

(01:10:35):
years later, and I said, I've missed my opportunity. What
I should have said to him is I sure, hope
that's your thumb. So but whatever, like you know, it
happened and nothing was going to stop it. And it
was beautiful and people said wonderful things in their languages.
Each people were there speaking their languages, and so many

(01:10:57):
different people were there speaking their language just and you
were talking earlier about uh a guy who said something
to the governor that I think was pretty pretty golden
if you wanted to share. Yeah. So Steve Guinness, who
is the president CEO of the Fairbanks Native Association, Uh

(01:11:20):
and uh, he's switched in and um, I think he's
recognized as the chief by his people. I'm not on that,
but I think I hear people referring to him as chief.
He stood up and he spoke in which in, which
is a beautiful language, like all of them are. And

(01:11:41):
after he finished speaking, he translated himself, you know, roughly
in English. You know, he wasn't giving a word for
word translation, which is kind of like summarizing what he said.
And then he said to the governor and I'm probably
not getting it as an exact quote, but he essentially
said that in our language, we can't um double speak,

(01:12:07):
we can't say one thing and mean another. In our language,
we have to speak and say exactly what we mean.
And I think people who are running for office should
learn an Alaska native language so that they can learn
how to do that or something to that effect. It
was just like I didn't need to say. I remember

(01:12:34):
laughing and just thinking that was so bold. Good on you, amazing,
so to kind of like start wrapping up this conversation.
And I'm so thankful that you're taking your time to visit,
and I'm thankful for your friends and families who are
giving you this time to spend with us. Like, what's

(01:12:55):
what's the impact, what's the long what's you know? They
said it wouldn't do anything, and I think they're wrong.
And they also said we shouldn't do it, and I
know they're wrong about that. And so here we are
eight years after the fact. Uh, what has the impact been?
And what do you think the impact will be? I
guess I'll start. Um. I feel like there's a couple

(01:13:22):
of things you just said that I really want to
respond to as a Native person when we think about
taking action on behalf of our people. What I what
I feel like I know now I did not understand
when I was younger, is that when non native people
give you guidance and advice about the timing of when

(01:13:43):
you should take action or not take action, you should
remember to take that only as advice and decide to
use it to inform your decision, but not to shape
your decision. Because what happens a lot in those kind
of dynamics is it's not the right timing for this.
This happens a lot with people who are interested in

(01:14:04):
running for an elected office, like it's not your time,
like things aren't right right now that you know that
the politics, the blah blah blahs, or you know, we
don't have the right legislature for this, or you know,
there's probably really no need for it because there's all
this other stuff. And what I've learned in the past,

(01:14:26):
um a few years now of kind of engaging in
this space and and watching and learning UM from our
community is that the ones who say, oh, thanks for
your advice on that and do it anyway, really make
transformation happen. And this is an instance of that. You know,

(01:14:48):
you guys got together and you said, let's just do it.
And I remember j KT when you first came in
UM to the legislature and you were like you were
bold that you were like, we're gonna do stuff. We're
not going to just be passive here. We're gonna put
stuff forward UM that yeah, we hope passes, but also

(01:15:08):
we have to put some things forward that will you know,
shake things up and UM. And so it was like
you know, watching two stars collide when you guys decided
to make this happen, this idea and put it into
law or try to put it into law. That in
and of itself was transformational for a sitting legislator to

(01:15:30):
seek from Native people, like what laws do we need
to pass? Let's do it. That doesn't happen very often
and maybe not even very much at all. And so
that bill in that instance and its creation was transformational

(01:15:53):
in and in and of itself. UM. The other thing
that was transformational about it was that it was proactively
supportive of Alaska Native people, and other legislation dealing with
Alaska Native people was pretty miniscule in the legislature from
my recollection. That was positive. Um. If Alaska Native people

(01:16:18):
were talked about in a bill, it was usually um,
maybe related to a federal um, a federal reason for it,
and you know that was kind of driving the conversation.
So the fact that it was even being introduced was
already kind of cutting edge. Uh. The other was, UM,

(01:16:42):
the sid in the fact that a sid in was
organized by our young people. They put it into effect,
they carried it out, and they did it from a
place of cultural love and understanding. Didn't come from a
place of hate or anger. Um. It came from a
place of power in our language and knowing what was

