Language Back! A Conversation with Heather Burge

Fellow University of Alaska Southeast Professor Éedaa Heather Burge drops by to talk about teaching and learning Indigenous languages, and how to decolonize colonial institutions. She also shares her thoughts on staying afloat while working, teaching, learning, and finishing a PhD program at the same time. X̱ʼunei and Éedaa also talk about what to do with outdated racist texts and the sneaky way they still appear in publications, and conclude with sharing ways they find hope while continuing to do the work of language revitalization and decolonization.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we begin today's episode, I want to give love
to the James Smith Cree nation. Colonization is a hell
of a thing. It takes and takes and destroys. We
got all these babies out there, We got all those
people out there. We suffer mostly in the darkness, often alone.

(00:27):
Whatever you're going through, my hope for you is that
things get easier. If you've ever considered setting down the drink,
setting down the drugs, let's do that. Let's embrace ourselves
as who we are. Let's lift each other up. Let's

(00:48):
hold each other up, less judgment, more love, more faith,
more belief, more healing. Let's get the land back, Let's
get our language back. Let's get our babies in the
arms of their mothers, their fathers, their aunties, their uncles,
their grandparents. You go, one, ego, you two it seen.

(01:14):
You have brave heart. You have brave heart. Strength is
within you. And che's They tried to calling theses, try

(01:40):
to genocide. Yet I'm still here with the tongue on
rope and I'm gonna che cut you on, yata sat away,
get away art dam gonna cheeche. Thank you folks for listening.

(02:08):
I hope that joy is with you. There was an
elder her name was Winnie Atlin, and she shared the
phrase with us, let joy be with you sagu een
yane Klati. And I'm so happy. We're so lucky to
have e heather Birds hanging out with us today. She
is a marvelous teacher of shing it. We both teach

(02:31):
at the University of Alaska Southeast, and she is a
PhD candidate knocking that stuff out. And we have worked
together in various capacities for well over a decade. So
I'm so excited to have this conversation about language learning,
about ideologies, but whatever types of things that she wants

(02:53):
to share with us. And uh, why don't you tell
the people who we are? She heathery Bird, Mohawk just Kwonda.
Ah yeah, My clinger name is Ida. My English name

(03:16):
is Heather Birch. I said I was gonnach so raven
frog from kan Alaska. It's adopted by marsh So I'm
gonna I'm also a grandchild of the Mohawk people on
my grandpa's side from the AGAs community. Um yeah, gish yeah,

(03:37):
and uh so our semester has recently started here through
a partnership with the se Alaska Heritage Institute, we've been
able to offer free sections of our classes, which means
we now have an influx of maybe an additional hundred
hundred and fifty people, which is exciting but also might

(04:00):
drive us insane because we, uh, there's a small group
of us that are teaching. There are currently three thing
Get Language teachers at US, and we're adding a fourth
and are very excited too to have Yaro Vara working
at with us, and we also have coushier Robbie little Field.

(04:20):
But I guess thinking of language class and the thing
Get Language and just sort of your studies and what
we're trying to do, how do people learn languages? Because
you know, just trying to I also want to have
a conversation about this because I have thoughts, you have thoughts, uh,
and so we'll just sort of talk about the process

(04:41):
and what we're trying to do. Yeah, how do people
learn language? I mean that that is the question. I
think we're still trying to figure it out, not just
for clink Up before languages in general, Like there's all
this cognitive studies people have been doing trying to figure out,
you know, what parts of your brain are activated when
you're trying to learn different things. But I think for

(05:02):
a clean guet and other experiences in other language classes
like really trying to UM to kind of guide people
to the sources that we have and really give them
the tools because it is I think UM perhaps unlike
other subjects, do you learn in college something that you

(05:25):
kind of have to take responsibility for yourself, Like you
have to do a lot of memorization, you have to
do a lot of practice, Like there's nothing that somebody
can do for you to make that put to put
that work in, like you really do have to be
fairly dedicated UM and pretty studious on your own time
and then finding that time to practice. So I feel

(05:45):
like what we're hoping to do in in our classes
is be that guide to the resources that do exist,
sort of walk through Okay, we're going to be looking
looking at these verbs, we're going to be practicing these sounds,
but then really at a certain point, okay, this is
what you have to do. Go do that thing. UM
MOREA is support in in carving out space for a

(06:09):
language that doesn't have spaces in a lot of other places,
right like for many of our students, Like, regardless of
how much we encourage people to bring the language into
their homes, like this is going to be these two
hours every um, you know, Monday Wednesday or Tuesday Thursday.
These four hours a week are the time in which
they're in plane get and so yeah, being a facilitator

(06:31):
and being you know, kind of creating that space in
support UM, and not so much being the lecturer where
I'm going to beam knowledge. I mean, it'd be great
if I could write just beam all of this knowledge,
like years of experience into pupil's head. But it really
is like this, UM fairly slow process. UM. And I

(06:53):
think a lot of students get discouraged by sometimes how
slow it can feel, not realizing that their brain is
picking up these patterns just by being around it. UM.
I think a lot of times we're so used to
instant gratification that language learning is often the opposite of that.
Like it takes a lot of time before you start

(07:13):
seeing I guess the results of all of this time
and and energy you're putting into it. UM, maybe more
like growing up plant than buying a plant from the
store and we go, look look at this thing that
I grew, Like Um, you really have to there's a
lot of patients I think that you have to have
and and a lot of kindness for yourself because it

(07:35):
is commurely challenging process. I think. Yeah, you know, because
sometimes people would say to me, you can't make speakers
out there, and I would say, yes, you're rights, like
they have to make themselves, and so we can give
them lots of tools and lots of opportunities. And we
as a method that was developed by a whole bunch

(07:56):
of folks, and so it goes back to Norah Downhower,
Richard Dowenhower, Elaine Abraham, Fred White, Walter Sobeloff, Vesta Dominics,
and and lots of folks who are also informing us
through what we're trying to teach. And so, uh, there's
a whole bunch of elders that that we're working with currently,

(08:19):
Ruth DeMott, Florence Shakley, Sam Johnston, Bessie Cooley, Madeline Jackson,
Marcia Hodge, Joe Hodge, Herman, Davis, Kenny Grant, and many
others that that we currently work with and that we've
worked with in the past, and so, you know, and

(08:40):
so like just thinking of all these folks and these
language teachers who are currently in communities like Haines and
Kluck one Kuna um wrangle cake, Sitka, car Cross Teslain
and trying to think of how do we build this
thing so that folks can do something similar, Like it

(09:03):
doesn't have to be the same thing everywhere, but if
you're starting to learn somewhere, you should be able to
pick up that learning somewhere else and not have it
just sort of be kind of just one focal point.
Which do you have several dialects of planet you have
also regional variation and planet you have sometimes just multiple

(09:23):
ways to say things like I end up telling students like,
don't try correcting people based on what we're telling you,
just say, oh, this is one way that I heard
to say it. And so like I guess the student
asked me today, how do you balance Because a lot
of what we try to do is we start with
some sound practice, and then we start getting into memorizing,