(01:17:03):
right and standing by it and inviting other people to
stand by it as well. Um. That was a historic
moment in the Alaska State Legislature for anything, UM as
far as far as we've been able to hear and
learn from others who have spent lots of time there
and have a better you know, um exposure to all

(01:17:28):
the other issues that might have come before the legislature before.
This was the first foremost sit in at the state
legislature and it was really effective. So that in and
of itself is transformational because it showed our people, look
what you can do when you show up. But beyond

(01:17:50):
our people, it showed others who also have issues um
and moments of seeking justice within the legislature that hey,
look at look at what they just did. Like we
could do that too, you know, Like this is something
that was effective. So those two things really, I think,

(01:18:10):
just even by the very sheer fact of it being
introduced and then it kind of getting to this point
where it needed um extra um support from the community,
those are really big shifts in terms of the whale
asking Native people's were invited into the legislature, or maybe
not invited in but made room for um us. And

(01:18:36):
a couple other moments cultural moments that I just want
to say that we're also transformational. Is I remember my
little breath, My little brother Ricky tag Ban. He came
as part of the sit in, and he's a weaver
and he was um. He brought his warp, so his
wool and his cedar bark and he was rolling he

(01:18:58):
was rolling warp for for weaving, and he was taking
the he was spinning it together and then he was
cutting all the little hairs off of the ball um
so he was he was he was trimming that as
and he was spinning it as we sat in the
legislative halls and I just remember feeling like the presence

(01:19:22):
of our people is so palpable and tangible and beautiful.
And then Keete Lee Ish and uh Lyle and Colleen
James came and sang and drummed in the hallways of
the legislature. And you know, the legislature is not a
place that is accepting of other people's culture. They have

(01:19:45):
very strict protocols and expect everyone to norm to their protocols.
But you know that building is on Native land, and
our people came in there and brought ourselves and our
ancestors has and our people in there. And those things,
while some people may not feel like they're tangible parts
of the passage of the bill, they are the spirit

(01:20:08):
of the bill, and they were making an impact. It
made people realize we were there. It held up the
people who were in the city in so they felt
stamina and strength, and it let those people know who
weren't very appreciative of natives in the hall um that
they were unnoticed that we were there and they had

(01:20:31):
to deal with it and be uncomfortable. Um. So those
things like in the shaping and in the moment and
of the passage, those are things that to me are
far beyond just symbolic, but those things have meaning. J Kat. Yeah.
And that all is I think so beautifully said. And

(01:20:53):
I think in the years since there's been I think
are really inspiring um spread and growth and proliferation of
native language and especially immersion programs in the state. And
I think this is sort of all just arising tide
that's hopefully helping flowt the boats of of languages being

(01:21:19):
hopefully more vital than then they have been in recent history.
And UM thinking about the Upick Language Immersion Program and
Anchorage School District and what's happening in the Northwest Arctic
UM and elsewhere around Alaska. I think that's really exciting.
And there's another bill that UM became LAD just a

(01:21:42):
month ago, which is highly technical and kind of puts
you to sleep reading, and it is something that I
was sort of I and others have been working on
for six years. So these four days that we're talking
about just seem like this is like I guess, the

(01:22:02):
two coins of the legislative processes. Sometimes it's just a
outright war of attrition over six consecutive legislative sessions. But
I mean, that's like a teacher licensure bill that makes
it possible to get fluent speakers and ethers into the classroom,
to make it actually legally and technocratically possible to have
a emmercial language program. So I think that is, you know,

(01:22:25):
the passage of the Official Languages Bill really sort of
shifted the frame and how a lot of people in
the legislature think about native languages, and it's I think
now broadly, not exclusively, but broadly thought as like, oh,
of course, this is a thing that we should generally
be supportive. Maybe not nearly to the extent that maybe

(01:22:46):
the three of us and others would like to see happen.
But um, previously a decade ago, I think it was
just kind of like neglect, like what are these things?
We don't even think about it kind of kind of deal.
And when has passed nine years ago, I think we
sort of entered a new way of how people perceive

(01:23:06):
languages and their importance to Alaska and the richest richness
of culture of the state. I wanted to add on
that if I could, Umney, I think, um, you know,
some of the other things that I have seen, um
that may not necessarily have like like causation, but definitely