(09:48):
learning a bunch of words, learning a bunch of phrases,
substituting those words into those phrases, and then we start
getting into structure. And when we get into structure, we
start to kind of pull the language apart, show the
pieces that are there, teach them how to use the pieces,
and then hopefully have them put those pieces together themselves.
But somebody asked me today, They said, if you're always

(10:09):
taking it apart, how do you make it naturalized so
it feels like it's a part of you instead of
just something you're always taking apart. Yeah, I mean, I think, um,
the metaphor, I'm sure others have used it, but Yakonti
Marshall Hatch about the chilcat blanket and um having the

(10:30):
first chilcat blanket. That blanket people, ever, we're introduced to
having to unweave that blanket, you know, very carefully, in
order to figure out how it was woven in the
first place, and then put it back together. And I
think that that weaving it back together part is where
a lot of our students sort of they see us

(10:50):
unweaving it, right, they see these little parts and now
again it's we can only show you how to take
it apart. It's up to individual, with constant practice to
put that stuff back together. And I feel like it's
only with constant daily use, like even if it's talking
to themselves or their dogs or their kids, or their

(11:13):
yeah in the mirror, will you make that muscle memory stick? Um?
And I think again it goes back to not having
enough spaces perhaps or feeling like there's enough spaces to
get that practice in. Right. So if four hours a
week is the only time you really have to be

(11:34):
in clinguet um, and we only have so much time
individually with students, right, Like we're spending a lot of
time showing them the parts, like this is what these
things do, these are how these things fit together. This
is how you would then try and use that skill
that pattern in other places. You then have to take
that pattern and apply it. And it's like the application

(11:58):
process that can be really challenging because we live in
a largely English speaking community, Like there's very few opportunities
to speak, and not even just opportunities, but like you
have to speak and clink it like there's no impetus.
I think that I have to learn to survive. And um,

(12:20):
if we look at you know, other successful models of language,
and there's a little bit of you have to do
it or you're not you're not able to express yourself.
And I think it's really hard to find to find
that motivation. UM. When so much around us is telling
us to speak in English, to think in English, to

(12:41):
be in English, um. And so I think part of
part of it is the need for muscle memory by use,
and we're not perhaps not creating enough opportunities where uses
required for adult learners, right because like we're teaching in
a university and we're teaching adults. Um. Yeah, yeah. And

(13:04):
I'm glad you used the weaving metaphor because we talked
about that today as well, and so, uh yeah, cal
Gay Crystal Nelson was talking to me about this and
and said, yeah, it's kind of like weaving. You've got
to sort of sometimes take it apart. And I said, yeah.
There was a master basket weaver who is brilliant and

(13:24):
wonderful and is at the top of the mountain of
weavers and was sort of telling a story and said, yeah,
I saw this basket in a museum and I said,
I don't know how to do that. I've never seen
that pattern before. So I waited until people left the room,
and I took up my little spray bottle of water,
sprayed it and took it apart, and then I put

(13:45):
it back together. And you couldn't tell that I took
it apart. But because I did that, now I know
how to weave that pattern and I go teach it
to people. And so that's kind of some of our
work too, I think, is trying to figure out how
do we take this apart in ways that makes sense
to struct an entire grammar within a human being because
you have an English grammar, and I think because it's English,

(14:06):
and because English came here Ah with its people to
colonize and to try and eliminate an entire language, sometimes
the English sidey of your brain is going to compete
for time and space and energy. So I heard from
Ishmael Hope, who heard from Roy Mitchell that if you
don't know an indigenous language and you want to, then

(14:30):
you kind of just list out your five top things
in your life. So maybe it's basketball and playing guitar
and watching movies and you riding a bike and going
hiking or whatever your things are, whatever your five things are,
and you just got to pick one of those things
and kick it over to the other hand to be
in your top ten, and language is going to have
to take its place. It's got to be one of

(14:52):
the top five things in your life. And so for
a lot of learners, I'll say, if you don't know
shing it now, you certainly can, but you're gonna have
to just rearrange your whole life. That's all. Just rearrange
your whole life and then make sure that you're doing
this and you're giving it everything you've got. And so
for me, a lot of it comes down to as
well as trying to balance how much time we spend

(15:13):
talking about the language and how much time we spend
using the language, and also getting folks comfortable with the
fact that you're not going to sound like if a
high fluency speaker right now, you can get there, but
you're gonna have to sound like a lower fluency speaker
and just be okay with that, because I think English

(15:33):
also tends to judge people based on how well they
can speak and and I think a lot of that
stuff needs to just go out the window and learning
environment so that you can just build these collaborative efforts
to keep going higher and higher. And yeah, I think
finding ways to create those spaces for folks to just

(15:53):
be able to have to speak. Um. I know it
can be challenging in like a sass room environment because
it is a classroom environment, Like there are many folks
that understandably have had really negative experiences in a classroom
right because of colonization, because of I guess the often

(16:15):
pretty awful mistreatment of Native students and educational systems now today. Right,
Like we talked about boarding school, but it's still happening
UM in many of our educational institutions. And so we
have folks with a lot of baggage coming into a
classroom and there's a lot of trepidation about UM sounding

(16:36):
dumb or sounding incorrect. That there's a lot of I
think high expectation about UM the need to learn and
learn really quickly because a lot of people come in
because it's there, you know, it's their grandparents language, or
it's their ancestral language, or like they're really keen on
learning UM. But that also puts a lot of pressure

(16:57):
on themselves to be these fluent speak years from day one, UM.
And so getting folks comfortable and feeling safe enough to
have conversations with each other and a learning environment when
maybe you don't know everybody, you don't know everybody's background
like that can take time, UM in a way that

(17:18):
I think is challenging. You know, four hours a week, Right,
how do we build that? How do we get folks
connected to this space when we have them for not
not that long? Right, Like four hours is not that long? Um?
And then when when folks do start feeling comfortable, yeah,
finding ways of because often we want to connect with

(17:42):
our peers, Like it becomes understandably like this really strong
social circle that people build like my best my best
friend I met in the beginning thinking class, right, Like,
you build these strong relationships with your cohort um. But
because of that, you want to like talk about all
the hot gossip and chip. Typically it's in English, like

(18:02):
how do we okay, you want to talk to each other? Great?
Like step one you want to have a conversation, step
to how do we get you to have that conversation
in plinge? And I think that's um, yeah, I think
something we're still still trying to work through. And it
makes a challenge for UM classes that are really big.
So you mentioned like we have free classes at US.
That's amazing, that's so wonderful with so many people who

(18:25):
want to learn, who want to be in these spaces. Um,
how do you get a room of a hundred fifty
people to talk to each other like they're talking to
their best friend. That's really hard UM. And so finding
ways to to support everybody's language learning, but doing so
in a way UM that really engages people and and

(18:46):
builds on that on the need to practice and speak
um is it is definitely a challenge. I think, yeah, absolutely,
And I think some of the things is keeping just
sticking with it right, finding ways to stick with it
so it's more than a handshake language. Because I would

(19:08):
notice this with myself and with others. They would start
with wassa e T how you doing a good and
you I'm good, and then you just start talking about
what you want to talk about, so you wouldn't continue
to engage. And so I have a friend and we
started to just sort of speak to each other and
cling it. We said, well, if we're learning clinget, why

(19:29):
why would we not speak to each other and fling it?
Who else? Who else we're going to talk to? And
I had heard in Hawaii that once you start learning,
they will start talking to you in Hawaiian. And then
I went to Hawaii and I learned that that's the case,
Like once they knew we started learning Hawaiian, they would
just be walking towards they would just have a look
in their eye and you're like, oh my god, here

(19:50):
it comes. I could see it coming right and then
they're gonna just But it's inviting and warm and welcoming.
It's not it's not a scary thing. And so sometimes
I'll be in different meetings and people I teach the
language and they'll say, well, I'm scared to speak the
language in front of you, And I said, well, you
should be scared to speak English in front of me,
or you should be not wanting to You shouldn't be
scared at all, but you should be wanting to speak Clingett.

(20:12):
Because I think of these elders that some of them
have been waiting probably most of their lives to find
someone to connect with who was young, and then to
have them be able to talk to people who are younger,
who can understand what they're saying and who can respond
and stay in the language is a really magical healing
moment for a lot of us. And so a friend

(20:34):
of mine we decided to do this, and so one
time we saw each other out in the community and
we started the conversation, wassat, how are you? I'm okay
I feel good and that dae, what are you doing?
See you duck? Was a ton It's raining. So there
was a misalignment. There was a misfire. But the danger

(20:57):
is if you stop and saying oh, let me switch
to England. Is because I was asking you what are
you doing? And you talked about the weather, so I
just so, oh, yeah, what's your darkness? Ton? Yeah? So
I just said, oh yeah, it is raining, and then
we started talking about the weather. So just stick with
it and then you can debrief later and say, boy
I I kind of got lost there this. But you know,

(21:19):
if you could just sort of say, okay, let's do
that for five minutes, let's do that for ten minutes,
let's do that for twenty minutes, Let's do that for
our whole life. Because I do have people that I
know and I speak primarily with them and shing it,
and some of them are elders and some of them
are younger people. But I want to so thinking about
we work at a university, and university charges tuition, and

(21:41):
for a long time I kept thinking that's not the
that's not the model. Why should indigenous people have to
pay to learn their own languages? And this comes back
to to each Herman Davis, who said, we didn't do
this to ourselves. Why why are we trying to do
all the work and raise all the money and do
all the stuff. So through University of Alaska Southeast, we
have a lot of partners, a lot of partners who

(22:04):
are doing wonderful things. See Alaska Heritage Institute, Gold Belt
Heritage Foundation, Central Council, Clinton Heidah Douglas Indian Association, Chilcoot
Indian Association, Juna Indian Association, and and on and on.
There's a growing list of folks that were partnering with.
We also partner with the Teslent clinkt Council was the

(22:24):
first Nations in Canada because it's all shang It land.
It was slang it before there was Canada and the
United States and so but in doing this work, so
if you're just getting started and you don't know what
to do, there are funding opportunities out there, especially if
you have a federally recognized Indian tribe that you can

(22:44):
work with through the Administration of Native Americans to the
National Science Foundation, and then also through a variety of
different funding sources. So as things come in sometimes you
have to make sure that as your racing money and
working with partners, that you're not losing sight of what
your intentions are as a language program. You're not always

(23:08):
trying to bend too because sometimes you got to try
and fit into these other things, and so you end
up with an ideology conflict at times. And so what
are your thoughts and sort of navigating all of these
realms with the money, the partners, you know, and and
and sometimes we might not agree on what we're supposed

(23:28):
to be doing, but then we also have this growing
body of students who want to learn. Yeah, that's a
good question. Um. And I feel like, I mean again,
something that we're constantly having to navigate and reevaluate because
there are often it seems like the grant opportunities, at

(23:49):
least in the United States are coming from a relatively
small pool of sources, most of them federally determined. I
feel like, um, they're you know, small, their grants out there, um,
but like the big NSF grants, Um, it's the federal
government's deciding kind of what the parameters are for what

(24:10):
they're looking to fund. Um, And they put out calls
for this is what we're thinking of supporting, and some
of them are really flexible. Others are very rigid in
their requirements what they want their deliverables to be. And
so organizations, grant writers, whoever, whatever the tribe, whatever the
case might be, sort of has to look at these

(24:32):
requirements and say, Okay, well, we feel like we have
a project that could fit into that. How do we
write to this grant, to this organization, to whoever. And
I feel like there's so there's that, right. They see
a call, they're like, Oh, there's a project we already
think that we need to be working on. It fits

(24:52):
kind of into this criteria. Um. Other times I think
folks don't have a project, but they see a call
for a grant and like, oh, we could do a
project like that, And then then they write to the grant.
So it's like there's two depending on what stage the
project itself is in what that grant application looks like.
Um in my experience, I guess. And then the grant

(25:15):
writing process often we'll try and include buzzwords that they
know grant ers might be looking for, and we'll try
and fit in as much as possible with also trying
to be ideally true to the project itself whenever the
case might be for that project. But you're writing to
people who almost assuredly, maybe don't have language teaching experience,

(25:38):
language learning experience, indigenous language learning experience, lange vitalization experience,
and so you're trying to find a way of talking
about these really big topics like colonization and language lass
and language death and you know, intergenerational trauma in a
way that people, oh, we'll give you money for that,

(25:58):
And that can be a very dehumanizing experience. It can
be really hard to find a way to and I
mean some people do it quite skillfully and other people
it can be really hard to make that ideological shift
to try and convince people that this is something worth funding. UM.

(26:19):
When language, like we mentioned earlier, is a long process.
It's not you fund something for three years and then
oh you've revitalised that you're done right, Like, there's no
the deliverables are quite a bit different. Like you can
come up with a book, but if people aren't using it,
if people are engaging with it, like if the goal
is language of vitalization, some deliverables will get you there

(26:40):
closer than others. UM. But really you're talking about a
completely different paradigm shift for indigenous communities institutions that are
running with these grants, and so it can be really
hard to have those conversations in a grant application. But
let's say that sometimes you're able to navigate that and
sort of fit things into in such a way and

(27:01):
you get these really big grants and it's great, um
and wonderful and amazing, and you have all this money
to do good things. Um. But then there's sometimes I
think the reason why you applied for it in the
first place, maybe it gets lost or you're like, oh,
we're going to write it this way because we know

(27:21):
that the granters is going to fund it, but we
know we're actually going to do this thing instead, and
maybe that knowledge, like oh, this is what we're actually
doing it for gets lost to a certain extent. Often
people in our organizations who manage those grants, like in
leadership positions, may or may not themselves be language learners,

(27:42):
And with the best of intentions, you can still if
you're not yourself a learner, you're not yourself part of
the learning community. May not understand why something needs to
be done a certain way um, and that can lead
to hard feelings and that can lead to frustrations. And
how do you balance trying to be trying to revitalize

(28:03):
a language in in an indigenous ideology, indigenous philosophy in
a structure that's necessarily just not built to do that,
like the grant process UM to certain ethics process like
how do you how do you balance those things um
in a way that you know, you need money, you