(01:23:30):
have a biblical cord, you know what I mean. Like,
there are things that I've have been happening since then
where there have been some really positive things about Alaska
Native people being put into action in the legislature. I mean,
we've had the teacher the type of certification stuff. We
have the Tribal Children's Welfare Compact that was just put

(01:23:54):
into law this year, and that has been in ongoing
now for I want to say we're five years now
in terms of the administrative side of things, but there
was no statutory requirement. And so now there is the
House created us UH Tribal Affairs Committee, UM, and there's

(01:24:16):
so much amazing education that's happening there UH, talking about tribes,
talking about Alaskana of corporations, talking about our regional nonprofits
and the services and programs UM that are offered, talking
about the issues that matter to our Native people. There
was never a committee before then, and now there is.

(01:24:39):
And Representative Tiffany's Lakowski was the first chair of that committee.
And I know that she's no longer going to be
serving in the legislature, choosing not to run again, but UM,
she did a really exemplary job of running that committee
and making sure that really critical issues were brought forward
and people were able to come forward and educate the

(01:25:01):
legislature about our Native community. I also feel like there
has been more effort and understanding on the state side
around the criticality of languages and some of that, some
of that has moved beyond just the legislature itself or
the administration. But for instance, you're continuing advocacy UM Crene

(01:25:24):
with with an eu A S has resulted in the
school offering language classes now at no cost um for
UM students to take as long as, you know, as
long as they want to just learn UM. And that's incredible.
I also feel like the passage of the bill has

(01:25:46):
helped build a foundation of proactive legislation rather than just
defensively trying to stop bad legislation that could really hurt
our community. UM. And that's a paradigm shift. Ah. So
I think that there's really some incredible things that have happened,
and gosh, I know I'm forgetting some. So I'm hoping

(01:26:07):
that you both will chime in on those. Yeah, I'm
gonna cheech. And I appreciate you both so much and
how you've enriched and improved my life just having someone
to stand with and and do this work, especially when
when it looks like a you might not be able

(01:26:27):
to do it right, and so having people you can
strategize with and having a plan, and sometimes that plan is, hey,
don't tell anyone, but here's what's going on. And then
also and so like you know, you're kind of careful
with the message as well, because it takes a lot
of someone's going to be. It had to be an
inside job, right, And so I think some of the

(01:26:47):
things that have emerged after this as well, is we
had a a governor after that, one governor, Bill Walker,
who who saw us on a regular basis and worked
with so many differ from Alaska Native peoples, and issued
an apology at the Alaska Federation of Natives for everything
that had happened to Alaska Natives people's that it involved

(01:27:09):
the State of Alaska, which a lot of politicians are
against this, you know, I don't know why they're so
against sort of like reconciling past wrongs, especially when we're
talking about in humanity and we're talking about attempted genocide
and we're talking about legal acts and also just social
motions that that put us all in danger. And so

(01:27:31):
I think some of the things that have happened is
because we have official language status. And I'll say a
couple more things about this this gross person that we
had to fight with all the time, so this other
time he was like he repeatedly emerged as this opponent.
So as we tried to get declare state of Linguistic
Emergency for Alaska Native languages because over half of them

(01:27:54):
have fewer than twenty speakers remaining, right, Like, it's we're
really up against it here in terms of just being
able to survive. And so he stood up and I
couldn't make it to this one session I had to teach.
And I remember someone said, oh, this guy has at
it again. He's talking bad about this idea, this resolution

(01:28:15):
to declare a state of emergency for our languages. And
and luckily there was a really brilliant person who was there,
and I said, could you write down everything he says
and send it to me? And so then she did,
and she did a wonderful job sort of summarizing what
he said, and so then I wrote, Um, I wrote
a testimony based on that and shamed him because I said,

(01:28:39):
you have one speaker of the language left in your
region and you're going to speak against doing something. Remember
he came up to me afterwards and he said, he
you did a really good job with your testimony. But
I don't like having my words thrown back in my face.
It's not really fun. And I said, hey, use better words.