(28:23):
need to be able to pay people, you need to
show people the value of this language work um. But
in doing so you often have to give up, at
least on paper, some things about what you're actually trying
to do, and that can be a really hard thing
to reconcile individually and collectively. And I think something that

(28:43):
you know, we're constantly I feel like having conversations with
National Science Foundation and in granting organizations to be like,
you know, your grant process is actually harmful, what like
what can we do about that? And I think there
is to a certain extent um conversation like this happening
that could potentially open up change. I do think some

(29:03):
things have certainly improved um over maybe in the past
ten years, but there's I think so long way to go,
and what that grant process looks like, and um, how
how colonial or not that structure ends up being throughout
the whole stage of that, right, Yeah, and the whole

(29:26):
thing it is, it's a conversation, it's a dialogue. It's
an evolving process because someone might not speak the language,
but they could be a really valuable part. And I
remember and in Hawaii, we we sort of mapped out
this thing. It's like Hawaiian speaking Hawaiian people's and Hawaiian
speaking non Hawaiian peoples and non Hawaiian speaking Hawaiian people's

(29:48):
and non Hawaiian speaking non Hawaiian people and then trying
to map this stuff out too, because there might be
people who we say, well, I don't think I'm going
to learn, but how can I help? And there could
be our own people who don't learn, and but they
might have an awful lot of trauma associated. I remember
some people were kind of taking a dump on our
leaders and and say, well, they don't learn the language,

(30:09):
they should be leading by example. And I said, well,
because the work that they did, I can speak, and
I know a whole bunch of other people who can
because they went and got stuff for us and allowed
us to sort of create these things. And we have
careers now where you can be a language teacher and
you can even be a language learner and get paid
for it. Now, that takes a lot of work to

(30:29):
make that happen, because I think one of the things
that gets our language is endangered is this constant devaluing
of our language. And it's so simple, it's so primitive.
It's so what what's that going to do? What good
is it? It's not modern, it's not useful, but it's
always just been boxed out by colonialism, and then colonialism
tries to define what it is or what its value is.

(30:51):
And so I think a lot of that value determining
is sometimes trying to break the illusions that colonialism has
and then also trying to us put some things on it. So,
oh no, we pay our language teachers just as much
as we pay these other teachers, and or to say,
maybe even more. I remember us in Haiti and someone
said I did it for two dollars an hour. I

(31:12):
slept in about as well. I don't know if I
got that kind of devotion, but I do feel inspired
by it. And so we're gonna take a little break
wherever you're at. I hope you're feeling like you could
do it, Like you can create change. You could be
a change maker. You continue to collaborate and discuss and

(31:34):
be open and get over things when the when things
get a little weird or ugly, and we'll before we
go to break well, I'll share a couple of different
verbs just because I think it podcast. So I was
I was drinking some kind of bubbly drink before we
went on. I was like, I better switched to water
because I'm just gonna burp through this whole interview. So

(31:55):
to burp and think it is outlets saw and the
verb is a seal outlets to be like they were
ceiling like a seal in the water. And then to
sit and reflect on the weather or to meditate on
something is un so un is the process of meditating

(32:19):
looking at the weather, looking at the stars, trying to
figure out some sort of pattern. And then ah means
to sit on your butthole, which sometimes indigenous languages have
things that are just funny and fun That verb comes
from a raven story where he was really just sitting.

(32:40):
It's like you're sitting kind of really upright and add attention.
So we'll be right back. This is the tongue unbroken.
We're here with Ida, heather Bird and Cheese. What's happening, baby?
This colonization ship got you down. You gotta get on
this decizition movie. It's time were the language revitalization all

(33:04):
across North America, the my end of the language coming
back into the hands of future generations where it all
belongs ras and have their voices. We heard to beat
all the colonial forces that try to hunt you down

(33:29):
with the going to Cheeche. We are back and Ida
is in the latter stages of getting a doctorate, going
to be doctor Ida. When I was in the process
is getting near the end of my PhD program, and
my kids were talking and they said, Dad's going to

(33:52):
be a doctor soon. They're just talking to each other
and they said, well, not not like a doctor who
operates on people, but what kind of doctor? So I
said tongue and they said word doctor. So word doctor.
As you are working beyond full time teaching classes at

(34:14):
the university and thing it an Indigenous language revitalization, trying
to get folks certified, contributing to this Indigenous studies program
that we're building together, offering degrees certificates, and then you
yourself firm wrapping up your PhD, doing additional work to
be able to keep things going. How do you do it?

(34:38):
How do you not? You know? I mean it's a
lot of dog paddling, I'm sure, But what are your
strategies and what advice can you share to folks who
might be doing the same thing? Um, I don't know.
Um yeah, definitely a lot of waiting, waiting in the water,

(35:00):
hoping just to get through. But I think what's kept
me going so far is the community of folks who
are doing this work and knowing I'm not doing it
by myself. Um, even though sometimes it can definitely feel
that way. I think, you know, we talked about language
and in language learning and how at a certain point
you kind of have to do it on your own,

(35:20):
like you have to be studying on your own. But
it's like it's communication, right, you have to also be
talking with people. That's the whole point speaking languages, connecting
with people and communicating and talking about ass up and
talking about your hopes and dreams, and so I think, um, yeah,
the only not maybe not the only, but a big
part about why I'm still doing the work despite many

(35:44):
times feeling like maybe I should not, maybe I should
take a break, maybe I should step away from it.
Is Yeah, the community of people that are doing this
work with me, right like it's yourself. UM, it's the
speakers that I've had the privilege of working with. It's
the friends that I've built in the community of language learners.
It's knowing that UM, that we're building something sustainable, Like

(36:10):
we're seeing people more and more people every day coming
and wanting to learn and UM, you know, ten years
ago even like I knew people were learning people maybe
that I didn't know personally. UM, but it's it felt
much smaller than it feels like today. Like it it
feels like we're on a good path. I think think
there's a lot of momentum. There's a lot of people interested,

(36:31):
but there's a lot of need as well, like um,
finding an instructor to teach languages, UM, to teach cling get.
I mean we also UM as part of the program,
work with Heda insumption as well, you know, finding people
who can fill those positions. And I think it's UM,
anybody who's worked in indigenous language of ronaluzition sort of
knows is like catch twenty two. If we need teachers

(36:54):
to teach, people who can become teachers to teach like
this like constant um trying to keep up with the
curve to a certain extent. But yeah, I mean it's
very challenging work. It's emotionally exhausting work. UM. It can
bring up a lot of uh, personal trauma because it

(37:14):
is so connected to identity in place and community and
culture and um, you know, sometimes you work with people
who are really hurting, and sometimes that comes out and
really negative ways, and and it's understandable. I think that
there's sometimes a lot of anger around the situation we're

(37:36):
in now, and because of that, that anger comes out
towards other people, and so it can be really hard,
um to navigate that and do so in a way
that like gives grace to yourself and then gris grade
to other people, because um, we're all healing from these
systems that were just like not built to support this,

(37:57):
was not built to support community, was not to support
the ways of thinking that we're trying to um, you know,
in still and so yeah, it's a huge challenge to
be a teacher and also be a doctoral student and
navigate UM academic systems which I both as an academic,

(38:18):
like as a student who decided to continue to be
a student for years and years and years of my
like I love learning. There's a part of this community
that I obviously love quite a lot. But there's a
lot of harm and perpetuated by the way we think
about the academic institutions. UM. And it can really it
can be hard to both appreciate the academy for what

(38:38):
it is and recognize that we've got a lot of
work to do, UM, and be in it not only
just as a student but as an instructor like, um,
you have like these different levels of like peeking behind
the curtain and UM and my experiences at larger institutions
like large universities. UM, Yeah, it can be really hard.

(39:02):
But some advice I guess for folks doing something similar, Yeah, fine,
find your buddies and just hold onto them, UM, because
you can't you can't do it by yourself, and to
feel like you are like that can be really disheartening. UM,
take care of yourself because that can be really hard
to do too. And so much it feels like you

(39:24):
have to do so much, there's so much need. UM.
But if you're not also taking care of yourself. It
actually does more harm than good to the movement as
a whole. If you're pushing yourself to the point, um
past your breaking point. Um, we see a lot of
people leave and and eventually come back. Um, but a

(39:44):
lot of people leave because yeah, for a lot of reasons.
Um yeah. Some of my thoughts and chief wonderful thoughts
and advice. I think you're brilliant. I think you're making
wonderful country Abusians and at the same time continuing to
push through all these academic hoops and things that are there.

(40:07):
I mean, I guess from a personal perspective, one of
the things I would think about is but not for you,
but just advice for folks who are finding themselves in
this work is find your boundaries and set them. Like,
I know, it's good to do as much as you
can for everybody, but sometimes if someone has a task
that's you know, if you're pretty high up in terms

(40:29):
of your fluency and your ability and what you're producing,
and if someone's asking for something that's kind of at
the beginner stage, like find someone else who could do that.
Spread the work around and get them some get them
some credit, and get them some ability. And also, you know,
if if you're doing this work, be positive, be productive,
get stuff done, try and get it off your desk

(40:50):
and get it onto the next thing. And then I guess,
as a collaborative, try and build a system where that
can happen. So if people have language questions, they can
they have a wide group of people that they can
go to, and then it starts to go up this
kind of you know, you generally have fewer speakers as

(41:11):
you go higher until you sort of get yourself to
a point of stability. So then if you only have
five or six people who can speak at a really
high level, uh, they shouldn't always be answering the kind
of beginner questions. But you also have to do that
in a way that's still inviting and that's still it
doesn't feel like people get shut down like I don't

(41:32):
got time for that. Because also someone might need help
with their name, and someone might need help with some things.
And so also you've got to be open and available
because I think for a lot of our people, as
they feel like this is something they can't do, and
they feel like this is something that they're already they're
going to fail at. Before they even try. And Norah

(41:53):
dow and how and Richard down Howard wrote about this
as well. The indigenous language learning is often tied to identity.
So if you fail at that, then you fail at
identity and you're already in a system that hates you
and has constructed this no win situation where you have
to be assimilate or fail. And they also won't allow

(42:13):
you to fully assimilate because they consider you a second
class citizen for a long time. And so I think
with some of those things, uh. And the other thing
is you could have someone who's not indigenous to the
language who comes in and they just they learn it
very quickly for whatever reason. Maybe they're they're just a
little bit more likely to learn a language, maybe they

(42:34):
don't have the trauma and baggage that might be stopping them.
And our communities are just really communities that are we're
still in in the aftermath of this tremendous war that
has barely been acknowledged, that is still ongoing in a
lot of ways, the way that we're excluded and left
out and seen as something that shouldn't even be there.

(42:57):
And so sometimes an indigenous person will see non indigenous
person just take off with the language, and the indigenous
person might also think, well, I'm indigenous. If I show up,
the ancestors will flow through me, the the birds will
start talking to me. It's all going to just fall
into place where there are a lot of things that

(43:17):
there's a spiritual aspect and there's a subliminal aspect of
this that is absolutely there. But without that constant work
and grind and also changing your life, it does become
challenging to to be to be able to speak. And
so a lot of what we're trying to do is
create these atmospheres where all those things are possible, and

(43:39):
you do have opportunities to have these discussions. And sometimes
there's a really small group that's deciding what's going to happen,
and then there's a larger group that gets to give feedback,
and then there's an even larger group that does the thing.
And but I think one of the dangers is if
everybody says, don't let's not do it that way, Let's
do it this way, Let's not do it that, Let's

(44:00):
do it this way. You know, we're in a debate
about how do we write our language, and we've been
in that debate for seventy years. I said, let's we're
done with that. We're done. We we just gotta go.
We gotta do the next thing and the next thing
and the next thing. But you know, you still want
to legitimize people's feelings. But you also just got to realize,
you know, how much time you're gonna spend on what

(44:22):
things and how much energy. Uh So I love this conversation.
And then the next thing is how do you de
colonize the work that you're doing? Because the pH I
got a PhD from Cocko Okay Laki Lani, which was
plenty kind de colonized like it was. It was a

(44:42):
very indigenous program. It was wonderful. We came and they said,
they told they said you gotta take s a T.
But we said no, they said you gotta do this.
What we said, no, what else do you want us
to fight about? Because we'll stand up for you. Because
the program I was at before I got an m
f A and creative writing and I had Yeah, I've
I've taken a lot of literature classes and I enjoy them,

(45:04):
but I kind of had my fill of British literature
and European literature. So I said, well, I'm Alaska Native
and this is an Alaskan institution, so can I construct
a class with Alaska Native literature? And I found someone
to teach it, and I made a syllabus and it
got rejected. And then I end up in a class
that was teaching colonial era literature. And the very first

(45:26):
novel we read was Some Native American is a captive
novel where a white lady was captured by Native Americans
and just trashed them for three hundred pages as so angry,
as so piste off because she was so gross, and
we got to read her words and then she's like,
these people are disgusting, and then she goes back to
her people. She's like, I learned how to cook from

(45:48):
them by watching them, you know. And so it's so crazy,
But like, so, how do we decolonize these institutions as
we are working within them and they're supporting our lives
in our work. I mean, if I knew the answer
to that, we would be These are all small, just small,
bite sized questions. So here's a step by step guide

(46:11):
to how do you how to decolonize your university? Um,
I'm done, let me just go retire. Um. But I
mean that's something that as Indigenous students, as indigenous UM
faculty staff like navigating systems UM, and just like the
amount of exhaustion that comes with that, Like it's really challenging, right, UM,

(46:34):
Like I have to acknowledge a certain like my privilege.
I'm very white passing, UM, I have Mohawk ancestry, but
I didn't, UM, you know, grow up knowing that. And
so there's things I think that the act the academy
expects of me, it allows me to do that. I
know for a fact that my more native presenting friends

(46:57):
family would not be able to do without a lot
more conflicts. So there's there's that UM. Institutionalized racism, whether
UM covert or explicit, UM can be really challenging in
my experience. There are individuals in these systems, allies in