(01:28:59):
This is a time of accountability. You can't just say
things and not expect us to not be listening. And
so um, There was another time when he was trying
to be super dramatic coming back to house build to sixteen,
and he looked at me and he said, very dramatically,

(01:29:19):
we're one step away mandating Alaska Native languages. And I said, Okay,
in my mind, I'm thinking just one right, So we
are moving towards that, so as we sort of look
at ways to create free options for learning languages, like
the Mook courses that we've been doing with Outer Coast

(01:29:40):
and with se Alaska Heritage Institute, we got the Alaska
Heritage Institute stepped up with a ton of funding. They
went and got grants. They said, make an option for
people to learn these classes for free. Let him just
walk in there and learn it. Because we didn't take
this from us, we didn't put ourselves in this situation,
and the University of Alaska Southeast has been responsive to that.

(01:30:01):
We're also developing a Master of Arts and Teaching Indigenous
Languages so we can have fully licensed and certified teachers
of our languages. And we're working with the Department of
Education in Alaska to say, what if three years from now,
two years from now, in order to graduate high school,
you had to take one semester of an Alaska native language.

(01:30:22):
No matter who you are, where you are, everybody's in
this situation together because as I've heard you say, Logan,
I what's good for Alaska Natives is good for Alaska
And that comes back to us and everybody's collective responsibility
to step in and say, you know, none of us
at this particular time did all of this stuff to
create these situations, but we all can work collectively to

(01:30:46):
create a healthier tomorrow for all of us, that's more inclusive,
that's more equitable, that looks at things as non threatening,
and to say we could actually be multi lingual, we
can actually honor the languages that were born here fifteen
seventeen thousand years ago and not be part of the

(01:31:06):
efforts to destroy them in inhumane fashions as uneducated peoples
who don't know the ramifications of their actions to take
them back to the school. And so I'm so thankful
for this work, for the work that will continue, for
what we're able to do. And I know we gotta go,
so uh, where can people find you? Follow you? Because

(01:31:30):
I know you are both doing wonderful things, and maybe
talk about that for a second, and then we'll sign off. Well,
I says, I'm I'm stepping back. Actually would I be
a little bit bashful about but um, I guess, as
referenced earlier, I'm I'll be out of the legislature. UM

(01:31:51):
off ramping with I would say great company representatives Litkowski
and a few other legislators. UM, and sort of try
to catch our breath because I guess, as has been
discussed in this episode, it's not always the you know,
uh well, it can be. It can take its toll

(01:32:13):
after a number of years. UM, but very motivated to
remain involved in trying to make positive change in Alaska
and any possible way I can. I think something I
sort of self assessed in the last couple of years
as I always losing my spark was getting deadened, which
I felt sad about. And um, I didn't want to

(01:32:36):
sort of stay in this institution and sort of be
like some other colleagues. I felt like I had seen
who was just who were just sort of had lost
the like I don't know, connection and sincerity and and
and spark that I think is really important to do
this work as it should be done. UM, So I'm

(01:32:57):
gonna try to find other ways the um SO BALLT
initiatives and um other political and electoral projects to come,
UM and also just sort of catch my life and
catch up, catch my breath and return to the batteries
and be inspired by both of you while I do it.

(01:33:17):
I think it's my goal. Well, I think, gosh, I
think that there are so many other impacts too that
I really want to make sure that we we at
some point if we're not going to be able to
like remember everything now because it's just so much. But
that Umbilical Court is really important, and and it's not

(01:33:39):
that HBT sixteen was the was the genesis of everything,
because of course, all of this work comes from our people.
All of this work comes from our ancestors and our
elders who have been asking for it for so long,
fighting for it for so long, working towards it for
so long. And so we get to be the carriers
of this work and our lifetime right now. And so

(01:34:01):
I think about, you know, what what else is next?
And UM trying to make sure to remember those folks
who came before in the work that they did, and
all the people who helped make this happen, this HBT
sixteen passage, so many people and in terms of work

(01:34:22):
you talked earlier about Elders and Youth Conference October sixteenth
through the nineteenth for us this year, people can watch
it on three sixty TV, they can watch it on
First Alaskans Institute Institute YouTube, and they can watch it
on our First Alaskans Institute Facebook. And it's just we

(01:34:44):
have an incredible group of people who are committed to
sharing their knowledge, their stories UM about our cultures or
languages and our ways of being UM and our elders
in our youth are the best people to spend time with.
So we can't wait for next week, so you can
always kind of catch up on what's happening through social