(47:19):
these systems that do amazing work. But the system itself,
the way UM tenure is determined, the way UM community work,
and the valuation of time outside of publishing is determined. UM,
we're still still reading pretty racist material in classic right, Like, UM,

(47:44):
We're still we've got a long way to go, I think, UM.
But there are also individuals that are doing really amazing
work that happened to be associated with the university. And
it almost seems sometimes like in spite of that university
associate Asian to a certain extent. UM, I do think
we're pretty fortunate in the university that we work for

(48:07):
that there's a lot of support for a lot of
the work we're doing. UM. But that didn't just happen overnight, right,
Like there was decades and decades of work. UM. Almost
like the incremental, painful change that folks didn't even think
was possible. UM. I remember when I graduated from um

(48:29):
University Alaska Southeast with my b l A. I think
it was the second cohort of folks to graduate with
an Alaska Native Language and studies focus UM. And I
was walking um A speaker Mary Olson to graduation and
she sort of turns to me and well, at first
she was She asked me who I was, and I
told her and then she's like, oh, you're not Plinkett

(48:50):
and I said no, well I'm adopted, but um, you
know I have the small Hawky ancestry. And she goes, oh,
you know you built New York, right, And like, I
don't think I personally built, but gonness change, um, and
then she goes, I never thought i'd see the day
where I was walking to be, you know, um, part
of this commencement ceremony as part of the an Alaska

(49:13):
Native graduation ceremony in in an academic institution like this,
right Like she she's like, I had never thought that
I'd be walking with another Indigenous student to an Indigenous
focus graduation ceremony and have that be celebrated to be
something like, oh, we're graduating in Alaska Native Languages and Studies, um.

(49:33):
And that was two thousand fifteen, right, Like that was
not that long ago. And so there there are things
that we're doing by sometimes sometimes because the university's like, oh, yeah,
we're ready to do that, and other times like oh
you're going to do this, or we're going to have problems, right,
like how how much do you push? But I do

(49:55):
think I want to be hopeful that the that the university,
for all of its ills, is still going to figure
it out eventually. But it's hard sometimes, um to think
that's going to be the case when you hear about um,

(50:18):
you know, experiences of institutionalized racism in the u A system, right,
like people being let go just the devaluation of some
of our colleagues. UM. Maybe not in US specifically, but
in other places. I'm hearing like people being asked to
do all of this extra work to serve on all

(50:38):
of these committees to um and then also to you know,
jump through the hoops of tenure, but also participating in
their community and put up food and support their family
and like all of these things, and then also be
the face of decolonization for an institution, like it can
the overworking of the few indigenous faculty that a lot
of universities have. It becomes a real like burnout is

(51:00):
a real thing, and it can be really hard. I think,
like you mentioned, um, some language speakers or some folks
working in language, UM, oh, I did it for a dollar,
and I slipt in a bathtub, right, Like, there's a
certain amount because because the work is tied two identity
and it's tied to community building, and it's like you're

(51:21):
doing this for your learners, You're doing it for your students,
You're doing it for your kids and your grandkids. Because
it's tied and so strongly with emotional connection, it's very
hard for us for folks to say no to that
like you're gonna say, oh, no, I don't. I don't
want to teach a hundred and fifty students by myself

(51:41):
when there's a hundred and fifty students that want to learn? Like,
how do you tell people know UM? And I think
to a certain sense of universities know that UM, either
consciously or subconsciously, and they know that there's a certain
amount that they can ask you to do because you're
going to do it for the benefit of your community

(52:03):
and you don't want to turn anybody away. But how
do you then balance making sure you're taking care of
yourself and that that the university also knows that you're
valued member? Like would they ask that of somebody teach
you another subject? Would they ask that of you know,
somebody in another position? If the answer is probably no,
then I think, wow, now we have a problem. If

(52:26):
you wouldn't ask this of somebody else, why are you
asking it of me? Or why are you asking it
of of of us? Um? Did I de colonize that, Yeah,
do we know it's done? It's been done. I looked
out my window and colonize like coast to coasts, But

(52:47):
I never thought about that we're doing it we're trying.
We're trying on. We're gonna take another break before we do,
I want to just share some thoughts from Kinkisti David Katzik,
who used to come to our classes. A lot passed

(53:10):
away recently. It was Chungu Kadi was a brilliant, kind,
loving person. But he used to say es cottonton E
teen h to eat too. He would say, if if

(53:36):
you want to try and study our language with thinking
in English and speaking English, it's going to be hard.
But if you could just do it in think it,
it won't be hard, it won't be difficult. So just
push yourself to be in your language. Push yourself to
stay in your language. We're gonna take an ad break.
You know, you should check out the Natives and t

(53:59):
V s. Uh. There's it's like natives with no vowels,
which is great for thinking because uh, we've got so
many consonants. We're like, oh, we got all the consonants,
so we got a few vowels. We got sixteen vollars too.
But check them out there. Wonderful shirt company. I was
thinking of them because I'm wearing one today. It says
treaties what the US government eats for breakfast and so uh,

(54:25):
maybe this will be brought to you by treaties. What's
for breakfast? Gonna cheech, We'll be back once. I thought
about a million barns all around the world, sharing their songs,
thinking about the ways they have lived, and they're gonna
live and this is the way, yeah, yeah, to see China.

(55:07):
I'm gonna cheese to cut you on yuck a t. So,
now that we've talked about decolonizing, there's another topic that
you brought up, ida, which I think is really important
and I think is really challenging for academics to talk about.
This challenge is gonna be challenging, I think for people
who are in what Dr Wesley Leonard calls capital L linguistics.

(55:32):
It might be difficult for some people who are in anthropology,
might be difficult for some folks who in art. History
is there's an awful lot of texts that were written
about Native American people's and some of these texts are
used as kind of foundational teaching documents about indigenous people's
Whether it's in the classroom or not, it's it's in
the bookshelves, it's it's in the bookstores. This is how

(55:54):
folks are beginning to learn about a lot of indigenous
people's And sometimes they'll quote texts that were written quite
a while ago, and they'll include some words that I
think should just be basically bleeped out of existence because
they're very judgmental terms to talk about Native American peoples.

(56:15):
And we're not going to say those words here. Uh,
there's a P word, there's an S word. There's a
number of different things that I think are disgusting. And
I was thinking about this in the spring, because I
had a text and we we brought it in and
I didn't even think about, you know, as we were taught,
as as reading it and prepping for class, and you know,

(56:36):
I'd read it before, but for some reason it stood
out like for some reason in my brain had crossed
over into an area of being awoken. And so sometimes
when we're just quoting this stuff, it includes an awful
lot of judgments about Indigenous peoples, and sometimes in very
horrible and disgusting manners. And I've been talking with some

(56:58):
different scholars, like I said, what do you think about
when we quote these people? We just put in brackets
redacted for racism, and we don't reprint those words, and
we don't let people talk like that. And the response
I've had from some different scholars is well, I don't
want to censor anybody, and so they sort of lean

(57:19):
into this censorship discussion, and someone else said, well, we
don't want to ignore the fact that people used to
talk like this. And it's been interesting because you know,
as I think about it, I said, well, if you're
going to teach a class on, uh, the history of
black people in America, if if you're going to teach
a class on Asian American history, if you're gonna teach

(57:40):
a class on lgbt Q plus folks and the populations
and their histories and their their current sort of um
states and just things that are going on with them,
you wouldn't. There's a lot of words that you shouldn't
put in those texts. And maybe you want to say
people used to talk like this, But I think there's
something to continuing to bring it into the classroom, and

(58:03):
I think it's time to be done with it. Yeah. No,
I agree completely, um, And I think a part of
the reason why we see this continued normalization of pretty
racist derogatory terminology around Native American in indigenous communities. Is
settler colonialism? Is this continued um yeah, normalization that oh

(58:28):
we used to talk about people this way with kind
of the assumption that we can still talk about them
that way in the past, like air quotes in the past,
because Indigenous people are in the past. Like there aren't
Indigenous students sitting in the room with you, There aren't
indigenous colleagues sitting in the room when you're having these conversations,
like there is um even when there's a Native student

(58:50):
sitting right in front of that person, blindness that um,
you know, nationally, internationally, we seem to continue to have
like the this is okay because people Indigenous people don't
exist anymore, um, which is obviously can't can't cuss on here.

(59:11):
Oh yeah, yeah we have, We've already got I mean,
it's bullshit, like it's it's not true. But there is
this mythos that we can talk about these things because
they're historical, they're contextual, um or there's no other texts
in which we can have a conversation about these things.

(59:34):
And I think at this point there's enough material, enough
conversations from indigenous scholars that addresses those things, right, Like
It's not that we're trying to gloss over history. It's
not that we're trying to ignore that these perspectives existed.
But we don't need to continuously refer back to these
We have material now that not only gives you an

(59:57):
overview of what this individual or individual said that point,
but gives you the indigenous perspective that just wasn't there.
And I think, UM, I don't understand how, folks, I
don't understand how scholars who are arguably educated individuals don't
see the bias in a in a source that would

(01:00:18):
refer to people that way, UM, regardless of what quotes
air quotes important, UM, historical context that might provide what
when important inside it might provide to that particular time period. UM.
But I know it gets like it gets tricky. UM.
I think sometimes for languages in which you have to

(01:00:39):
refer to that historical documentation, UM, particularly you know, languages
that are trying to be rewoken through historical documentation. But
I think we're at a port a point now where
if there is a need to go back to some
of these sources, are our students don't need to be
put through that, because that's that's a trauma, violence that

(01:01:02):
you're perpetuating on that student by by asking them to
read that and reflect on that and think about that
critically and unbiased. Um, when they're talking about you know,
their family, their community in these ways. If there is
a need to go back to these sources, students at
large shouldn't have to be dealing with them. If if
that's something that we need to you know, a select

(01:01:23):
group of people or um, you're not censoring anybody. You
can certainly say these are some things. If you want
to continue to look at this with the sort of
explicit tag like they say, some pretty fucked up things
in them, Um, you know, be mindful of that when
you go to them. But assigning them as required reading,
I think we need to just be done with because

(01:01:44):
we have enough now to not I feel like not
have to do that. Um. Obviously people disagree. People you've
talked to have perhaps you know, disagree about that. But
I think it's just a continuation of this disbelief that
Indigenous people could talk about themselves in any sort of
meaningful way because we have scholart, we have material, we

(01:02:06):
have text that we're reflected on this by indigenous people.
If you're teaching a class that focuses on Indigenous language, ideology,
culture history, art history, whatever the case may be, in
your syllabus, isn't a majority of Indigenous people talking about
those things? You better have a damn good reason. I think,
is there literally nothing that exists that you can include

(01:02:28):
in this to have this conversation? Um? And if not,
you better find some folks to to support to to
make that shift. Um. And I know that can be hard,
and that can be challenging, and everybody's overworked and underpaid,
but I think we're at a point where it's just
unacceptable but unfortunately not uncommon. Absolutely so if we're establishing

(01:02:54):
some new benchmarks, like collectively there and there's a lot
of people doing this work, uh, Linda Smith and Graham
Smith come to mind, a lot of Indigenous scholars, Dennis Emmert,
Bill demot Oscar Coaglee, wonderful, wonderful scholars who have done
incredible work. And I guess one of my starting points

(01:03:15):
would be if if you're teaching a non indigenous class
like that, the class is not about Indigenous people's, but
you should be including Indigenous people's in those classes. Find
ways to do it. You are a scholar. You are,
you have degrees, advanced degrees, you're a professor. You can
find ways to incorporate that content and to do it

(01:03:37):
in a way where maybe that comes first. Let's start
with some indigenous content and then we'll start building out
from there. It doesn't matter what you're teaching, you can
find something, because if if you can't find it, that
means you're part of a system that has hidden it
and that's trying to erase it. And if you're teaching it,
or if you're researching, if you're publishing about indigenous peopils,

(01:03:58):
you should be basically thinking, could I walk into a
room full of these peoples and read this to them,
including any quote you put into your materials because he
can't oh, well that guy said at that bad fucker.
But if you are also citing it, there's something in
there where you're saying it's still kind of okay to

(01:04:20):
say these things. Even if you're saying, I actually I
just want to hear it so we could talk about
how bad it is. I still think there's something weird there,
you know, like sometimes people want to hold onto these
you know, I feel the calls before sometimes by relatives,
sometimes by friends who say, well, how come they could
call themselves that and I can't. And that's a great

(01:04:42):
discussion to have because that was a pejorative term, that
was a term of oppression, that was a term of mothering,
that was a term where on the other side of
that term, there's this concept of supremacy. We are the thing,
we are the best. We already know we're the best,
where we're biologically, we're we're genealogically superior, all this other
total garbage. But then it's maintained, sometimes inadvertently through these

(01:05:08):
things by saying, well, let's because there's this really weird
thing with colonialism where it's basically like you come into
your kitchen and someone's just eating all the damned food,
all of the food, and like, where did you come from? Like, oh, well,
I just discovered this kitchen is really a great thing
that I did. Why the hell are you eating all

(01:05:30):
the food? You could just have some food, You don't
need to eat all the food. Well, I'm actually afraid
that you guys are going to eat all of this
food and I'm not going to get any food. And
the reason why I think of that is because I
feel like, on the other side of this argument is
this concern that we're going to erase history. We're going

(01:05:51):
to erase the explorers who came among us, We're going
to erase the historians like John Muir and so and
and people bring like his name up like us the
other day saying we need to why do we got
all these cabins named after white guys, Like I'm sure
they're great, I'm sure they're like cool people. But we
could name the cabins after the indigenous place names where

(01:06:14):
they're located, and that would be really rat because then
would be using our indigenous languages. And someone said, well,
maybe we should keep the John Muir one that I
was like, hey, man, that guy was racist and so
and even if he wasn't like a big deal, just
read his book or do something different. You don't have
to put his name on the land. But I think
there's a worry that we're going to erase people when

(01:06:37):
there's no reality there, because the erasure is happening with
indigenous people's right. So we see this when we talk
about restoring indigenous place names. He'll say, well, why do
you want to change the name. That's an important name.
It's like we didn't change the name. We had the name.
And so my example there is like, let's see, you
have a grandma who's like ninety years old and her

(01:06:59):
name is Nora. And I meet your grandma and I say,
I start calling your esther and then you say, yo, man,
my grandmo's name is Nora. I say, why do you
want to change your name? But I've been calling your
esther for like three days now. Yeah, but like that's
not her name, and she's had a name for a

(01:07:19):
long time. And so I've heard that argument with indigenous
place names. I'll say, well, we've been calling it this
for a hundred years. It's like a hundred years is nothing.
We've We've got fifteen thousand years in this place, speaking
our language, doing our thing. But as we start to
wrap this up, have you got any closing thoughts for us? Yeah,

(01:07:40):
settler colonialism and we're going to disappear, and it just
how do we do de colonize? We did it, We
talked about all the things. We're totally done now. Yeah,
closing thought, John here, there's so many things we can
talk about, be here for hours talking about some of
this stuff. Um, yeah, but I think kind of despite

(01:08:06):
so much of what we taught, like the challenges and
the racism and the the trauma. Like we're doing the work.
Things are happening and it's really exciting. And it's not
to say, oh, we're not going to talk about that.
I think about that, like obviously we are, and we
do and we continue to do so. UM for better

(01:08:27):
worse is an important part of language vitalization, de colonization,
Like they're very intertwined with each other. UM. But I yeah,
final thought, I'm excited. I think for the future, UM,
for what's being built for the folks that are are
coming to language or coming back to language and language learning. UM,

(01:08:48):
I'm hopeful that we'll be able to sort of do
our students justice because I think about that a lot. Um,
you know, based on what we've talked about in the
hard and the hardships and um, the navigation of some
of these systems that are just not designed to support
this work. And and then yet we're still trying to
get people, Oh, come do this, Come come work in

(01:09:10):
these systems, come learn that, like, come be with us
doing this, knowing that we're asking this big thing of somebody. UM,
I'm hopeful that the things that you know, folks have
to go through a hundred years ago, fifty years ago,
twenty years ago, ten years So the things that we're
having to go through right now are things that the

(01:09:31):
folks coming out behind us are are not going to
have to grapple with. They're still going to be things like,
they're still going to be issues, um, but I'm cautiously
optimistic that we're going to be able to build something
more healthy, something long lasting, something that people really do
want to be a part of. And it's not it's
not the sort of sacrifice sometimes that it feels like

(01:09:53):
now like it's something you do want to be a
part of. And there's enough resources and materials and things
are free and they're open, and people feel safe talking
and they feel comfortable making mistakes, and some of these
um challenges that you know we've experienced will continue to experience,
will be a thing of the past, and and we'll

(01:10:14):
try and explain to you know, kids, grandkids from now
back in the day we slept in a bathtub and
paid a one dollar like, like to be able to
sort of co miserate about the challenges because it'll be
just so far off from their experience of language learning

(01:10:35):
and um community and language finalization. Where so that's my
hope is that by having these conversations and thinking through
some of the things and what's working, what's not working.
Like it's not to say everything we're doing it's perfect
or or maybe you know everything we're doing, maybe we'll
do something different five years from now. But the goal,
the trajectory, this idea of building something is there, and

(01:10:59):
I think the found a shan. I mean we are standing,
like you say, like often on the shoulders of giants,
like we've been working with material built by folks that
we're doing this way before their time. Um, yeah, that's
I'm I'm hopeful. I'm tired, but I'm hopeful you're okay, tired,

(01:11:20):
but hopeful. That's the way I'm gonna change. And thanks
for mentioning smell and hot kill the same, Shannon Heida
language is the future episodes will have conversations with folks
from those languages to hear what they're doing and how
we might show them some love and support. So where
can people find out more information about the work that

(01:11:41):
you're doing and support these efforts? Ah yeah, so you
can find me on the University of Alaska Southeast web
page UM or something email HD Burdge at Alaska dot
du um. We've got to language um Indigenous Language speaking
and teaching certificates, and we're growing program. It seems like
every day now, Chuck us Um, University of Laska, Southeast Page.

(01:12:08):
And I think I'm so thankful for your work, for
what you're contributing. I feel like ten years from now,
twenty years from now, thirty years from now, we're built
to see that We've we've taken the orders from our
ancestors here to build something that they wanted to see,
and that will see something that someone else will continue

(01:12:29):
to build on that. It just continues to gain strength.
And if you see us in the streets, speak to
us a thing it, don't be afraid. We're not judging
this is there's no hierarchy here. We're not trying to
frown at what what might be wrong, but instead think
of it like this. There. I went to visit a
community and do some language classes up there, and a

(01:12:51):
friend of mine came up to me and said, my
grandma is in her final days and she's not speaking
English English anymore. Can you come and talk to her
because we don't understand, and I went and I had
this incredible conversation with a beautiful human being and it
was in thing it and it was emotional and it

(01:13:14):
was it was what she needed. And the family was
there and some of them they were translating some of
the things that we were saying. And at the end
of this conversation, I said, deck Pakoot, I'm going to go,
and she said, now I know I'm not alone. So
you could be there. You could be part of a

(01:13:34):
story like that where you don't have to think about
these missed opportunities because our job is to remove the barriers.
Identify the barrier, remove it. Identify the barrier, remove it,
try to listen, try to learn, try to find out
what what you might have questions about. And if we
can't answer, we're gonna go find someone who can. So

(01:13:55):
I'm thankful for the folks who are doing this work,
who are collaborating, who are listening. We talked earlier about
and we were saying like, if you don't speak the language,
you can't work in it. But what we're saying is,
if you don't speak the language, you have to listen
to people who do, and you have to find everybody's
going to have to find their role, because we can't

(01:14:16):
take someone who's doing language teaching and put them in
an administrative role because we need them teaching, we need
them speaking. So we do need people who are going
to do that work and who are going to shoulder
that burden, because someone's going to have to step forward
and do this. And as you're building your language movements,
you're gonna have to figure out who's gonna do what

(01:14:36):
and and it might not be the role that you envisioned,
but maybe it's a temporary role, but maybe it turns
out you're really good at that thing. So find your spaces,
take care of each other, love each other, speak with kindness,
overcome things when they get weird, and just keep going
because that's what we're here to do. I'm going to

(01:14:59):
change for being with us. It's gonna cheese for sharing
your wisdom, your energy, your kindness. Appreciate you very much.
Yeah you went to cut you Han? Yeah away you
Han great? Gooda would eat tin a Rah Away. This

(01:15:30):
has been the Tongue Unbroken, produced by Daniel Goodman, a
project of the Next Up Initiative. Check out other Next
Up Initiative podcasts. If you haven't already, partition black, fat,
fem and beauty translated, they're beautiful. I'm gonna chee. Shannas
Joel Monique, you SENDI media, You're making things possible. Catch

(01:15:54):
you next week.