(01:35:05):
media UM for First Alaskans Institute and then reach out
to us. We do a lot of other kinds of
work around racial equity dialogues. We do an Alaskaative Governance
and Protocols training that really helps folks get a better
understanding of the complexities of our Native community. And you know,

(01:35:26):
they don't get it in public education, so they've got
to get it someplace. UM. So yeah, welcome anyone to
reach out to us at at our organization to do
some work with fabulous and the Alaska Native dialogues and
racial equity and or trainings have been pivotal and what
we're doing here in Juno and trying to reduce incidences

(01:35:47):
of discrimination of all kinds, especially in education, to be
more inclusive, to be more equitable, to see people, to
allow people to be themselves and to succeed on their terms,
which is not always the case with education. Like you
talked about the legislature having its own culture and being monocultural,
that's also education. How education for a long time, as

(01:36:09):
you're supposed to be something, uh, that's prescribed. And I
remember back in the day going through high school, every
watching every single one of my Alaska Native friends either
get kicked out or get dropped out of school, and
how nobody cared and how nobody saws. And I remember
just hearing time and time again from students at all

(01:36:30):
levels of education say, especially when they're Alaska Natives, they say,
I could be myself or I can succeed. So as
long as students are still saying things like that, we
still have work to do. So keep going, keep grinding,
be change makers, don't settle, don't wait, be strategic, and

(01:36:50):
h squash the people who are doing the Devil's advocates
work and trying to hide behind some sort of false
narrative about what they're actually trying to do. So this
has been a wonderful journey. It's been a wonderful time
with the tongue unbroken. We're here to talk about language
revitalization and decolonization and digitizing stuff and Native American Heritage

(01:37:15):
Month is coming up, So enjoy that. Be yourself, be successful,
and what you determine, practice lateral kindness and love for
one another. Take care of yourself. I'm gonna chief. So
we're getting to the rap folks, but before we get there,
there is one thing I want to do. Uh. We

(01:37:37):
are about three weeks away from elections in Alaska, and
I believe Mary Pultola is your biggest difference maker right now,
and also Bill Walker and Heidi dray Gus, and so
I want to go back for a second. We had

(01:37:57):
talked about this apology that Bill Walker made when he
was governor two Alaska Native people's for what they did.
I got permission from indians dot Com to share this audio.
I think it's important to hear this message. And then
we'll sign off for now. Forever for whatever. Who knows.

(01:38:17):
Here's Governor Bill Walker. I hope he gets another term.
He was a good one. He had a good cabinet
of folks who are working directly with indigenous people's and
he still is now uh through his campaign going to cheef.
Every morning, I start my day in prayer on a
man of faith, I am. I received a devotion on

(01:38:42):
my my phone every morning. Yesterday morning, as I was
preparing to do this speech, my devotion came in. It
was from James seventeen and uh and says, whoever knows
the right thing to do and fails to do it
for him, it is sin. And I thought about that,
and I still struggling with what is the right thing

(01:39:03):
to do. That's when I decided to do what I'm
about to do. So I conclude today with this message.
As the eleventh governor of the State of Alaska. I
apologize to you Alaska's first people, for the wrongs that

(01:39:24):
you have endured for generations, for being forced into boarding schools.
I apologize from force to abandon your native language and
adopt a foreign one. I apologize for a racing year history.
I apologize for the generational and historical trauma you have suffered.

(01:39:47):
I apologize. This apology is long overdue. Is about one
step in hundreds more to go on this journey towards truth,
reconciliation and healy. And thank you, fellow Alaskans. Thank you
for receiving me, thank you for welcoming me, thank you

(01:40:10):
for embracing me. And may God bless each one of you,
and may God bless Alaska. Gonna che gonna, she's gonna
thank Yeah what huchi a yayata Gonna cheeh. This is

(01:40:38):
the last of them. Thank you so much. Wherever you're at,
I hope you're being heard, you're being seen, you're healing,
you're helping others that you're just allowed to be yourself
and exist in comfort. This has been the Tongue Unbroken,
a product of the Next Up Initiative through I Art Media.

(01:41:01):
Gonna Chee, Jana host, Nie Joel, Monique Yasenia Media. This
has been produced by Daniel Goodman and Rene. Check out
the other shows on the Next Up Initiative. Be Cool,
keep decolonizing. If you're against decolonization, just go away. Chees

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X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Finale with La quen náay Liz Medicine Crow and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins